The name seems to be clear, but the Festival Rock the Bells has neither anything to do with "Jingle Bells" and therefore doesn’t take place at Christmas either, nor have rockers such as Lemmy Kilmister or Dave Grohl ever been on its stage. In fact, the premiere took place in the summer of 2004 in San Bernadino/California and the headliner of the evening was the Wu-Tang Clan. It was the last performance of the legendary New York rappers in their original lineup, before founding member Ol' Dirty Bastard died of a heart failure due to an overdose on November 13th, 2004. The Clan returned to the line-up in 2006 and 2007 and was always in best company with acts such as Public Enemy, Cypress Hill or Rage Against The Machine. At least the festival lived up to its name once with Zack de la Rocha & Co

Inspite of its misleading name, the Rock the Bells developed into a HipHop quality trademark in record time and after a successful club tour in 2006, the organizers decided to go on US tour with the entire event. The fans easily filled the big arenas from San Francisco to New York and so this year the next logical step is made. Rock the Bells is coming to Europe. The good news has a snag however. There’s no date scheduled in Germany this fall and so the HipHop fans in these parts will have to go to London, Paris, Prague or Amsterdam. At least the line-up with Nas, Mos Def and De La Soul at the top is tempting.