Reeperbahn Festival 2025 brings energy and eclecticism to Hamburg for huge 20th anniversary celebrations • Festivals • DIY Magazine

Hamburg may be a city enshrined in musical history - not least because the streets of St Pauli played host to some of The Beatles earliest gigs - but for the past 20 years, it’s also been a beacon of future potential thanks to Reeperbahn Festival: an eclectic four-day showcase of Europe’s most exciting new prospects. A lot may have changed in those two decades (remember when TikTok was just the sound a clock made?), but, judging by this year’s special anniversary event, live is still undoubtedly king - and Reeperbahn is one of the shiniest jewels in its crown.

Very much starting as we mean to go on, Wednesday sees DIY pitch camp at the iconic Molotow Club - now settled into its expansive but still satisfyingly scuzzy new premises - for our opening night stage takeover, where raucous energy and raising the roof really is the name of the game. Isle of Wight duo The Pill prove themselves to be an easy early highlight, pairing tongue-in-cheek repartee (“This is our first time playing on the Reeperbahn… and I doubt it’s our last”) and bratty, call-and-response chanting with Elastica-style attitude and cuttingly astute lyrical observations on online grooming, pretty privilege, and Leo DiCaprio’s problematic dating habits.

Gracing us all the way from Down Under, jazz-funk outfit Surprise Chef are next up, their woozy instrumental undulations as mesmerising as a snake-charmer’s tune. If Los Bitchos are the party, then these Aussies are the sun-soaked comedown; they even have a couple of empty Buckfast bottles knocking about, being used, ingeniously, for percussion. Speaking of ingenious: there is perhaps no better venue in Hamburg suited to enigmatic newcomers Silver Gore than Prinzenbar, its intricate, cave-like architecture providing the perfect foil for their thoroughly modern alt-pop offerings. Flitting between ethereal experimentation à la Jockstrap (‘Dogs In Heaven’) and earworm indie adjacency (‘All The Good Men’), Ethan P Flynn and Ava Gore deliver a performance that emphatically makes good on their project’s early hype.

They may be the latest in a string of stellar guitar bands to have emerged from Ireland in recent years, but make no mistake - Florence Road can more than hold their own. Recalling both the vital energy of early Wolf Alice and the stomping, empowering attitude of Olivia Rodrigo, the County Wicklow quartet balance infectious, fresh-faced enthusiasm with some serious songwriting chops; by the time frontwoman Lily Aron leads the crowd in a rousing chorus of “la la la las” during ‘90s-flecked anthem ‘Break The Girl’, it’s as if we’re watching them on a stage double the size.

Topping the bill for DIY’s Molotow knees-up tonight are Getdown Services - a pair of brilliant born comedians whose music and humour is so distinctly British, you’d be forgiven for wondering how exactly that might translate to a roomful of German punters at midnight on a weekday. The answer, as it goes, is very well indeed. Taking absolutely no shit from the industry delegates present (“shut the fuck up, or leave”), they goad the packed room into leaving any cynicism at the door, replacing it instead with silliness, sincerity, and party-starting heart.

And, beyond the hallowed red walls of Hamburg’s indie epicentre, Reeperbahn 2025 is just as colourful: whether dosing up on madcap dance-punk courtesy of Berlin’s Trustfundbabes in the intimate confines of Pooca Bar; falling under the evocative, reverb-drenched spell of Palestinian poet Rasha Nahas in hidden gem HÄKKEN; or taking in the jangly garage rock of Viennese exports Gardens by the Festival Village’s open-air stage, attendees are faced with standout sets at every turn.

Pulling one of the biggest crowds to be seen all week are Black Country duo Big Special, who offset the neon lights of Grosse Freiheit 36 with darker shades of grey. While their easy on stage banter and hard-soft dynamic shifts most obviously recall SOFT PLAY, Joe Hicklin balances these punk sensibilities with earnest poetry, his vocals possessing the same haunted beauty as Ian Curtis’. And yet, this is far from a sombre set: over 50 minutes, the pair are playful, engaging, and whipsmart, able to jump from a skit around drum pad sound effects (which Cal Moloney operates with the glee of a school kid let loose on his keyboard’s DJ settings) to scathing social commentary in an instant.

Come Friday, and Reeperbahn isn’t just alive with festival goers and revellers - it’s also the destination for some bona fide music legends (including Susie Quatro and Laurie Anderson), who are here in Hamburg to judge tonight’s prestigious Anchor International Music Awards - an annual ceremony which celebrates breakthrough talent from around the world. Easily the most intriguing, original performer of the whole festival, Ukrainian project Carpetman is a worthy Anchor nominee (just watch his performance from Eurovision 2024!), but it’s ultimately Mei Semones - an American-Japanese guitar virtuoso who blends jazz, pop, and prog-rock to captivating effect - who takes home this year’s prize.

It seems only fitting to finish Reeperbahn 2025 where we started, and, back at Molotow, Swedish Afro-grunge upstart Boko Yout is the embodiment of everything the festival does best - energy, eclecticism, and the unexpected. Despite being dressed in a Scout uniform, he’s every inch the star: equal parts punk spirit and pop diva attitude, he takes cues from his countrymen and tourmates Viagra Boys to deliver a performance that truly leaves it all on the stage. If you can’t go for it in Hamburg, when can you?