Popendorf 71

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Popendorf 71
Popendorf 71
General information
place Poppendorf , AustriaAustriaAustria 
genre Rock , pop
organizer Pop society Peter Stangl & Co.
Period May 29 and 30, 1971
Visitor numbers
about 3000

Popendorf 71 (short Popendorf ) was an open-air - music festival in the municipality Poppendorf in the Austrian state of Styria . The event, marketed as “Mini Woodstock ”, took place on the Pentecost weekend in 1971 at Poppendorf Castle and was of great importance for the Styrian music scene. The headliners were Novak's Kapelle and Jack Grunsky .

prehistory

The event location Schloss Poppendorf
Announcement poster

In the spring of 1970 a "Popfest" with 600 visitors, organized by the daily mail , took place for the first time in nearby Gnas . The second edition at the beginning of June of the same year was relocated to the palace gardens in Poppendorf and - despite the conflicting schedule with the soccer World Cup - attracted more than 1000 visitors. The rock bands Music Machine from Fürstenfeld and Session from Weiz as well as the Scotch Quintet from Graz and the Original Oststeirer provided musical entertainment . With candlelight and an open fireplace, the guests were offered roast wild boar and a demonstration by the Feldbach judo club . The prominent visitors included the young ski racers Annemarie Pröll and Brigitte Totschnig , who were attending the commercial vocational school in Feldbach at the time.

Popendorf 71

Inspired by Woodstock and spurred on by the great success of the pop festivals, co-organizer Peter Stangl planned a two-day music festival for Pentecost 1971. Poppendorf Palace with its large park was once again to serve as the venue. Altogether more than 20 mainly Styrian bands as well as “Schlagerlicht” Jack Grunsky could be signed, which the Kleine Zeitung called “meritorious engagement of almost all bands floating around with us”.

According to the announcement poster, the entry price for both days was normally 60 schillings or 50 schillings in advance . In addition to the concerts, goulash cannons and roast wild boar were served, as well as a jazz fair and the premiere of the play Die Arbeit by the first street theater in Graz. Many of the around 3,000 festival visitors, including Germans, hitched up and used the castle grounds for camping . The festival ended with a notorious performance by Novak's Chapel in Vienna . While some viewers remembered an extensive concert full of improvisations , others claimed the band only played five minutes. What is certain is that the group provoked the audience, whereupon they were booed and pelted with beer bottles and finally left the premises in their tour bus. Contrary to some expectations, the festival was generally calm, which was often explained by the cool, rainy weather. The reactions were mixed: the concerts were largely received positively by the audience, but the organization was viewed critically - for example, there were too few parking spaces. The Kleine Zeitung found that many visitors had expected more and wrote about a "lost opportunity" in this regard. In addition, some of the neighboring farmers complained about stolen chickens.

For the following year, the Poppendorfer municipal council prohibited a repetition of the festival.

Line up

Open air

in the castle

  • Scotch quintet
  • Show stars
  • The Telstars
  • Travelline tape

reception

"Popendorf" is today the first regional open-air music festival in Styria, whose importance for the local music scene only emerged in the years and decades afterwards. Many of the musicians who performed later founded new bands and established themselves as fixtures , especially in Austropop . These included Boris Bukowski (Music Machine), Robby Musenbichler (Freak Out), Alex Rehak (Androids), Thomas Spitzer , Gert Steinbäcker (both Mephisto) and Günter Timischl (Magic 69). Steinbäcker, best known as part of the successful trio STS , later commented on the bands preferred language choice at the time:

"We all sang English that wasn't - but that didn't really matter to the audience, who obviously had a similar command of the language."

- Gert Steinbäcker

The Museum of History at the Universalmuseum Joanneum dedicated a space in the exhibition “POP 1900–2000. Popular music in Styria ”.

Web links

Commons : Popendorf 71  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Popendorf 71 - the "mini-Woodstock." Universalmuseum Joanneum , accessed on November 10, 2019 .
  2. ↑ A big castle festival by TP-Pop. In: Südost-Tagespost , edition of June 6, 1970, p. 8.
  3. ↑ TP-Pop in Poppendorf: More than 1000 fans took part. In: Südost-Tagespost , edition of June 10, 1970, p. 7.
  4. ↑ Gerfried Sperl: "Mini-Woodstock". In: Kleine Zeitung , issue of May 29, 1971 (supplement), p. 12.
  5. ↑ a b c Peter Stangl & Co. (Ed.): Announcement poster ( photo )
  6. ↑ a b c Hannelore Egghardt & Bernd Stracke: The Shard Festival of Poppendorf. In: Kleine Zeitung , issue of June 2, 1971, pp. 14–15.
  7. ↑ David Reumüller, Robert Lepenik & Andreas Heller (eds.): Rockmusik in der Steiermark until 1975. Edition Keiper , Graz 2010, ISBN 978-3-9502761-7-6 , p. 8.
  8. ↑ Pop Festival in Poppendorf - coolness dampens enthusiasm. In: Südost-Tagespost , issue of June 2, 1971, p. 16.
  9. ↑ a b c d The Styrian “Woodstock”. ORF , June 27, 2019, accessed on November 10, 2019 .

Coordinates: 46 ° 51 ′ 20 ″  N , 15 ° 51 ′ 18 ″  E