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HUBERT'S DESK

Hubert von Goisern: Tavern Tour

14th February 2011 | Text: Hubert von Goisern

With these concerts we want to make a contribution to breathing life into mostly underused concert venues. And I'm curious to see how the audiences will react to our music. It is always exciting to play where you've never been before. That was once the case in cities such as Cologne, Bremen, Hamburg, Berlin ... I still look forward to the concerts in these and other centres. But time and time again great curiosity has drawn me to the edges. The search for the middle of nowhere - or at least the end of the road, led me to Timbuktu, Ougadougou, Assiut, Sfantu Gheorghe, Vilkovo ...

In the sense of not just the good, but also the middle of nowhere being close - there will now be a handful of appearances in small Austrian parishes. They will take place at the beginning and end of April in Waldviertel, Mühlviertel, Innviertel, Pongau, Pinzgau and Upper Styria. I hope you will understand that we will initially only publicise these concerts regionally. The capacity of the halls doesn't justify a big fuss.

PS:
The reason for this tour came 19 years ago. In 1992 the "Vereinswirt" in Bad Goisern, one of the last tavern halls in the Salzkammergut, was demolished. Two days before the bulldozers finished off the historic building I played a concert there. The hall was heaving. Four hundred people came, including the former mayor. Every attempt to persuade him to preserve the building so full of tradition fell on deaf ears. He had no sense of the aesthetic and historic. Many of these regional cultural sites have suffered a similar fate. But a few remain.

HvG