LINZ EUROPE TOUR 2007-2009

End, over, but not past

The world has not seen it, but Linz has: Hubert von Goisern's dream is fulfilled at the harbour festival.

Since midnight on Sunday 10,000 people have been united by the heartfelt feeling that they were present for something unique: Hubert von Goisern's dream of musical moving together was fulfilled in the Linz Europe Harbour Festival.

The swinging folk jazzers Stelzhamma, Willi Resetarits & Stubnblues, the whipping Moldovan mood-setters Zdob și Zdub are the items on loan from the Goiserer cultural connector, as are singer-songwriter Konstantin Wecker, who with the superb Linz Spring String Quartett really rocked to fantastic new interpretations from his repertoire. Genug ist nie genug blends into Smoke on the water, Cuban and classical rhythms push into Wenn der Sommer nicht mehr weit ist. The Goisern band joins in, spurring on Lang mi net an. And then, as Wecker announces a recent song about the tenderest declaration of love, reads the fruitful text of poet Fernando Pessoa and Hubert very gently joins in, the audience sinks into silent devotion.

Everything is perfect on this evening. As the host, dressed in white, comes on stage for the great unifying session, the sun finds it way through the heavy clouds and bathes him in glowing yellow. "I hope that this turmoil will get a bit bigger, through the journey," says the musical nomad and allows the wonderful encounters on the ship once more. He fosters the Fön blues with Willi Resetarits, with Wecker and the enraptured harbour pilgrims a multi-voiced Wann i durchgeh durchs Tal is yodelled. At the last minute soul brother Xavier Naidoo made a surprise appearance on the headland between the Danube and harbour branch in order to howl and improvise in duets with the Goiserer and with BAP Cologne rocker Wolfgang Niedecken.

After two summers on the water and three days of the harbour festival a great cultural adventure comes to and end with the song Schluss, Aus, Okay. It's not past.

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 5th July 2009

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 5th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 5th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 5th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 5th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 5th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 5th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 5th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 5th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 5th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 5th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 5th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 5th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Head counters

Hubert von Goisern ends his tour in Linz

Hubert von Goisern was pestered with digs for his Linz Europe Tour on the waterways between east and west. He always met the malice with pithy words: "It's envy. And envy is a hound." It barked once more last weekend when the head counters were at work in Linz: more than 50,000 at the Ärzte concert in the stadium, 11,000 at the free weekend in the castle museum with the south wing, 10,000 at the three day harbour festival.

Only ten thousand. Only? What does the number say about the exceptional nature of what took place? Nothing. Of course nobody would have complained if more people had followed the call to a remote field, which with the setting sun above the Pöstlingberg, the passing Danube ships and a rising moon flirted above the industrial buildings.

Those who were there took something with them. The peaceful atmosphere of a 40plus generation that has preserved value behind a soft smile - yes, they can call us do-gooders, social romantics, Woodstock old-timers and dreamers! Or the musical encounters that have grown over months and years and had nothing to do with the unwinding mechanics of the usual festival works. And the voices that called to the artists: thank you!

We answer the grousers with a line from one of Konstantin Wecker's songs: it's about doing, not winning.

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 5th July 2009

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 5th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 5th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 5th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 5th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 5th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 5th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 5th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 5th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 5th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 5th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 5th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 5th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Linz Europe Harbour Festival

More than 10,000 make the pilgrimage over three days to the concerts at Linz harbour.
A good 100 artists from six nations celebrate a great party with fans.

Linz - A harbour. Three days. 100 musicians from six nations: over the three days the Linz Europe Harbour Festival had more than 10,000 visitors. It was the concluding high point of the Linz Europe Tour 2007 - 2009 with Hubert von Goisern & Friends.

Naidoo: "Linz, I love you!"

On Sunday surprise guest Xavier Naidoo thrilled the audience with his impromptu participation in the festival and a declaration of love to the Capital of Culture: "Linz, I love you!"

This was the first time that Linz harbour was the arena for a celebration of these dimensions. The audience braved the occasionally almost tropical downpours of rain. Together on stage at the end Xavier Naidoo, Konstantin Wecker and Wolfgang Niedecken brought the fans to boiling point.

On Saturday night Naidoo came on the spur of the moment with his camper van in order to be there. "The Linz Europe Tour was such a brilliant experience in my life and I definitely wanted to be in Linz at the end. I just couldn't promise in advance, but I'm happy it worked out," said Xavier Naidoo.

"End, over and past"

Host Hubert von Goisern and his band with Wolfgang Niedecken with BAP, Klaus Doldinger's Passport, Loredana Groza, Haindling, Haydamaky, Karandila, Claudia Koreck, Philipp Poisel, Willi Resetarits & Stubnblues, Stelzhamma and the Dorfmusikantenquintett, Konstantin Wecker & Spring String Quartett and Zdob și Zdub rocked the harbour for all they were worth and celebrated the colourful variety of Europe.

At the end all the musicians from six different nations gathered together on stage once more and together sang the refrain of the last song Schluss, aus und vorbei.

Last stop on a long concert journey

The "Linz Europe Harbour Festival" with Hubert von Goisern and his guests

Linz - "It starts in Linz" so one saying goes and sometimes the provincial capital is the last stop too. For Hubert von Goisern's "Linz Europe Tour East and West" for example, on which he travelled with his band on a converted cargo ship to the Black Sea in 2007 and then the next year went to the North Sea.

The concert project covered 12,000 river kilometres, in the course of the journey through about 60 gigs were played on the ship's stage. Concerts to which Hubert Achleitner (as the Goiserer is really called) had always invited local musicians. Ultimately the one-time folk reinventor of folk music was concerned with tearing down borders and making new friendships - a cultural exchange in united Europe, which for a thoroughbred musician like Hubert von Goisern aside from the inherent fun factor also offers an aesthetic additional value - for his music lives on adaption and inspiration through "foreign" sounds.

This weekend the music ship was at anchor in the home port of Linz, where the last act of the journey, the three-day Linz Europe Harbour Festival took place: the Goiserer and his band played once more with selected guests. The finale on Sunday evening was taken on by - besides Konstantin Wecker and Willi Resetarits - Xavier Naidoo as surprise guest.

Theme: water and roads

Naturally the host made the start himself: Hubert von Goisern enters the stage with a yodel, the good humoured combo plays solid rock with elements of funk, until in the third song the tempo is curbed with Die Strass'n. Next to the "water" is the road, travelling as well as arriving, the second theme.

Time and again the Goiserer unpacks the squeezebox, sometimes he plays the flugelhorn. For example when he gets the Roma band Karandila on stage for a joint number. Bavarian singer-songwriter Claudia Koreck and the fusion veteran from Munich Klaus Doldinger (with his band Passport) both give tasters of their appearances - the principal of collaboration is essential.

The ensemble Karandila with a good ten members comes from the town of Sliven in southeast Bulgaria. The founder in trumpeter Angel Michailov Tichaliev, who in his adventurous arrangements and compositions doesn't just offer the familiar high speed wedding music, but surprising jazz phrasing too. Thus a polyphonic concoction, swing, bebop elements, Klezmer and Mardi Gras processional music develops into a rising and ebbing groove tsunami that is as intense as it is raw.

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 4th July 2009

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 4th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 4th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 4th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 4th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 4th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 4th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 4th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 4th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 4th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 4th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Lively concert and rain at the "Donauinsel light"

Yesterday the Linz09 harbour festival brought stars such as Konstantin Wecker, Wolfgang Niedecken
and as surprise guest: Xavier Naidoo

Two summers long Goisern sailed the Danube through Europe with a floating concert stage as a Linz 09 ambassador. At the harbour festival he presented the musical friendships he had made along the way. On board: the Bavarian Claudia Koreck, who sang with Hubert his hit Weit, weit weg, and the Ludwigsburger Philipp Poisel, for whose discovery we have Herbert Grönemeyer to thank.

Six hours of music on Friday, eight and a half each on Saturday and Sunday, presented by the host in his typical self-deprecating Goiserer eloquence, required stamina from the audience. On Friday the Bulgarian gypsy brass band Karandila and the singer Anita Kristi proved themselves to be a musical iso drink, on Saturday evening it was the earthy Cologne rockers BAP. They ably warmed up the audience - exactly at the right moment, as the first toes threatened to get cold.

Afterwards everyone was morally fortified again for highlights like old master Klaus Doldinger, who with his jazz formation Passport showed younger colleagues on Friday who was boss. By his world hit Das Boot - as reminiscence of Goisern's ship journey - he had the audience in his pocket. As a treat there was a witty vocal-sax duet with the host: Goisern.

Then yesterday the harbour festival came up with a surprise guest: the German singer Xavier Naidoo was announced alongside Hubert von Goisern, Willi Resetarits and BAP frontman Wolfgang Niedecken.

Wecker: commitment and declaration of love

On a mild summer evening, before a relaxed audience and in a now pretty full arena. Prior the Bavarian singer-songwriter Konstantin Wecker made a commitment to his "old love", An-, An- Anarchie, followed by a new declaration of love to humanity in the form of a duet with von Goisern.

Linz09 were testing a new concert location with the event, a headland in the harbour right on the Danube. The venue definitely has the potential to become a "Donauinsel light" for Linz. The traffic solution with the shuttle buses worked well too.

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 4th July 2009

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 4th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 4th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 4th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 4th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 4th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 4th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 4th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 4th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 4th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 4th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 4th July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Farewell on the river

Hubert von Goisern ends his tour in Linz

Hubert von Goisern remembers simple, beautiful moments. He wants to hold on to them, now that it's over. They made "a rewarding experience from a crazy idea", he says at the end of the Linz Europe Harbour Festival in Linz at the weekend.

The audience experiences one such moment too, when on Saturday evening Klaus Doldinger's saxophone began. The instrument moved as gently as the German jazz legend himself. Shortly before Doldinger plays Kohler with Hubert von Goisern's band and leads this yodel into the distance with deliberate tones, he stands on the banks of the Danube. It flows past behind the stage. In front of the stage stand two or three thousand people. "Enriching moments are to be found where things are moving," says the 73 year old, looking at the water.

A few metres downstream the "MS Stadt Wien" lies at anchor. For three days it serves as the backstage area. The Goiserer troupe is on board for the last time. For a good week before the ship was a rehearsal area and meeting point for all the artists whom Hubert von Goisern invited to the finale of a four year long challenge. Among the 15 solo artists and bands were Willi Resetarits, Konstantin Wecker, BAP, Haindling, the Ukrainian folk rockers Haydamaky and their Moldovan counterparts Zdob și Zdub.

The Linz Europe Harbour Festival was a farewell in many languages. The planning began in the autumn of 2005. As ambassador for the Capital of Culture Linz 09, who - along with the Goiserer himself and Red Bull - financed the 4.5m Euro adventure, the 56 year old Goiserer spent two summers on the Danube, Rhine and Main. For three days in Linz were to be seen most of the bands who played on the river tour. Xavier Naidoo made a spur of the moment trip to perform on Sunday.

The collaborations between the artists were particularly impressive, for example the Goiserer's songs with BAP, his playing with the young German singer Philipp Poisel, the duet with the Romanian Loredana Groza and the energetic interludes with Zdob și Zdub.

Maturity for the harbour Woodstock

More of a happening than a row of concerts, more of a party than a festival. From Friday Hubert von Goisern's Linz Europe Harbour Festival as finale of his musical ship encounter between east and west set a milestone in the sense of a harbour Woodstock.

The host made a very personal start on Friday: accompanied by excellent musicians and three powerfully voiced singers Hubert von Goisern draws an arc across his work. An explosive mixture of folk music, jazz, dub and eastern folklore. Distance is impossible, you're right in among it, during Herschaun for example, for which he gets support from the Bulgarian gypsy brass ensemble Karandila.

Sentimental favourite

Philipp Poisel's appearance: with his poetic stories of the everyday, performed in frugal arrangements, the 25 year old singer-songwriter from Swabia succeeds in deeply touching the spectators. Quietly, demurely and without any embarrassment he sings of the longing for togetherness, the joy and impossibility of love. The sentimental favourite of the first day of the festival.

Claudia Koreck is the contrasting programme to Philipp Poisel's introspective songs. Like a happy Bavarian rubber ball the 22 year old Traunsteiner bounces across the stage. The songs are a mixture of soft rock, a bit of blues and soul. Highpoint: she dedicates the love song I mog die Dog to a visibly startled ORF cameraman.

Between the acts host Hubert von Goisern acts as master of ceremonies and entertains with anecdotes from the boat journey as Linz09 ambassador. He humorously tells the story of the big storm that nearly destroyed the whole stage on the deck of the ship shortly after setting off. As cool as a cucumber, sleeping "like a log", he managed to simply ignore the general chaos on board, despite gusts of wind and turbulent waters.

A pick-me-up combination of New Orleans jazz, funk and Roma wedding music is offered by Karandila. The brass orchestra embodies pure joie de vivre. The idea that not every tone sits perfectly - forget it. Gypsy music on a pleasurable skew.

Music meets audience

With the appearance by the 73 year old jazz legend Klaus Doldinger (his work includes composing the title music to the classic film Das Boot) an evening draws to a close that had one thing in particular at its centre: music. There is no room on the harbour stage in Linz for egotists, the only concern is making music together and the exchange with the audience. The musical pairings of the musicians from across Europe are sometimes surprising, but nonetheless exciting in every moment.

Loredana Groza, who charges the muggy Saturday afternoon with her fiery presence, moves between disco pop, gypsy rock and Carpathian dance. At home she enjoys the title of "Romania's Madonna", here we dressed her in the native "wild feathers", and even uses the guitarist as a go-go pole one time.

Barefooted meetings

The no-nonsense ska rock of the Ukrainian combo Haydamaky with groovy accordion, crisp brass and the "we're all the same" rallying cries from singing wild cat Sascha go like a shock wave through the bodies of the audience and get them moving.

Then it's the barefooted Goiserer's turn again with his noble trumpet, as he pours into Janis Joplin's Mercedes Benz in a bluesy dialect form, increases the appetite for desire with Haut & Haar, or digs up his old Wildschütz-Rap. "Yeah, you can sing it," he answers shouted requests for songs, "but I'll set the rhythm."

Once more he uses the stage for his cultural pairings between east and west, floating with Loredana in an almost endless I bi an, mixing Wolfgang Niedecken's Cologne dialect with hearty Salzkammergut dialect and running riot with Haydamaky. This isn't a festival being played, it's a party being celebrated.

The critical-ironic charm of the formidable Bavaria-jazz-world-pop band Haindling beguiles the mature fans and even gets everyone into a waltz-schunkeln, because you have to have a joke when it's linked with an idealistic "People, hold together".

The warm night fades away with the Cologne rockers BAP, who connect football, life, Dylan and philosophy into one intoxicating whole that leads into a hearty Für immer jung duet from Wolfgang Niedecken and Hubert von Goisern. If you measure the fervour that rose from the additional thousands of voices, then this piece spoke from the heart for a wonderful audience that still holds the spirit of Woodstock.

More photos at www.nachrichten.at

Xavier Naidoo surprise guest with Hubert von Goisern

More than 9000 visitors at the multicultural festival

Music fans from east and west: for two years Hubert von Goisern travelled the Danube in both direction with a concert ship, giving concerts with local guest bands. As high point and finale of this journey over three concert days more than 9000 people heard and experienced a whole load of west-east top acts.

Surprise guest Xavier Naidoo

At the finale there was a very special highlight: alongside Konstantin Wecker, Willi Resetarits, BAP, the Bavarian shooting star Claudia Koreck, Klaus Doldinger, Haindling and numerous artists from Eastern Europe - as during the Linz Europe Tour West - the German singer Xavier Naidoo, who made an impromptu trip to Linz on Saturday, performed with Hubert von Goisern and carried the audience away to a storm of enthusiasm.

More photos at www.regionews.at

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 3rd July 2009

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 3rd July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 3rd July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 3rd July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 3rd July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 3rd July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 3rd July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 3rd July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 3rd July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 3rd July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 3rd July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 3rd July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 3rd July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Harbour Festival: Xavier Naidoo surprise guest

On the last day of the festival comes a unique concert with the German superstar and host Hubert von Goisern

Linz - Today's finale promises a number of very special highlights: aside from Konstantin Wecker and Willi Resetarits with his Stubnblues, just like on the Linz Europe Tour West Xavier Naidoo will be appearing with Hubert von Goisern.

Yesterday he got into his car to be at this unique concert and to let the emotions of the journey by ship come back to life. During the afternoon he rehearsed for his appearance with Hubert von Goisern and BAP singer Wolfgang Niedecken.

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 3rd July 2009

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 3rd July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 3rd July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 3rd July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 3rd July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 3rd July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 3rd July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 3rd July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 3rd July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 3rd July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 3rd July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 3rd July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Hubert von Goisern & Friends: Live in Linz Harbour - 3rd July 2009

Photo: © Sarah Marchant

Capital of Culture Linz09 in the harbour of romance

A beautiful utopia: two summers on the river, along the Danube and other rivers with a ship, with music to unite the world, or at least Europe. Hubert von Goisern has lived this utopia, patronised and promoted by Linz09 and Red Bull. For two summer, sailing on the rivers he travelled as Capital of Culture ambassador between the Black Sea and North Sea.

Some of his musical partners on this journey came to the three-day Linz Europe Harbour Festival too last weekend, which was lauded as the grand finale to the journey and also brought an end to the trip of self-fulfillment on the ship - in Goisern's words, the greatest effort, but also the greatest accomplishment of his career.

"I was recently in Sweden"

Everything has its place in the Goisern utopia: on the first day of the harbour festival the German singer-songwriter Philipp Poisel was on stage, someone who starts his stories with sentences like: "I was recently in Sweden and I met a pastor". He sings about unrequited love for the pastor's daughter, about the railway that leads through an "unknown land", of beautiful girls "with sunshine yellow hair". The MS Stadt Wien, the musicians' barracks ship, lies beyond at anchor. The festival location is a headland in Linz harbour that is used as a model aircraft flying ground, in the rainy mist of this summer.

Later the Bulgarian brass band Karandila dreams of human socialism, Hubert von Goisern bridges the waiting time for the next band with stories of the idea of the encounters through music, of life on the ship, of rain, of the authorities and how everything still managed to work out in the end. Then, as saxophonist Klaus Doldinger plays his hit Das Boot as homage to Goisern's ship expedition and forms with him a cheery vocal-saxophone duo, the police count the now 1800 guests (the organisers say it was 3000).

On Saturday the majority of the seats in the grandstands are filled from the beginning. The Romanian pop princess Loredana Groza, the Ukrainian ska cads from Haydamaky, the Cologne old rockers from BAP, Haindling (famous for Du Depp) and Hubert von Goisern in particular realise their dream of the fusion of style, rhythms and voices on the stage. Everybody plays a little with everybody else: BAP for example with Goisern (Rita), Loredana Groza improvises, a cover of Hasta siempre comandante Che Guevara is heard from Goisern, a dialect version of Janis Joplin's Mercedes Benz, current numbers like Haut und Haar, as well as old favourites like Weit, weit weg. On Sunday Xavier Naidoo, Stelzhamma, Willi Resetarits & Stubnblues and Konstantin Wecker should be arriving on the scene.