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Stuttgart RustFest I
(June 20-22, 1997)

Your Host - Peter Hard To Handle Weber

Pre-Fest Notice

The Fest Call was put out by Peter Hard To Handle Weber...

Hi rusties,

I was a few days away but I was thinking much about Neil Young and the Rusties. Now I am sure: heaven send me Neil to my hometown, and the least I can do is to arrange a RustFest.

I never visited such a fest and never organized one but I will try my very best.

I am thinking of the following organisation: I have a house and a garden where about 30 persons can Fest. I have some guitars and amplifiers, so we can play some music together. We can listen to music music and watch videos. I will arrange a barbecue and have wine and beer and softdrinks. I can arrange 3 rooms for 6 persons in my home to sleep and nearby my house is a hotel. Surely we will have some cars to go to the concert, it`s only 20 minutes away. Also, the nearest trainstation is only 3 minutes away.

I invite people to come over either Friday evening or any time on Saturday, and stay through the weekend till Sunday.

Anyone who is interested in participating can send me an e-mail and tell me:

  1. Would you like to sleep in my house or in a hotel or nothing of this. I can arrange hotel rooms. Also, a campground is only 20 min away.
  2. Will you come with your car? If so, I`ll send you directions.
  3. Will you come by train? I will tell you how to get to my house (it`s an easy 3 minute walk from a station).
  4. Do you have a ticket? I can buy it for you.
The earlier you give me a sign the better I can arrange things.

Hope I can work it out and have much fun with a lot of rusties.

Keep on rocking...

Peter (Weber@iks.s.eunet.de)

FOLLOW-UP:
Hey Ho here we go!!

After I got over the first shock with the cancelled tour, I decided to make the RustFest in Stuttgart happen nevertheless.

(GERMAN) RUST NEVER SLEEPS !!!!!

To everybody I've been in contact with about my RustFest, I will write personally to clear up the situation. And all others are invited to come.

BTW: I don't like these jokes about the cancelled tour, because I have 10 tickets paid and must give them back, I have some hotelrooms reserved and I must cancel them, I have a flight to cancel and and and... It just makes me sad, not happy or even joking...

Peter
HARD to HANDLE

Fest Report, by Peter Weber

"GOTTSEIDANK IST NEIL YOUNG NICHT GEKOMMEN , MENSCH !"
("Thank goodness Neil Young didn't come, man!")
--Matthias, June 21st, late night

We start with the attendee list...

  1. Matthias
  2. Uli
  3. Tina
  4. Joerg
  5. Hartmut
  6. Gerhard
  7. Irena
  8. Janusch
  9. Brigitte
  10. Claudia
  11. Me
Friday afternoon I didn't go to work, I prepared the RustFest in my house. The kids were out for the weekend, the rooms for the Rusties to sleep were ready, the drinks became cooler and cooler, as did the weather.

At 6:00 pm MATTHIAS was at the door asking: "Is this where I can hear some Neil Young music?" Matthias came with his head full of "Job-things". But soon, (and up to Saturday night) he forgot it all and he was really "timeless".

A short time later ULI and TINA came. Uli came with a very old Fender bass and Fender amplifier. And best of all, he gave me as a gift a specially, self compiled CD called Out On The Weekend. Tina had thought she could not be "openhearted" enough to do such a thing like a RustFest, where nobody knows each other personally. But she is!

JOERG was the third Rustie to come. He had "The finger cut blues" and he told us that he could not play guitar because his hand is ill. But soon he forgot his hand and he was cured 'til Sunday.

We were lurking around, drinking beer, listening to music and playing some songs together. At 2:00 in the morning we went to sleep.

After breakfast with Neil music in the background, and after a little walk in the nearby forest with our dog ACHILLES (should we call him "Johnny"? - the king is gone, but he's not forgotten. This is the story of...) it was early afternoon...

HARTMUT came. This "Old hippie" still lives the dream we had. He had his 30-year-old harmonica with him, and all the lyrics we needed. By the way, he had a 5 hours trip to come to the fest.

GERHARD my long-time friend (since the sixties) came with IRENA his wife. And shortly after, my band companion JANUSCH, with his wife BRIGITTE, joined us.

We fested in my basement room because of the nasty weather. In the pouring rain I ran the barbecue. There we took some pictures for Brad Brandeau with our MORE BARN! shirts on.

Then the highlight came: we set up THE HARDCORE MOTHERFUCKERS band, with Joerg, Janusch and me on guitar, Uli on bass and Hartmut on vocals. The 6th member was my drummachine Charlie, but soon we kicked him in the ass and fired him out of the band.

We tried hard to find the chords and the right vocals. Everytime when we stumbled, we just played fucking loud, so you couldn't hear the details. Some of the highlights we played were:

  • Powderfinger (Joerg gambled with the solo)
  • Big time ("It's Em," I shouted!)
  • A furious Rockin'...
  • .. and Downtown
  • Change Your Mind (which ended in lightning and thunder)
  • We Rolled Another Number For The Road
  • and came to Like A Hurricane
  • In between was a Hardcore version of Helpless
  • I performed Pocahontas together with my wife CLAUDIA on the Indian drum -- for the last verse I sat with all my friends at the fire.
  • Our last song was Long May You Run, but before it Matthias shouted "Gottseidank ist Neil Young nicht gekommen, Mensch!" (for translation, see title).
Nevertheless, we missed the Neil show that should have been in Stuttgart on this evening (remember the cancelation). But as a substitute we saw on video the "Rusted Garage" show from the Cowpalace, 1986. At 4:00 in the morning Hartmut and I drank our last beer, and we all went to sleep with angels.

Sunday was the day of saying goodbye. And we all are sure that this was not the last time we'll be together.

I wanna thank all my Rustie friends for this really "open hearted" weekend and don't forget: "IT'S ALL ONE SONG."

I've saved the last thank you for my wife Claudia. Without her help and hard work in the background (the kitchen, the breakfast, the barbecue ... the whole housekeeping) it would not have been possible to work this RustFest out. Thank you Claudia !

Peter
HARD to HANDLE

Check out these photos, courtesy of Matthias Butterweck.

The Gambler's Report, by Joerg Wartenberg

Hi fellow rusties,

After my return from the Stuttgart Rustfest this weekend, I just wanted to share my enthusiasm with everybody on the list. What a great event this was!

We were so generously invited to Hard to handle Peter's house and had lots of fun with playing and listening to music, watching videos, talking and joking. I was glad to meet some Rusties in "real life" that I only knew before from their posts and e-mails, or via tape trading. Rust is alive in Germany!

Watch out for the pictures Matthias took. They will soon be available. No Neil concert on Saturday   :(   but I'm sure we made the best out of this weekend.

Once again a big thanks to Peter Weber and his family, for making it all possible!

Bye for now, from a very impressed Gambler.

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