Music festivals in Hamburg: 48h Wilhelmsburg, Elbjazz and MS Dockville – trip

Wilhelmsburg is a bit like the émigré St. Pauli of the past. This is not only due to the fact that the Elbe island between the north and south arm of Hamburg’s main river is as polyglot as the hubbub of voices in the harbor bars once was. 60 percent of the people in this huge district come from families who have immigrated here from more than 100 nations. The real reason is atmospheric. Wilhelmsburg is now the place of options, provisional arrangements and interesting uncertainties that Hamburg’s red-light district once was before the great waves of gentrification turned St. Pauli into an expensive place to live with a penchant for slippery terrain.

The severe loss of diversity that real estate speculation and its lively demolition and new construction behavior left behind in the center became a stroke of luck for Hamburg’s largest district in the south, which is more multifaceted than any other in terms of its layout. Agriculture and port facilities, large-scale industry and allotment gardens, Gründerzeit districts and satellite towns, water settlements and wasteland ensure the constantly changing character that makes Wilhelmsburg appear like an entire country in the form of an island, albeit without a red-light district.

But with a huge scene of people from all over the world who express themselves in the most diverse forms of culture, just like in the former creative district of St. Pauli, when there were still large, cheap apartments and empty factory floors, shops and neighborhood clubs in abundance.

The “48 Hours Wilhelmsburg” festival is the ideal time to discover this cosmopolis in its happiest form. Because the music puzzle, which has been taking place every June for 14 years, is spread across the entire district and lures with sounds to places that strangers would hardly enter if they were shy.

“I went to the opera with my grandmother, I’m scared.”

From the urban development authority to the apple orchard of the allotment association “Op Schulzens Eck”, from backyards to the savings bank, from the citizens’ meeting place to the senior citizens’ housing complex, there will be improvised stages this year on the second weekend in June, and of course in the numerous cultural institutions on the island of state and private initiatives kind

When the fun rock band performing at this gigantic neighborhood festival Three bags of rubble sings in her self-announcement video, “I was at the opera with grandma, I’m scared”, then this describes a perfect contrast to this absolutely low-threshold program. Because there are no prominent bands performing here, but musicians who just have fun, there are no barriers and bulky security guards here, but uncomplicated hospitality.

Kiosk owners bring benches, drink prices remain fair, and bands, choirs and soloists openly show their happiness to the public. Of course, that also means that there is nothing to be heard on this expedition to Wilhelmsburg that you already know from Spotify or YouTube. But what does that mean? No fear!

The group sings at “48h Wilhelmsburg”. chamber Turkish protest songs, and flair drum play a marimba out of inflated PET bottles, Female Singer Wanted promise “polter, racket, crackling and Bohei” and the Fleet Ottos have “written five songs in four years, but are on the sixth”.

There is healing music and traveling performers, table tennis with techno and bossa nova, DJ sets and shanty choirs, folk-pop in Low German and tube boys, Capoeira Angola and Italo-Balkan Klezmer. There is everything and more, and everyone who has already experienced the festival knows that chance is the concertmaster here and that there are many discoveries in store where one would not have expected them. Renting a bike is definitely recommended.

Everything that fits into the now extremely flexible term “jazz”.

The two much more prominent concert events, which have moved from mainland Hamburg to the Hafeninsel, offer more of the traditional festival feeling, because there are large areas characterized by work, where there is a lot of space and no sensitive neighbors to be found. Blohm & Voss, otherwise a terra incognita, where everything swimmable is welded in seven docks from container ships to oligarch yachts, is the fascinating venue of the “Elbjazz” festival, which this time takes place on the same weekend as “48h Wilhelmsburg”. Every year at four locations on the shipyard grounds, including in a shipbuilding hall, there is a gathering that fits into the now extremely flexible term “jazz”.

Open detailed view

This is where the techno marching band plays packwhich started out from Hamburg’s Schanzenviertel with the ambition to become as famous as Rammsteinon the main stage after Dope Lemon, a more classic Australian pop songwriter with nasal vocals, while in the Schiffbauhalle, Nigerian musician Camilla George, heavily inspired by Fela Kuti, performs danceable London cool. But the shipowners also have concerts reminiscent of the more traditional lines of jazz, such as the one that cultivates the friendly ECM sound Tingvall Trioor combinations of Miles Davis trumpet and rap as with Nils Wülker.

Away from the ambience of container towers, heavy equipment and harbor views, the festival ticket also grants entry to the Elbphilharmonie, where Sarah McCoy brings the fields of blues and jazz to life with her voice, which alternates between Amy Winehouse, Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin, or to the beautiful Katharinenkirche, where Ukrainian jazz pianist Vadim Neselovskyi plays a quiet homage to his shell-beating hometown of Odessa.

MS Dockville: Like Wacken for indie music

At the end of the summer, from August 18th, 60,000 people, including 10,000 festival campers, are supposed to flock to the extensively cordoned off area of ​​the “MS Dockville” in Wilhelmsburg, as a commercial contrast to “48h Wilhelmsburg”, so to speak. The festival, founded in 2007 under the artistic direction of the painter Daniel Richter as a crossover playground of art and music, has long been a Wacken for indie music. The supporting program offers less art than comedy, this year, for example, the cheeky and clever people’s tribune of the internet left, El Hotzo.

Open detailed view

On meanwhile twelve stages primarily medium-range German acts are shown, of which only the top acts play in the million-click league like Giant RooksPaula Hartmann, monolink or Schmyt. A number of international names are also grouped together, such as Brit Arlo Parks, who sings melancholic poetry to slow beats, or the eccentric Israeli rapper Noga Erez with her hit “End of the Road”. A title that once fitted the entire Elbe island, when it was a diffuse landscape for Hamburg residents and visitors alike, which you could see scurrying past from the car or ICE window when entering from the south.

But the song by the singer Migati, who appeared on “48h Wilhelmsburg”, “I was only once in Wilhelmsburg”, is losing its validity for more and more people due to the music happenings on the island. One can only hope that this does not result in the same gentrification as in St. Pauli.