Survival art – Rainald Grebe: “It’s over”

It started in Düsseldorf. Before the appearance with his “chapel of reconciliation” on March 26, 2017, the singer and cabaret artist Rainald Grebe literally ran out of the lights during the break: ischemic stroke. For him, whose work had consisted of tireless art production since the late 90s, everything came to a standstill, as if you had to brake on the highway. Texts, compositions, instruments, Sanifair coupons-everything flew through the synapses for the exceptional artist like in a tour bus. Instead of accelerating on Germany’s boards and streets as before, Grebe has to switch down so as not to miss the trips to the Charité or his Datsche in the Uckermark. The tour breaks became longer, dropouts of everyday appearances, more difficult.

Six years later, in June 2023, his “orchestra of reconciliation” played “Knockin ‘on Heavens Door” in Berlin, sung by the Dresden comedian Anna Mateur and the choir “The Singing Shrinks” of the Charité. The then 52-year-old talks to his experience on the Waldbühne in a clinic bed with his officially “rare illness”, which gave him a dozen strokes. Until the end of the appearance, his bandmates and his prominent guests know, his audience knows, knows his best friend and sound engineer Franz Schumacher, may not know what will happen himself. Certainly “the black”, as he calls it, the evening, or do you make it to the moment when all lights approach?

On the evening of February 12, 2025, the patient seems to be able to cope. With a forest stage outfit, Grebe sits in the now legendary office chair on the red carpet in the foyer of the Colosseum in Prenzlauer Berg (“Black-Green becomes the republic, here she is already,” he sang in 2011). Behind the cord for the safety distance, the cinema visitors rotate with him for fan photos. The occasion is the presentation of Bärbel Bielek’s documentary »Death in Life. Incurable ill to the greatest appearance «, which runs on 3sat this Saturday.

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For over a year she accompanied Grebe, Schumacher and the chapel for the preparation for that large open-air concert called “Hallelujah Berlin!”, The famous slogan from his hit “Brandenburg” (2005). Between the first stroke and this appearance, the artist, instead of producing his life in a row, the artist has to sort his life, relaxation, relaxation on the dats, a lot of family And a new everyday life “in the health dictatorship”, as it was said in his song “Raucher” (2008). Some connoisseurs of the Admiralspalast DVD “The best songs of my life” (2010) still remember Grebes important stage props: cigarette and wine.

Bielek’s film commutes structured, humorous and also emotionally between the concert preparations, interviews with the participants as well as guests (such as Bodo Wartke), the Uckermark and other appearances, following the thread on the Waldbühne 2023. In the case of all jokes on the side: Death, which Grebe knows not only because of the strokes as an approaching companion, also includes occupation. In 2021, his long -time friend and bandmate died on drums, the Rostock Martin Brauer. Another stroke of fate, the Corona pandemic, crosses additional plans for large appearances.

With Bielek’s documentary, Franz Schumacher and Jan-Marc Ramm, lighting technology, wanted to set “a monument” for Grebe in front of the Waldbühnen concert. One could therefore interpret the recordings of the 2023 appearance in the film final as an end to a long suffering. Or as he sang it in 2004: “It’s over right away,/ no tamtam and no haiopeei./ It’s good, I count sheep,/ until I finally sleep.”

During the photo shoot before the film screening, you can sometimes feel your effort and stress with all the joy and gratitude. But Rainald Grebe has goals, he wants to continue to perform. He busy and encourages the same question that a nurse of the intensive care unit once asked him: “What’s next?”

February 22nd, 3sat, 9:15 p.m.: »Death in life. Incurable ill to the greatest appearance «, after that a live performance by Grebe from 2023 runs