Once you experience a real Bluegrass band, the groove never lets go. Since the 1950s, this music has provided smoking strings and dancing halls across America. It has its roots in the Old Time and folk repertoire but operates according to its own rules, turning a few acoustic instruments into a groove machine. We are pleased to invite the interested public to the Bluegrass evening with the Bashed Potatoes, free of charge.

Sparking solos, glowing harmony vocals, and igniting grooves. When the Bashed Potatoes stand in a semicircle around a microphone and play and sing together, it feels like a small fireworks display every time. In Germany, Bluegrass is still a secret tip, often perceived as provincial. The Bashed Potatoes want to change that. Joon Laukamp (violin/mandolin), Paul Lindenauer (violin), Philipp Keck (guitar), Steffen Thede (banjo), and Pierce Black (double bass) are virtuosos on their instruments. Some come from the USA and New Zealand, have diverse roots in jazz, rock, classical, and baroque music, and are perfectly attuned to one another. What brought them together in 2015 at the folksession of the Cologne Bluegrass Bash (CBB) at the pub Mannis Rästorang was their love for the acoustic music traditions of the American South and their modern variants. In their captivating concerts, the Bashed Potatoes convey the cosmopolitan history of Bluegrass, which emerged from European and African American folk music. Their repertoire includes selected traditional songs filled with longing, transience, and spirituality, Newgrass songs about contemporary topics, as well as danceable instrumentals and original pieces.