Alsergrund

After a stress free night’s sleep, I woke up at 7.00am. I went down to breakfast and found Jack Cheung, who introduced me to the others on the Magic Bus. They seemed a nice friendly bunch, but remembering everyone’s name will take time.

At 9.00am, we went down to the 2 Ford Transit mini-buses. In my van, Red and Paul Rizos were the designated drivers and sat in the front, then 6 of us sat in the back, 5 hefty blokes, myself with Lee, JP, Lex and Ramon and 1 poor Maltese lady, Priscilla. We sat in 2 rows of 3 seats facing each other whilst jostling for leg room, with a needless to say decent playlist on the stereo. It was a 2 hour drive into Austria, where we stopped for a comfort break at the border. A group photo was taken in front of the border lap dancing club.

30 minutes later we stopped again at a motorway service station. Everyone ordered lunch, so I felt obliged to order something - Bratwurst & chips. I couldn’t eat all of the chips. In future I will have soup.

We arrived outside our Hotel Boltzmann at just after 3.00pm, but it was 3.30pm before I had finally checked in and got to my room. We were due to meet from 5.00pm onwards at the Beaver Brewing Company, just a 7 minute walk from the hotel.

I immediately headed out for a 1.4 walk into the centre of Vienna for a spot of sightseeing in the cold afternoon air. I found the impressive Votive Church & had a look inside because it was free. I headed towards Hofburg Imperial Palace, but somehow ended up walking away from it. Conscious not to turn up too late, I headed back to the hotel having walked just over 3 miles.

It was just after 5.30pm, when after freshening up, I arrived at the Beaver Brewing Company. Lee and I shared a couple of pitchers of Witty Bastard beer, whilst a whole large group of NMA fans assembled, most were known to each other. I am slowly getting to know them - a friendly bunch. Around 8pm we all headed the short distance to WUK, tonight’s venue. After watching the end of the support band, Tauren Rosen, who were ok, I headed into the centre of the crowd where most of our Magic Bus were gathering.

At 21.20pm, New Model Army took to the stage & I was in the middle of the mosh pit, now suddenly surrounded by bare chested men frantically dancing and pushing and shoving. I joined in but soon was boiling in my t-shirt and hoodie. I remained in the fringes the whole evening getting my toes trampled by wooden soled clog boots.

I was also asked to assist Jack to get up on Red’s shoulders and I held his right leg throughout the performance of ‘If I Am Still Me’. Security staff tried to get Jack to get him down, but others wouldn’t let them near him (us). At the end of the song Jack got down and gave each of us a thank you hug!

Being the nice chap Jack is, he went off to find the security staff and apparently negotiated that he could get back on shoulders for the encore. The encore consisted of
‘1984’, ‘High’, which Jack went up for, and ‘Get Me Out’.

After the ‘family’ photo in front of the stage at the end, Paul, Lee and I headed back to the hotel, stopping for a huge Bratwurst in a hotdog roll for less than €5.

Song of the Day - Vienna by Ultravox.

NMA Song of the Day - Family by New Model Army.Read more