19th august 2007 - budapest

at home we would say this is fön weather, headaches – waiting for deployment. besh o drom, our guest band for the two hungarian concerts, wanted to be here at midday. at 13.00 hrs we get a call: they won’t make it until 15.00 hrs. haven’t we had this once already? it was originally planned that they would come on board the ship yesterday so that we could work something out together. but then they received an offer to play at some festival and they only returned from that this morning. accordingly remote-controlled they wander in at 17.00 hrs. incidentally they won’t do the joint journey and rehearsal tomorrow either, since they’ve taken on an appearance for that day too. well, that’s the way it is – other people are like the weather, you can’t change them, you have to take them the way they are.

that’s true of the city too – and the event. in the evening 1000 people come to the concert, as many as came in velico gradiste, where there was absolutely no preparation or promotion! a defeat for budapest, the organiser and for us too. besh o drom played as unengaged as one can play, with no contact with "their" audience. the singer and most important man comes to the show too late anyway and is only there for the last two numbers.

but from the moment where, as before all concerts, we all hug backstage and form a circle, nothing around me matters, there is only zest for playing. from the first note the audience, many of them from austria and germany, is on our side.

it sounds arrogant for me to say that we play one of our best concerts. but actually we play nothing but "best concerts". our joy in playing allows nothing else. that’s why we’re travelling and here, that’s why the people come along. and so far we have won over every audience, embraced them, touched them.

the day ends with a thunderbolt. just as we start "i bi ån", the last number, it suddenly starts to rain. from nought to sixty the rain is coming down in sheets. the sound system turns itself off having short-circuited. we do a quick bow and save what can be saved as now a violent wind has come up. it’s like in vienna. but in contrast to then, the led walls are still all the way up and – as though a huge windscreen has suddenly exploded in the black sky, hail starts to fall with the first lightning and claps of thunder. two thunderbolts hit the chain bridge next to us. thank god the weather isn’t hitting us head-on and so we are not offering the storm the full surface of attack. we can get the roof down. the two led walls, each weighing 2.5 tonnes, we can only watch sorrowfully and helplessly as they start to warp above our heads. on the river bank the audience and organiser have been caught just as unprepared. the airshow tower has to be evacuated. memories of last year are awakened, there had been deaths and a lot of recriminations. but we are fortunate. half an hour later it has all passed. the village square on the ship is an ice-covered scene of devastation. the leds have withstood it. only one of the projectors has been damaged. the sound system is completely soaked, but we are confident we will get it going again by the day after tomorrow.