Linz Europe Harbour Festival, Day 1

30 July 2009

The first thing I did when I woke up the next morning was do a little update for the site with some photos from the street concerts. Like the obsessive good webmistress I am. About midday, when we’d had a bit of rest, gathered our thoughts and spread our belongings around the room and told reception that we didn’t need housekeeping thanks – housekeeping means you have to tidy up before they come in – we headed down to the harbour.

It was about a mile to walk and as we approached the right place the street was suddenly lined with signs point the way to the festival – signs using the same photo I’d taken that was being used for all the posters. The sun was beating down on us and we finally arrived in the harbour attractively drenched in sweat. Or maybe it was just me and Suzy was dry as a bone; I couldn’t see her through all the sweat to be sure.

We collected our passes – both with minor misspellings, so as to keep our identities not quite secret from the crowds. The stage was set up right by the Danube, with an area for a standing audience between it and the grandstands. A little upstream behind the stage was the MS Stadt Wien, a fancy old paddle steamer being used as a backstage and catering area for crew and artists. Also useful, we would discover over the next few days, for sheltering from the rain.

Hubert and his band opened proceedings at 4pm and their great set was followed by Philipp Poisel. We’d already seen Philipp perform in Hirschhorn last year and Suzy’s become a real fan of his music. We’re in the funny situation where I tell her what Hubert’s said in his dialect and she tells me what I missed when Phillip was telling his own stories. Wir werden aber überleben, oder, Suzy?

Claudia Koreck, whom we’d seen in Ischl, was next having already joined Hubert on stage for one of his songs. Collaboration, baby, that’s what the weekend was about and it was happening in every set, musicians and singers coming together to perform.

After Claudia came Karandila. Fantastic stuff. In a little while their singer Anita came on stage to perform with them. I’d talked to her a little in Bad Ischl, German unexpectedly being our common language. She liked the photos I’d taken of her and when she started singing I went along in front of the stage to photograph her again. Seeing me there, between two lines of her song she waved to me and called “Hallo Sarah!”

Karandila with Hubert and his band, Zdob si Zdub and Claudia Koreck:

The final performer was Klaus Doldinger. Towards the end of his set Hubert came back on stage to perform with him – his song “Goisern” – a cover of “Georgia on my mind”:

And of course all the live long day I’d been photographing:

Click for the set

Posted in: friends, photos, travels, video, work

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One Response to “Linz Europe Harbour Festival, Day 1”

2009 : dreamdust
31st December 2009 @ 9:12 pm

[...] rescued. And then mildly abandoned again in Ischl. Finally we made it to Linz in one piece for the next three days of music from around Europe rocking Linz harbour. Not content with that much travelling [...]