On the 3rd September 2022, the sixth edition of the Raus ausm Keller festival took place on the Bürgerhauswiese in Egelsbach, in southern Hessen. 13 bands, 13 times good music and fun in a very well organized environment. But before I report about the bands, I want to say a few words about the everything around it. At a festival this is almost more important than the line-up. OK, if none of the musicians meet your taste in music then you should stay away, but we don’t assume that’s the case. The Raus ausm Keller or RAK for short has a family flair. Small, fine, but very professionally organized by volunteers. A cake stand with a large selection of delicious, home-baked cakes, a kebab stand offering classic, chicken and vegetarian kebabs. With the right sauce, the vegetarian doner kebab even becomes a vegan one. Starting in 2019 with a small stand at the RAK, which was just an attempt at the time, the concept has now become so successful that the stand has doubled in size. There were also covered beer benches where musicians and fans could meet for a chat, beer or food. Or just to hold board elections, as done by the SchallMAGNET e.V., which organizes the Traffic Jam. Not to be forgotten is the table tennis table, on which table tennis was played at the beginning. But then it was the venue for the RAK Beer Pong Championship. A sporty beer event that left nothing to be desired. Excitement, beer splashes, lap winners jumping in each other’s arms, humor from the referee, paired with the necessary severity. All this is reason enough to go to the RAK. The bands are a nice and pleasant addition. How much, you can read after the impressions of the festival.
As tradition dictates, the festival kicked off with student bands, this year
Leem had the honor of opening the festival. Together with
Silver Wave they had 30 minutes to show that the next generation of bands is in the starting blocks and that there is no shortage of new blood. Led by a singer, equipped with a really great voice, they were able to inspire the few spectators who had already gathered.
Silver Wave then came onto the stage almost directly without any major changes, they even kept one guitarist. A vocal duo was presented here, consisting of two young women, one of whom also played the bass. Above all, she impressed with her voice, which was really special. Like
Leem before them, they also played a few cover songs in a way that gives hope to see them on stage more often.
After ten minutes of conversion phase, we continued straight away. Now
Missprint came on stage, who were still part of the school bands at the last edition, in 2019. I thought they were pretty good back then, but you could tell they were inexperienced and it was one of their first gigs. What can I say, they no longer play covers, they have their own material and you can tell that, despite Corona, they have gained a lot of experience. If you compare both performances, it was a day and night difference in a positive way.
Clara likes to jump across the stage like a bouncy ball, which doesn’t make it easy for us photographers to capture her, and she interacts much more with the audience.
Randy now happily lets his hair fly, which at the time also failed because of the length. There were also two line-up changes on bass and keyboards, with Nülle being keyboardist and guitarist in one. In any case, a very good performance, which was good advertising to visit the band at a concert.
Fourth came
Mind the Gaep. I had no idea what to expect, so I couldn’t have been negatively surprised. On the contrary, I was actually pleasantly surprised. With a stage hog as a singer, great and honest Rock’n’Roll was presented here. With endless fun and a singer who really enjoys being on stage and showing it to everyone. But not only him, also the guitarist and the bassist show how much fun they have on stage and give everything. Here you get something for your money. As if their five-year hiatus from 2015 to 2020 never existed.
Local bands tend to be seen more than once in the local festival season, as is the case here with
Thursday in March. Only seen a few weeks earlier at the Traffic Jam, they were unknown to me until earlier this year. But in hindsight I see it as a mistake. I liked them a lot at the Traffic Jam, but I got a better impression here, even if they unfortunately had to play with one guitarist less. But that didn’t detract from the performance. In addition to singer
Nessa, the other band members also jump across the stage very exuberantly, full of energy and intoxicatingly. If you like action on stage, paired with good rock, but also slower, more melancholic songs, you’re not wrong here.
Farewell Spit are also a band which isn’t new to me, as I saw them at the
Open Doors Festival last year and thought they were really good there. It was particularly noteworthy that their drummer was unable to play that day and therefore
Valentin from
Apart from Us stepped in and mastered it cleanly. As usual, the performance itself was very good, it was fun, even though singer
Alica didn’t have as much space on the stage as at the
Open Doors Festival, she again knew how to make full use of this space and the audience with their facial expressions in the spell and pull on the lyrics. A pleasure to watch it all.
After things had been relatively quiet up until now,
Protagonoize was the first hardcore band of the evening. And what can I say, they were true to hardcore. Hard riffs, hard direct music and an unrivaled hustle and bustle on stage. The only one who stayed reasonably in place was the drummer. But that’s relatively normal. They were definitely able to convince me, even though it was their first concert ever. But then you realize that it’s not the first band of the musicians. Action on and in front of the stage, they could sweep the audience away.
With
Frau Ruth it became a little quieter again, but still more rocking. For me, they also have something in common with
Thursday in March, because I was also able to see
Frau Ruth live at the
Traffic Jam, but back in 2019. Back then, like here at the
RAK, they knew how to convince with very solid rock and their performance. There was a lot of dancing and there was also a “jump up with us” moment.
Back to business. Strengthened by the fresh beer pong tournament victory of drummer
Sven and bassist
Flo, the stage was cleared by
Watch me Rise.
Sven has such energy that the cymbal stands regularly fell over and a roadie had to go on stage to restore the original state. Singer
Josh could hardly keep still for a second, jumped onto the speakers next to the stage, jumped off the stage into the audience or climbed up the superstructure. But since
Watch me Rise don’t do normal hardcore, but emo hardcore, there were of course also emotional moments, which culminated in the last song when
Sven sang a duet with
Josh.
Sven also carried one of the band’s main messages on his t-shirt: “It’s ok not to be ok”. A very important statement.
Rising Anger was billed as passionate with a heartfelt nature. The description was quite appropriate, it was a similarly intense show as that of
Protagonoize, this time including holding the microphone to the audience and “let them spit into the microphone for me”. Which was also gratefully accepted by four people from the spectators. A performance in which the chemistry between the musicians was perfect and which just calls for a visit of a full concert.
It was slowly getting dark and the acts were getting bigger. Next up was
Emmerich, the evening’s co-headliner.
Moritz Hammrich, actually singer and guitarist of the band
Blackout Problems, started his side project here. Coupled with a lot of desire and joy to perform, this performance was also one of those where at least one of the musicians on stage just couldn’t keep still and was practically in constant motion. Except for the moments when
Moritz stood alone, just playing his guitar and a few very thoughtful songs. I hadn’t really had him on the screen before, but that was a performance that on the one hand fits in very well with the festival, on the other hand it really made you think. Was fun and I’ll keep an eye on him.
Then came the second co-headliner, the punks from
Rogers, who were in the middle of their 10-year Rogers tour. I knew them already, had chatted with
Chri a bit earlier in the day as he sat comfortably next to the sound engineers to watch the student bands. Around a quarter to ten it started, big lights gave an idea that it would be a big light spectacle. And so, what the photographer is sorry for with a lot of backlighting, is the fan’s joy. Looks awesome, hard to photograph. I thought to myself, “Challenge accepted” and off we went with the theme song of the last tour,
Mittelfinger für Immer. Full of energy, immediately continuing with a song which suits perfectly to the first,
Einen Scheiss muss ich. It just kept going, with lots of enthusiasm and making the crowd pogo and dance. I found it quite funny that
Chri somehow didn’t quite get it with the names of Egelsbach or the festival, he also said Egelsberg or Rock im Keller, Rock ausm Keller or similar slips of the tongue. It didn’t spoil the mood tho.
Chris‘ guitar then also wanted to contribute to the amusement of the audience.
Chri was just telling something and suddenly the guitar strap and the guitar came loose and fell with a loud “knock” on to the stage. This was commented on with “I guess the guitar didn’t feel like it anymore. Do you still feel like it?”, which of course was answered in the affirmative with loud cheers. At 11 p.m. it was over after an encore of three songs.
Setlist:
- Mittelfinger für Immer
- Einen Scheiss muss ich
- Zu Spät
- Mensch
- Alles für nichts
- Ganz nach oben
- GMNMADE
- Kreuzberger Nächte
- Wo immer du gerade bist
- Nachbarn
- Vergiss nie
- Wohin
- Intro + Nie euer Land (Zugabe)
- Allein (Zugabe)
- Einen letzten Band (Zugabe)
But that wasn’t the end of the
Raus ausm Keller, there was Raum 27 as an after show band. The whole thing was actually planned as an acoustic set, but things turned out differently than expected and they performed with a full band. It would have been interesting, but even so it was pretty cool. Hybrid pop was a good term, despite the late hour they managed to mobilize the audience and celebrate the festival with them. At the same time, it was also a celebration for
Tristan, since it was his birthday the next day. At midnight their friends
Rogers took the stage with alcohol in their luggage to celebrate the birthday, which was a worthy conclusion to the festival and everyone could go home with a good feeling. I’m already looking forward to next year to come back to the
RAK.
