-Fan-Tourtagebuch

Salzburg, 3. Juni 2013
Rockhouse

Ein Bericht von Wilfried

Yesterday’s gig at the Rockhouse

Song no. 24 (Aff un zo) wasn’t played which shortened the gig by a few minutes but enhanced the atmosphere as you had two – in Wolfgang’s own words – romantic songs at the end. Although the band didn’t seem to be enjoying themselves as much as in Bad Ischl it was still a better gig. For a start the Rockhouse P.A. packs a lot of more punch than the rented equipment at the Lehartheater with its intrusive lasers (didn’t mention that last time, did I?). At Bad Ischl people were actually complaining about the bright lights in the auditorium.
Our English assistant Rachel could be persuaded to come with me and take up the musical and linguistic challenge. I’m sure she dug the gig more than the sight of your correspondent engaging in an act of light head-banging from song 19 (Verdammp lang her) with his greying hair in full flow. Luckily I didn’t meet anybody I know, otherwise it could have been really embarrassing. So for the second time in a few days I’ve got a stiff neck to remind me of the excesses of the evening before. In the words of Die Querschläger: Solln die jungen Tutter rappen DER ROCK ‘N’ ROLL IS FIA UNS OIDE DEPPN!
What I now realize after the second gig with the same setlist: they have got the order of the songs just right. BAP started off with some mid-tempo rock songs culminating in Schöne Jruss (no.8) before giving the audience a breather with some Reggae songs (9, 10,11) and some Blues songs (especially the cover version of Dylan’s Leopardskin Pillbox Hat which is a veritable Blues number feat. Helmut’s dobro playing), then sort of came to a standstill with the acoustic guitar/violin version of Dylan’s Vill passiert(I was so much older then I’m so much younger now – in your dreams, Wolfgang [and mine, actually!]) The tempo picked up again between songs 15 and 18 (Amerika was a bit boring, to be honest, but Gulu was at its hypnotic best) and reached its climax from 19 (Verdammp) to 23 (Arsch huh) which were Rock with a capital R! My favourite song yesterday was undoubtedly the classic Kristallnaach if only because I was singing along merrily (despite the serious subject matter) because I have done the song in my history classes and thus know the lyrics quite well. As mentioned before the last two songs calmed the audience down (it was lighters and mobiles in the air stuff) and were the perfect finale to a perfect gig.

So at the time of writing my favourite bands are
1. NMA 2. BAP 3. Richard Thompson and 4. Oysterband

As you can imagine it was a bit of a hard day at school today. I was teaching until 4 p.m. but the adrenaline (and the recently acquired BAP T-shirt I was wearing) got me through it. No gigs in the coming weeks but this is not a bad thing, believe me! After all, it’s the end of the school year with all the hectic and exam pressure this brings.