Marcel Winatschek

Summer at the Lake, with Eagles of Death Metal

Highfield 2012 at Störmthaler See near Leipzig had a lineup worth sitting with: Beatsteaks, Placebo, The Black Keys, Eagles of Death Metal, Social Distortion, The Gaslight Anthem, The Shins, Casper, Kettcar, Kraftklub. A genuinely solid cross-section of where indie rock and German punk sat at the time—not a single headliner you’d have to apologize for.

Festivals in Germany that summer were performing a kind of defiance against the weather, which had spent most of the year being relentlessly grey. The lake setting helped. There’s something specific about a festival pitched next to water: you end up spending half of it watching the light on the surface between sets, which is either beautiful or a sign you’ve hit your limit on live music for the day.