I heard they suck live

Posted on June 4, 2023 by Christoph Rehage

hat rescue

And since my hat was falling apart I took it to a few tailors and eventually to Susanne, the hat maker. She fixed it, and she outright refused to accept any money. If I wanted to, she said, I could take a look at a charity that was important to her. So I did that.

Mario turned out to be very resourceful.

tunnels

He took me to the oldest church in Austria, which was basically right behind his house. Check. Then he helped me book a guided tour to one of the tunnels that were carved into the soft underbelly of the city.

The tunnel I went to was called Limonistollen. It had apparently been there before the nazis came, but they had used concentration camp inmates from Mauthausen and Gusen to enlarge it and turn it into a giant air-raid shelter. Walking around in the cold depths of the tunnels was very eery and very interesting.

punk rock

Then Mario, being a fellow (hardcore) punk enthusiast, took me to a NOFX show near Linz. Remember the poster that I had seen in a bar in Vienna a few weeks earlier? This was to be their last tour ever, they were going to play The Decline, and everyone was excited about it.

A few days later Mario took me to yet another punk show. This time it was Rancid. They were headlining the SBÄM festival in the same location where NOFX had played before. And as I was standing there, looking at the stage, listening to the band playing Time Bomb, memories came back to me.

They were memories of white walking days in the heart of China back in 2008, when winter had covered everything in a blanket of snow, and I was listening to Rancid with my earphones until the batteries gave out.