The anniversary tour

It was back then, in January 1975, five young men climbed onto the stage of an inn in Mahlow near Berlin. "Engerling" is their name, said the bar owner, adding: "...well, they won't get very far with that name..." He was around 50; I wonder if he lived to be 98? Engerling is turning 49 and luckily is still no cockchafer, because as we all know, they don't live very long!

Somehow they never really fit into the concept in all those years, but they still managed to stay true to themselves and their audience. To the GDR cultural officials, the band around pianist and songwriter Wolfram Bodag seemed to be too far removed from the ideal of song-like rock "as an independent GDR contribution to international music culture" to really make it big. Blues purists, on the other hand, criticized the lack of authenticity of a blues band that cared little about adhering to the original twelve-bar pattern and instead mixed blues elements with rock and soul elements at will or even indulged in long improvisations that would have been much more in line with the psychedelic flower power camp.

For 49 years, the East formation has been persistently honing its own style with intelligent lyrics on the border between German rock and blues, and has thus created a loyal, but not at all "nostalgic" audience.

"Rock'n'Blues" with history and a view to the future.