Have You Ever Heard of the Kellys?

Two excited teenage girls flag us down at the entrance to Mulheimer Hafen (harbor), on the east side of the Rhine. "Can you get a good view of the Kellys on the other side of the bridge?" they shout. "The Kellys? Who are they?" we reply innocently. One of the girls slaps her knee. The other simply stares at us indignantly. "No, I don't believe it! You HAVE to know them." In this city which has survived so many foreign occupiers through religious faith and mysticism, we had accidentaly stumbled upon Cologne's version of a modern-day pilgrammage - a holy mecca for thousands of teen-age German girls. The Kellys are Germany's bizarre version of The Osmond Family, Menudo and the Grateful Dead all rolled into one. Our self-appointed guide, 17-year-old Nicole, fills us in. "There are 12 kids, but only nine of them sing. Five boys and four girls. They all have long hair and are very beautiful." Nicole reverently smiles at the thought of the band's soothing Heile Welt (sugar-coated world) music.