I had completely forgotten about the coldplay concert.
It had rained all saturday and sunday, we had spent sunday afternoon in the wethouse keeping an eye on the waterlevel of the danube that was disquietingly rising again.
On sunday evening it stopped raining and the sun finally came out again. after we had brought missis lexi to the train station in melk, the kids and I decided not to drive back to the house immediately but instead drive to Ybbs and watch the highwater situation upstream and have a healthy dinner somewhere in the garden of an ice-saloon.
we were driving along the danube when I suddenly saw a billboard on the side of the road - "coldplay concert, pielachtal july 10th.".
quiiietsch - I jumped onto the breaks and turned the car.
"what are you doing, daddy? why are you turning the car? no icecream?"
"much betta than icecream, we're gonna go to a concert tonite! your very first open air concert"
I had no idea when the gig would start, the billboard didn't say anything about it - nor exactly where it would be, I only knew that the "Pielach" is the river flowing into the danube 2 kilometers away from our house, so "Pielachtal" could not be too far away.
the billboard said "St. Poelten, exit south", on the highway it's only a 20 minutes drive to St. Poelten.
the kids were enthusiastic "oh yeah, daddy, great! a concert! oh yeah! our very first concert! ...... what exactly is a concert?"
"well, you know the music we are always listening to in the car and at home from cd - now these folx who play this music are here in austria, and they are going to play the music "live", we can look at them while they play, they are on a big stage, and you can hear the music really loud, much louder then in the car and there are lights and smoke and stuff - it's just great ... and a lot of people are there to listen to the music, you'll see, it's great!"
"oh yeah, daddy, sounds great! let's do it! ... what kind of music is it?"
"coldplay - you know the one disc we are listening to in the car often (starting to hum 'nobody said it was easy')..."
felix: "the howling donkey? the song where you always start to cry?" - (all three:) "ah-oouuuuuuuuh-ou-ouou- ouuuuuh!"
"yeah, eggzactly - that's coldplay. they are in austria for the first time evah, we cant miss that chance!"
"but I think we should drive back to the house first, get your raincoats and rubber boots, and have a quick dinner ... and get my mobile phone, in case mommy tries to call us, I don't want her to worry"
"noooo, it stopped raining, we don't need no raincoats, and we are not hungry, nono... and we can call mommy when we get back! we oughta get there immediately, we don't wanna miss a song, you said we can't miss that chance, what if it has already started??? - nono, not going home first - we gotta drive there now - concert! concert! concert!"
"well..."
a few minutes on the highway, exit St. Poelten south, aha, the first signs "coldplay concert - Zufahrt verboten" - access only by free shuttlebus.
"Zufahrt verboten? what should that mean?"
"ach, we don't wanna take no shuttle bus, we ain't got time for that - we have our own bus!"
ok, driving half an hour following in a queue of busses and taxis.., suddenly - "ohoh" lotsa police, lotsa security ... achso! now I see why they said "Zufahrt verboten"!
the whole festival area is flooded, one big swamp, lotsa cars stucking in the mud left and right from the street.
"the stage, the stage, daddy, the stage! we made it! the concert"
"shut up now, kiddos! we are just driving by - we dont even know there's a concert here!"
policeman through the window "where do you wanna go?" "ach, just driving through on our way to Melk"
policeman waving us through.
slowly driving by the stage - "lucky man" booming from the speakers - jeezus christ, can it be true? "the verve" as supporting act?" have I gone to heaven prematurely?
(turned out afterwards that is was only some jerk doing a coverversion)
slowly driving down the road passing the festival area, over a bridge crossing the Pielach with very high highwater (aside from the diluvian rain the last days, the second reason for the mud) - suddenly about 1.5 km away from the stage - *one* free gap in the row of cars standing left and right of the road! jeeezus christ "lucky man" indeed!
getting the kids out of the car, pauli onto my shoulders (cause he wore only sandals), felix and gina walking back in direction of the stage in a stream of otha people.
"we are lucky, kids - seems we are in time for coldplay"
the kids fascinated by the stage, the loud music, the thousands of people, the cars sticking in the mud...
I asked one of the security guys when the coldplay performance would start.
"around 21:45"
"what time is it now, daddy?"
"20:00"
it had started to rain a bit again and the guilty concience cause I had no rainclothes for them, I didn't have my mobile phone with me and the kids had no dinner was becoming too strong.
"you know what kids, we still have enough time. we will drive back to the house, have dinner, get our raincoats and rubberboots, call mommy - and will be back here just in time for coldplay."
"noooo, we wanna stay here and wait, it's not cold and we are not hungry - what if we miss the start of the show??? we wanna stay here!"
"I'm the boss, we do what I say - back to the car now. don't worry, trust me, we will be back in time."
when we got back to the car, about ten other idiots who had been stupid enough to drive here with their own car were desperately standin around on the street, one had already managed to bury his car in the muddy meadow.
next to our car, a mini with two girls - when they saw us enter the car - blowing the horn, excstatic joy, jumping out of their car, kissing our hood.
"daddy, why are they kissing our car?"
"they are so happy to have found a place for their car - we will of course not get such a near place the next time"
"but then we oughta stay!"
"no, I'm a responsible daddy, you need clothes and dinner, we're driving home now and come back then"
"but we gotta hurry"
"no its all fine, Alles wird gut, we got time enough - if those lunatics would finally leave our hood alone - tuutt - tuut - yes we love you too, now get out of our way.
vrouummm
"we don't wanna go back through the herd in direction st.poelten - we go back directly - got no idea where we are here, but if this is the Pielachtal then this must be the Pielach, and if we follow that then we get back straight to Melk, easy as that!"
vroumm, vroummm
"but daddy..."
"dont interrupt me now, we gotta be fast, I have to plan everything in detail"
"but daddy..."
"we dont have time to eat, so this means when we get back to the house, each one of you gets an icecream, I will run and get your rain clothes, then I'll get the seat out of the car and put your bicycles in"
"but daddy..."
"you wonder why the bikes?, when we return we will of course never be so lucky a second time - and nono we dont wanna take no shuttle bus - thats for the herd - hahaaa, we will find a place for the car and go the last few kilometers by bike - hahaaaa - am I a genious or what?"
"but daddy..."
"WHAT??"
"is this really the Pielach?"
"yes, of course - we just gotta follow it till it flows into the danube near to Melk you know"
"but why are we following it upstream?"
"WAAAAHH - holy fricking shit!"
"quiietsch"
"where is the freaking map?"
"jeezus, thats not our Pielach!"
"we are in the middle of nowhere"
"fast daddy, fast, ricky maseratti"
"no, the street is wet, no ricki maseratti now" (knowing they would only tell wifey again)
"oh dammit - half past"
"kids, lets forget it, you get your icecream anyway, but forget the concert - it doesn't make sense, we'll never get back there in time"
"nooooooooo, concert, c-o-n-c-e-r-t,c-o-n-c-e-r- t -drive faster daddy - ricki maseratti, ricki, r-i-c-k-i, r-i-c-k-i!"
arrived at the wethouse at 10 - kids had eaten ice before I had even managed to demontage the one backseat, bicicles into kofferraum, grabbing 4 slices of bread and 2 knackwuerschte, mobile phone, pullovers, rain coats - back on the road at 10:10
no traffic on the streets this time
as ricki maseratti as possible
approaching the festival location from the secret access - parking the car in a mudhole (because nuffin matters anymore anyway)
kids onto the bikes, pauli and daddy onto scooter - down the hill
"we gotta stay togetha, kids"
zloing - wuhaaaa felix slipped on the muddy street and crashed with his bike - tears, quick comforting you-gotta-stay-strong- now bussi, weiter gehts..
fighting our way through the hordes of people, pushing the bikes through the mud, no driving possible anymore
ok, there we are - only this meadow seperates us from the festival area and the stage.
a "meadow" under normal circusmstances - now a huge mudhole.
"wait kids, I'll explore the way" - me with my right foot in the mood up to my knee, "take care kids, its a bit muddy here"
pauli on my shoulders, scooter on my back "kids -no way to get through here with the bikes, we're gonna leave them in the bushes over there, we can be happy if we get our bodies through this quicksand - forget the bikes"
felix: "nooooooo, I'm not gonna leave my bike!"
gina: "I lost my gummistiefel!"
thank god there were enough camera flashes going off so I could find the gummistiefel in the mud - the spectacle of this idiot crossing the mudhole with his kids and two biciylces was documented by lotsof hobby photographers.
ok, finally at the border of the stage area, only seperated by a ridiculous 2.5 meter fence.
"ok kids we're gonna climb over this fence now"
felix: "I'm not gonna leave my bycicle unattended here"
"wahhhh - I' teared that bikes through the mud, I'm NOT gonna climb over the fence with your bikes - we can't join the audience with our bikes!!"
gina: "yeah, climbing over the fence - cool"
pauli: (upperbody already bending over the top of the fence 1 meter above my head) "cool, cool, over the fence!"
chris on the stage: "this is the last song for tonite, thank you for coming, thank you for staying out in the rain...."
me "WHAAAAAAAT? *last* song? we just arrived! kids, he's only joking - lets get over the freaking fence now.."
felix: "I'm not gonna leave my bicycle unattended"
well, thankfully chris was only partly joking, they played three more songs as a zugabe - at least we heard those standing on top of that fence.. "clocks", "in my place", and one I didn't know.
enough to make me howl into the nightly sky, enough to make me cry like a baby.
then, fighting our way back to the car together with eightthousand other muddy people (but only very few of them carrying bycicles)
finally got the kids to bed at half past one, omitted teethbrushung as an exception, just scraping off the worst mud from their bodies..

felix by all means wanted to tell his momma about this adventure, didn't give up till I allowed him to call her ..
and again he did his best to increase her faith in my kiddycare abilities when he told her about our evening on the phone
denunciating his father on the phone is one of his favourite hobbies ...
"we've been to a concert ... yes, we only got home after 1 at night ... yes - and I had a bicycle accident ... yes, we were driving with our biciylces there ... yes, on the street ...yes, a *real* street with, yes with cars driving on it....yes, I had my lights turned on, but you know gina has NO lights on her bike ... and my lights werent working anymore after the accident...and cause of all the mud..."
he's good at telling such things with a casual voice - just like last week "I was in the danube without my schwimmfluegerl - reeeaaaly deep in the water where I cant stand anymore" "almost slipped from my boogie board"
or the day before "we were climbing" "without rope" "ontop of a reaaaly high steep cliff"....
well, I was sure she would chop off my head the next time she sees me - but thank god we had highwater the next night.. and I spent all night evacuating the house alone - so when she arrived she didn't dare to chop off my head.
glueck gehabt!

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