“For us, the concert is something normal and fun”, said Silke Meyer, who came along with her family but in two separate cars. Nevertheless, she was convinced that they would be able to experience the feeling of a proper concert despite the unusual setting. “I imagine that this will be rather difficult for the band,” she said.

But Kasalla made a real effort to be close to the fans despite the circumstances. Sometimes they would walk between the cars during a song. The audience also filmed themselves on their phones and the videos were transmitted live to the big screen above the stage via zoom. The concertgoers, many of them families, did not stay in their cars for long, also thanks to the beautiful weather. Many sat on the roofs of their cars or on the window frames of the doors, singing along and waving scarves, balloons or high-visibility vests to the beat. This created a real sense of community despite the social distancing rules.

Simon Reininger, manager of the ‘fünfdrei’ event agency who organised the drive-in concerts together with the agency ‘RheinEvents’, was satisfied with the first two concerts on Saturday evening - also because the public order office had nothing to complain about. “They were here with Heino on Friday evening and were super satisfied, as were the police,” said Reininger. He was also pleased about how well the Kasalla concert went: “full house, band and audience happy and everything ran smoothly.”

The audience also demonstrated its enthusiasm at the end of the concert. The band was met with huge applause and a light show from the headlights and indicators. “It was totally awesome”, said Julia, who attended the concert with her friend Sarah. “We could finally enjoy some freedom again after all these weeks.” The format of the drive-in concert is difficult to compare to a normal concert. But she found the advantage of the car concerts was that there was no jostling. Visitor Arne said, “it’s different, but sometimes it has to be done.”

Schlager star Heino opened the series of ‘BonnLive’ car concerts in Endenich on Friday. The 81-year-old singer presented many of his old hits, such as ‘Blau blüht der Enzian’ or ‘Schwarze Barbara’. To the delight of his fans, Heino also showed his rocker side and played songs from the German rock bands ‘Toten Hosen’ and ‘Rammstein’. While the singer performed on the stage, the visitors could follow the concert on their car radios via a special radio frequency. Over 200 cars were parked up in front of the stage. Here and there applause could be heard through the open side windows. Other visitors pressed the indicators or flashed their headlights to ‘applaud’. Many also brought banners with them and had decorated their cars with fairy lights. The atmosphere was exuberant, with little parties going on in many of the vehicles.

Heino also had fun on stage. “I really feel very comfortable here,” reported the singer. The concert in Endenich was a premiere for the 81-year-old, he told GA. “I have experienced a lot in 60 years in this business, but I have never appeared in a drive-in cinema,” he said.

The somewhat different concert experience went down very well with the first visitors. And they weren’t only from Bonn: Heino fans from Schleswig-Holstein had made the longest journey to see the star.

(Original text: Matthias Lorenz, Translation: Caroline Kusch)