Karat - Tour 2024

In the year 34 after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it is certainly no longer a secret and is even increasingly spreading in reception areas in the West Elbe: rock music from East Germany has a very large number of artists and songs to offer that were, are, and are an integral part of the entire German cultural heritage will remain. Among these, despite all the appreciation for the others, one band stands out as a whole, a very special piece: KARAT.

When KARAT formed in 1975, they were no longer pimply teenagers taking their first shaky steps on stage. They had already collected their merits in well-known rock bands, especially “Panta Rhei” and “Horst-Krüger-Band”. The band around singer Herbert Dreilich and keyboardist Ed Swillms, who penned the big KARAT hits, came together to become number one and it quickly became clear that they were on their way to doing so. It didn't take long.

The special thing about it: the successes did not end at the former zone border. Undoubtedly a balm for East German music fans: They were always painfully aware that most of what they consumed on the domestic market, live or legally purchased, was a kind of substitute for the greats of the rock and pop world behind the Wall. For the first time, KARAT gave the feeling of listening to something at home or in your own town hall that was more than a pop music mocha fix, i.e. a substitute product. But something that those “over there” also bought with Western money, even though it was on the shelf between “Kansas” and “King Crimson” and not in front of “Karussell” and “Kati Kovacs”.

As early as 1979, the second KARAT album (in the East: “Over Seven Bridges”) was released in the Federal Republic of Germany under the title “Albatross” - the clever marketers had also added the “King of the World” to it. It sold just below gold status. KARAT then cracked it in the wake of “The Blue Planet”, one of the most successful albums in Eastern rock history, which was also in the charts in the West for almost a whole year without interruption. KARAT were incredibly important not just because of their music alone, but because this music was a pan-German thing that came from the East. And yes, also because they stayed in the East, even though the wall was much more permeable for them than for their fans.

It seems pointless, because it is well known, to refer to the great classics such as “Schwanenkönig”, “Gewitterregen”, “Magisches Licht”, “Jede Stunde”, “Mich zwangt keiner auf die Knie” and “Blumen aus Eis” (and not least to those already mentioned) in the course of 45 years of KARAT. To the sold-out Waldbühne without any GDR audience, to the fact that they were the first and only band from the East to be on “Wetten dass...” And to the more than twelve million records sold.

Because as important as these stages in the KARAT career are, they are only part of the story. Bernd Römer (git), Michael Schwandt (dr), Christian Liebig (b), Martin Becker (keyb) and Claudius Dreilich (voc) have never stopped being creative. It was never her thing to rest on her laurels. They always impress live – rocking, symphonic, ballad-like, in collaborations with orchestras or fellow musicians, as well as unplugged. KARAT also continues to impress with new studio albums, with which they also find their way into the official charts - most recently “Solenschiffe” (2015) and “Labyrinth” (2019).

The fact that KARAT continues to play sold-out tours also and above all has to do with the personality of the frontman. With the fact that tragedy and triumph are often not only closely linked, but can sometimes actually be linked to one another: the tragic death from cancer of Herbert Dreilich, who was much more than just the singer of this band, but embodied its face and soul, seemed to be in the Year 2004 to mark the end of KARAT. But in the end he enabled the band - with his son Claudius as the new frontman - to rise from the ashes like the famous phoenix. Claudius Dreilich not only authentically continued the tried and tested lines of continuity, he pumped fresh energy into the company and opened up new perspectives for the experienced men.