"I knew immediately: That should be it"
Arm in arm, they stroll on the café terrace on the Rhine, with two bizarre dogs on a leash. She in a flowing summer dress, he with a bright blue linen shirt. He whispers something to her, she laughs. Relaxed and casual, they look. As if they just fell out of a hippie road movie. In fact, the Niedeckens are just coming home from vacation with their two daughters. Four weeks Greece. "Quite an exception, having so much time together," says Tina Niedecken. Maybe that's why they still look like a newly in love couple. Because the shared moments are so precious, they can not often sit close together like now and casually touch one another in conversation.
Because in everyday life, they are often separated. Tina Niedecken stays home with her daughters, 13 and 14 years old, while her husband travels around the world with his band BAP and his social engagement. This division suits their talents and preferences: he seeks the public, organizes concerts against racism or travels with the Federal President to development aid projects in Africa. Tina Niedecken prefers to work behind the camera, portraying musicians and artists. However, she usually looks after the daily routine of the family alone.
The fashion photographer Tina Golemiewski had never heard of rock group BAP when she was standing behind the tape in the check-in line 20 years ago at the Cologne airport. She was on the way back from a photo production, BAP flew to Munich for a television appearance. The photographer wondered about the group of wild guys who were jamming at the security checkpoint: they had a bleached ox skull in their luggage, ran it through the fluoroscopic device several times and rejoiced at the strangely distorted image on the monitor. Wolfgang Niedecken noticed her: "I thought he was interesting, but that's all."
I'm very bad at digging.
It was different with him. When Wolfgang Niedecken talks about how he got to know his wife, he becomes serious: "I knew immediately: That's it, I've never met a woman who is so cheerful, she had something of an angel. " If one believes his collected love songs, one realizes: If he likes a woman, then he venerates her like a saint. This time, however, he had a problem: "I only had one hour and no idea how to use it," he says. "Because I'm incredibly bad at digging."
Apparently, but then something still occurred to him. At the exit of Munich Airport anyway, the two agreed to meet for the same evening. She suggested the "Nachtcafé", an in-place for models, celebrities and revelers. For an alternative dialect rocker from Cologne Südstadt, who feels at home in sweaty stadiums, such a place must be hell. Wolfgang Niedecken sat next to Tina on a designer barstool and could not decide: "Am I in heaven or in the wrong movie?"
For all the infatuation - the differences were big
It was a slow approach. For all the infatuation - the differences were big. Tina was in her mid-20s, enjoying her independence and working in her dream job, Wolfgang Niedecken was 13 years older, had a family already and was in a permanent marriage crisis. His first wife had little sympathy for the fact that the musician was constantly on the road after the sudden success of his band. She reproached him. And he blamed himself for being right. After all, she had married the artist Niedecken, one who painted pictures and constantly lived with her in Cologne.
Perhaps that's why Wolfgang Niedecken always emphasizes how grateful he is for Tina's understanding and sharing of his way of life. If one had to constantly explain something to his partner, that would be bad, the two agree. They harmonize with each other in everyday life, everyone has respect for the work, the needs of others. And sometimes they jibble and wrestle like ten-year-olds on a school bus, completely oblivious to the sound of a tape.
Proximity: The word often falls when the two talk about their relationship. Never before, says Tina Niedecken, did she meet a man so direct she could talk so well. "I soon felt close to him," she recalls. - "That's because I can listen pretty well, if I want," says her husband. Both laugh. So far he has been talking in our conversation.
In her relationship it is the other way round: he is a brooder, she is usually happy. You easy, he heavy. You sun, he moon. A magnetism of opposites, which constantly shows itself in the living together. For example, when they go to the movies: they want a happy ending. He likes darkest art house movies.When Klaus Kinski pulls a ship screaming through the jungle, this is pure inspiration for Wolfgang Niedecken, unbearable for his wife. Nevertheless, she watches. But he looks for her love romances with Meg Ryan or Julia Roberts. "I did not know before that there are such films," he admits. Today he enjoys such evenings. "As you take life from the easy side, Tina shows me every day," says Wolfgang Niedecken. She pulls him up when he sinks into deep brooding. She can be very determined when it matters. And she is one who has the courage to pluck life like a flower. Maybe that was also crucial for the fact that the two have become a couple despite all the differences and obstacles.
Only four years after getting to know her, the photographer finally moved to the musician in Cologne. In the Südstadt, where Wolfgang Niedecken is a size to which everyone has an opinion. Where his first wife lived with his two sons. The baker, the butcher, the shop assistants in the supermarket - everyone agreed: The young thing has caught the man and destroyed his family. In the Severinstraße, the main artery of the Südstadt, it was initially served in the shops only willingly. "For at least a year," the two remember, Tina Niedecken was the non-person in her new place of residence. "Thankfully, your family and your closest circle of friends have received me warmly," she says.
The first time together was difficult: for both
She cried a lot during that time. And began to retire into the private sphere, into the work in her studio. She does so until today, rarely speaks publicly, usually does not give interviews. Wolfgang Niedecken learned in this difficult first time: "Even a sunshine like Tina is not allowed to tap in. I had to realize that I can not constantly use it with my weight."
That, however, happens to him easily. Tina Niedecken lives in the moment, can remove stress, can not be depressed by the misery of the world. Her husband, on the other hand, has to force herself to forget it. When he first came back to Cologne from northern Uganda, he was full of cruel pictures, telling stories of the plight, the war and the fate of child soldiers everywhere: "The world must know that!" Tina agreed with him. But even with friends over beer, the musician could not stop talking about the plight of the children. His wife made it clear to him that in the long run it would be unbearable. That his friends and they needed a break occasionally. The couple made a sign for such situations. When Tina Niedecken accidentally touched her on the phone, that meant enough Africa for today.
Tina does not mention that she occasionally educates her two daughters alone because of his travels. Her husband's closeness is often missing when she was home with two toddlers. Of course, that also weighed on the relationship. Especially since Wolfgang Niedecken, when he is at home, works so intensely that sometimes he is not really present. Later, when the children are out of the house, his wife wants to travel more, even to Africa.
As in the first years of their relationship. Tina Niedecken often came on tour, even after the birth of her first daughter, took tour photos for the band or designed and photographed the cover of the BAP-CDs, which she still does today. It must have been a wonderful time for both of them, as excited as they say. From the tour bus driver who proved to be a gifted babysitter.
Or, as Wolfgang Niedecken once changed the diapers right before the appearance of the little ones, the baby pressed his wife in the arm and then ran to the stage, while the band was already playing. From the celebration to the concerts with the whole crew. There the photographer belonged to the family immediately. And even at music awards and other events with red carpet Tina Niedecken never stood alone for long. "At first it was strange, but at each party I met three or four new people." Getting into conversation, socializing is easy. "Today I'm on the edge when we go away," says Wolfgang Niedecken. "Of course, whoever knows Tina wants to be near her."
The common house in the south of Cologne is their base station
In the mid-nineties, after the birth of the second daughter, the Niedeckens had finally come to an end with the rock'n'roll life together. "Late at night we sneaked into the hotel, each a child in his arms, we both completely exhausted," says Wolfgang Niedecken. And at six-thirty the baby was screaming again. After two weeks, the young mother drove with the children back to the house in the south of Cologne. There is still the common base station. The place where Wolfgang Niedecken "grounded" after his travels. Enjoying everyday life with the family, attending parents evenings, visiting school fairs. And where the two get close again. Surprise each other with small proofs of love or even a great gift. Once, Wolfgang Niedecken raved his wife about an acoustic guitar that he had tried on a music fair. An instrument, as the big ones play, he said.Not for a songwriter and "Mitklampfer" like Wolfgang Niedecken - and that's why the successful musician did not buy the guitar.
That's what his wife did for him. "You also have to treat yourself to something," she says. Wolfgang Niedecken was speechless. Since then, he hardly separates from the guitar, playing more than before. He got better with the good instrument. And write more ballads.
At dispute first go mentally around the block.
The two can wonderfully rave about each other. But it sometimes happens that doors pop or the telephone receiver is thrown up. Almost happily, the two portray such scenes: "My mother was a woman who said everything bluntly," says Wolfgang Niedecken. "I'm fine with that." And you still reconcile yourself on the same day. His wife waves away: "But we do not just want to make it nice." With her way of letting unfiltered feelings out, she had not made it easy for her husband in the past: "First of all, I learned from Wolfgang mentally about the block," she says. - "And I always thought that's from your yoga," he says in astonishment.
Sometimes Wolfgang Niedecken writes a love song for his wife. Look for words for his feelings, for what they are experiencing. For example, after a trip to Morocco, he writes a song about One Thousand and One Nights that his queen already has with him. And that he always thinks of each of these nights. As long as that goes, he says, love is alive. And if his wife touches the song, they are close to each other again. In a song on his current CD, it says in a sense: "When the last song is written and the last picture is painted, then I pray that you are still there." This time, where everything is done, Tina Niedecken has seen in front of him and get scared. And felt: More important than anything the two may still achieve in their lives is their love for them. He nods seriously. And she blushes a tear out of the corner of her eye.
The couple:
Wolfgang Niedecken Already played as a student in bands, but then studied to next painting. In 1976 he founded together with the guitarist Hans Heres the now legendary Kölsch rock group BAP (www.bap.de). With BAP, he last released the triple CD "Live und in Farbe" in March 2009, and in 2008 the highly praised album "Radio Pandora" was released. In addition, Wolfgang Niedecken participates in other music projects, u. a. with Bruce Springsteen and the WDR Big Band, and has exhibitions as a painter. Following his experiences as an ambassador for the relief campaign "Together for Africa", Niedecken and his friend Manfred Hell founded the reintegration project "Rebound" for former child soldiers in northern Uganda (www.worldvision.de).
Tina Niedecken broke off her business studies at the beginning of her 20 to work as assistant to the Munich fashion photographer Lutz Dürichen. Soon she was successful as a photographer, especially with fashion productions and portraits. She has photographed many musicians, including the magazine "Rolling Stone". She shoots for CD covers and works on free projects. She will soon finish her training as an Iyengar Yoga teacher. The couple is married since 1994 and have two daughters aged 13 and 14 years.
