On August 18 the Rökefloose organized in cooperation with Friisk Forning a rock concert in the Frisian language. The concert was organized in the framework of the regionally known Rio Reiser Festival in Fresenhagen from the 17-18th of August. The aim of the concert was to present modern Frisian rock music to the general young public of Northern Friesland.
In this connection, the organizers’ biggest problem was to attract enough people, as Frisian speaking music groups don’t have the same amount of publicity in the media as e.g. German or English speaking groups. Therefore the idea was to organize the concern in connection with a regional festival. In Northern Friesland the annual summer festival, in memory of the in 1996 deceased musician Rio Reiser, seemed to be the right choice.
Since the Friday evening of the festival was, as always, planned by the board of trustees and attracted a trans-regional audience, the Saturday evening was titled “day of the Frisian rock music” and was organized by Rökefloose. Altogether three music bands from the Frisian area performed. Two of the bands sang completely (Lembek) or partly (Ludwig Van) in the Frisian language. Especially the last one gained a lot of publicity among the young audience, as they’ve participated in several nationwide music contests.
In total the festival had approx. 500 visitors from Northern Friesland and statewide. So the expectations from the organizers could be fulfilled.
Furthermore, the Frisians had the possibility to present themselves with an info point at the main entrance and the opening speech in front of the audience together with Reiser’s brother. Additional information boards were installed around the Rio Reiser house that gave information about the Frisian culture and language. Everybody was surprised by the many questions of festival audience towards the Frisian minority.
Altogether the concert, which gained a lot of publicity due to the connection with the festival, can be declared as a success. Besides the wide acceptance, not only from the local audience, the organizers were happy about the wide interest from young musicians from Northern Friesland, who used the framework of the concert to ask Rökefloose and Friisk Forining about the possibilities for Frisian rock and pop music.
Thus, the Frisian rock concert in connection with the Rio Reiser festival 2007 was a big step towards the establishment of the Frisian language in the regional youth culture.
