15th july 2007 - vidin / bulgaria

the welcoming of our guests took place late yesterday evening after we had arrived. they also went straight to their instruments and played for an hour. despite the large number of them, they are the most pleasant guests so far, helping to clean and tidy up and they are neither wound up nor immoderate.

the local preparation for the concert is unfortunately pretty bad in vidin too. posters have been put up this time, but now the place at which we should have played no longer exists. i picked it out last autumn with the vice governor, but now a restaurant ship is moored there permanently. i suggest the beach by the old castle, which is about 1km from the town centre, as an alternative. but the town doesn't want that. their suggestions of playing against the wall of the quay next to the restaurant ship is a joke. well, that'll be something. hopefully it'll be something!

there is a brief discussion with the female municipality official, who has an embittered look on her face before even a word has been spoken. i've worked too long on this and have overcome completely different, much higher hurdles than this to let myself be wrongfooted by a frustrated official. i bite the bullet - happily or not - and take the against the wall option in the absence of an alternative. i certainly preferred captain peter werner's idea of the partisan act of putting the ship in front of the castle with or without the town's permission (the shipping authorities gave us free rein to do so). but i don't want to start our bulgarian stage with a confrontation.

at midday there is a press conference in the town hall, with a dozen media representatives, the mayor and even the austrian ambassador, who has come specially from sofia. the po-faced woman is nowhere to be seen, thank god.

when i go back outdoors, it's 43°C in the shade! the water of the danube is not especially inviting here, but i go in nonetheless in order to get a little relief. as Karandila start to play at 9pm, i am lying around apathetically, but with the first tones of "solide alm" my spirits awaken and we play the best concert of the tour so far. the two pieces with our guests are brilliant: things are really smoking when we play"poika" and "I bi ån".

it was said that there were more than 2000 onlookers, or rather listeners, because unfortunately only those standing in the first two rows could see us.

despite the difficult conditions the concert is a great success. even the bishop of the local orthodox church came along and stayed right until the last song.