Expedition to surroundings and tones
Peter Ratzenbeck
BarRock St. Pölten, Austria 20260409
As AF90 had to cancel at U4 but will appear with Greyshadow at ((szene)) and the Metal scene gathers for Carcass and Exodus or CroworD, acoustic finger-style guitar music invites to explore the surroundings of Vienna again. After Strasshof and Korneuburg, once again the way leads to the capital of Lower Austria St. Pölten.
Close to the train station and right across from the regional court, a tall yellow building is home for the KPÖ and the BarRock. At the end of the hallway, the bar offers a place to rest to tunes of RHCP or Tenacious D. Inside the bigger concert room, images from Lou Reed or U2 are hanging on the wall.
There Peter Ratzenbeck takes a seat. In October, he celebrated his 70th birthday together with Ulli Bäer, Roland Neuwirth and Christoph Schellhorn at Wald4tler Hoftheater in Pürbach. In similar constellation, they will play at Burg Rappottenstein in July.
Tonight, he takes his fans on another tour through fifty years in music. Next to his own pieces, he like to arrange songs like from Fleetwood Mac or The Beatles. The first one was “Yesterday”, and recently, he worked on “Can’t Buy Me Love” and “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”.
In all the years, Peter experienced weird stories like a wife leaving her man because his pacemaker disturbed the TV signal. After this story, he plays “Ka Liad”, and before the break, he adds “Danke für nix”, which he wrote on the easter weekend, as the government made gasoline ten cents cheaper.
The second set includes “Song for Marcel” from “Gitarero”, “Bad Moon Rising”, “Lili Marlene”, “A Frau Wia Du” and the “Harry Lime Theme” from “The Third Man”. Back then, Peter was at Ariola Records as he tells and ‘tunes his guitar to zither’. Highlight of the evening is the fantastic “Odyssee”.
It was one of the first songs he wrote, sitting at the riverside in Graz and people watching him play. As encore, he adds “Der Duschbrunzler” with bottleneck on resonator guitar. After this marvelous show at this lovely place, Peter sells his CDs like “Breezy”, “Argonaut” or “Acoustically Yours” and songbook to the sound of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man”. Hopefully he can soon present his new album “Midgard” and meanwhile, BarRock goes ‘Back To The 80s’.