Erstellt am: 15. 7. 2014 - 12:30 Uhr
Das Beste ist noch nicht vorbei?
The On The Rocks, which is being held for the 10th year on the 18. und 19. July, is my favourite Austrian festival.
I like the dramatic location, of course. The concerts are held under a vast open-sided former factory hall that lets the breeze in from the side but the concrete roof, which is 20 metres high, keeps those Alpine cloud bursts from above out.
It is open-air but it retains the intimacy of an indoor venue.
To the left of the stage, the sheer grey walls of the Golling loom above the Salzburg countryside. It manages to somehow appear both rural and urban.
Claudia Ziegler
"We wanted to create the sort of festival that we would want to go to ourselves," says organiser Josef Schnöll. For ten years a team of volunteers have worked without pay to bring alternative music to rural Salzburg. It is an idealistic festival designed to bring joy to local music fans rather than profits for the organisers.
The arena, enclosed by pillars, seems full by the early evening. Bands which are often forced to play to sleepy audiences in the early afternoon at bigger, more commercial festivals, are celebrated like stars.
Last year, as Salzburg band Steaming Satellites played its set, the crowd sang the lyrics of local heroes back to the band during every song. There were crowd surfers and two encores. It was one of the most touching moments I’ve enjoyed at an Austrian festival.
Claudia Ziegler
I like the relaxed atmosphere. Backstage, for example, is a tent with a couple of scruffy sofas and fridge full of cans of beer. It creates a shabby informality. Sitting there with the bands, a mixture of Austrian and international bands, you feel you are really chatting to musicians rather than getting some pre-chewed promotional guff.
I particularly enjoyed an enlightening evening last year with the ebullient and charming Graz bands Viech and the Sado-Maso Guitar Club who were engagingly honest and insightful in describing the difficulties of life as a musician in Austria.
This 10th anniversary will also, sadly, be the last ever On The Rocks festival.
"When we started organising the festival we were young and had more time. Now many of us have kids. We simply don’t have the time anymore," explains Schnöll. It’s been an exciting journey and now that journey, he feels, has come to its natural end.
The organisers, who say they see this Grande Finale with "one smiling eye and one crying eye", want to go out with a bang. They have broken the bank to attract a top line-up of eclectic acts.
On Friday the headliners will be the Swedish quintet Shout Out Louds, who are touring with their 4th album "Optica". The hirsute Southampton three-piece Band of Skulls will be last up on stage on Saturday, bringing the On The Rocks festival to an emotional close with some bluesy garage rock.
Claudia Ziegler
The Austrian bands in action this weekend include FM4 award winners Bilderbuch, who are riding high on the success of their record "Maschin". You can also see the tough, political but poetic sound of the Sofa Surfers, who have been Austrian icons for as long as I have been in this Country.
There are less familiar Austrian sounds from Salzburg, including the rock reggae band Los Luceritos. I’m eagerly anticipating the set of DAWA, who I first saw performing on a pavement at the Soho in Ottakring party. I’ve only seen them in very small locations so far but I have a suspicion that their haunting sounds should work wonderfully in the rather ghostly atmosphere of the abandoned quarry.
There will also be hip hop and funk from southern Bavarian band Mundwerk Crew and, of course, the magnificent Fiva, one of the fun most live acts you're likely to see in these parts.
It’s one last hurrah for the On The Rocks festival, but perhaps the seed of community-based festival organisation has been planted in rural Salzburg and a new crew will be inspired by the example of the past ten years. Then as Fiva sings, perhaps, after all, "Das Beste ist noch nicht vorbei."
Claudia Ziegler