Making our way from home to Hubert’s concert boat in Germany Suzy and I used an impressive range of transport. In the early hours of the morning Mum and Dad took us by car to Stansted Airport, where we had to take the Stansted shuttle to get to the right gate for our aeroplane to Stuttgart. At Stuttgart airport we found the trains and took the S-Bahn to Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof. From there we took a Regionalbahn train to Heilbronn Hauptbahnhof. Then it was a taxi to the concert site (my foisting a carefully prepared map into the driver’s hand and saying “dorthin, bitte!” made Suzy laugh). At the venue we went on board Hubert’s concert ship - and here I’m going to count his manager, Hage, lifting me on board as another mode of transport. Early the next morning the boat set off to the next concert site in Hirschhorn, thereby adding another mode of transport to our list. Incidentally, our journey from the boat back to the airport will be a whole other blog entry, having turned out to be a much greater adventure than we had originally expected - and allowed time for.

Having last year sailed the Danube from Linz to the Black Sea, Hubert is now going west along the Rhine Main Canal and various other waterways, heading for the North Sea. Along the way the ship drops anchor and the stage on the concert barge is erected and concerts are given from the ship to the audience on land. Locally renowned artists come on board to collaborate with Hubert and his band and in the evening there will be sets from both lineups, as well as performance of the fruits of this collaboration.

The guest coming on board in Heilbronn was the famous jazz musician Klaus Doldinger with his band “Passport”. Klaus wrote the music for the film “Das Boot” - music I didn’t realise I’d heard until he played some of it during the concert. Hubert and his band introduced him to Hubert’s pieces “Kohler” and “i bi ån”, for which Hubert wanted Klaus to join him on stage. “I bi ån” is an absolute firework played live and, sitting across the table from Klaus, I couldn’t help joining in with the vocal. I made him laugh, catching his eye and singing “bow!”. (The very start of this video explains what I mean)

Rain clouds were gathering as the start of the concert approached and, sure enough, during Klaus’s one hour set we started to get wet. Very wisely Suzy went back on board to grab our macs - and discovered that someone had kindly moved our rucksacks under cover, but not before they’d been rained into. Joy.

The rain continued through most of Hubert’s set and we got completely drenched. We were sitting on the floor of the grandstand, making it beautifully convenient to soak up the puddles around us on the boards too. I managed a few shots of the great show taking place before us, but mostly kept my camera huddled against me under my coat. I felt like a chimpanzee sheltering her baby from the rain - a certain shot from a documentary bright in my mind.

As arranged Klaus Doldinger came back on stage to join Hubert & Co. for “Kohler” and “i bi ån”, coming up with some fantastic improvisations on his saxophone. As is traditional Hubert also called on the audience to echo his vocals. “I bi ån” (pron. “ee bee on”) means something like “I’m fine, I don’t need anything from you” and despite being wet, after a concert like that all three thousand of us were “on”, baby.

Click on the photo for the set so far