Saturday, June 6, the day's bluesy rain stopped just in time for me to stay dry as I caught nice gigs at this annual blues event in the town of Bad Berka, near Weimar. American bluesman Tom Shaka came to the gig during a cold, steady rain, carrying his guitar and pulling a suitcase behind him -- a bluesy sight indeed. Later, after the "sky stopped crying," I caught Shaka singing, playing guitar and jamming with a mean blues harp, in the first of the two acts I caught that night. Shaka excused himself to get to another gig before the Pass Over Blues band, a German group, took the staqe at the amphitheatre in the little town that was a favorite of the great German poet and writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Goethe discovered the springs in Bad Berka that have attracted visitors to this part of central Germany since the early 1800s).
During the Pass Over Blues' slow numbers, the audience got down with some "toe tappin' and head noddin'" and during the more uptempo Chicago style blues songs, the band had festival goers "dancin' and hollerin'."
Two of the events sponsors, Bad Berka's Hotel am Goethebrunnen ("Goethe Springs") and the very good regional beer Radeberger, served cold half liters of Radeberger vom fass, draft beer, in the distinctive half liter Radeberger glass (this writer was surprised glass was used, not plastic, as would be the case Stateside).
Other drinks were also available, including the town's famed mineral water, that flows freely from a fountain near the kurpark where the event took place, and, of course, Jagermeister.
Bad Berka (website www.bad-berka.de) will also host the "heavy metal friends" party.san Festival August 8 to 11 (for more info, visit www.party-san.de).
(Photograph of the Ilm River that flows through Bad Berka (c) Paul Heidelberg.)
