On this day in 1986, Rory played the Open Air Festival in Bruchhausen-Vilsen. Rory was supposed to headline this gig, but typical of his humility, when he learnt that James Brown was second on the bill, he refused top billing and offered it to James instead. According to an anecdote in Riding Shotgun, James arrived with a big entourage at the festival and the tour manager burst into Rory’s caravan and asked if James could have it instead as it was bigger than his. This was met with a glare and a “fuck off” from Dónal and that was that!

Below I share a first-hand account of the festival by fan Edith Viertelhausen. This account first appeared in the Rory fanzine Deuce.

“Of all three days at the festival scene in Bruchhausen near Bremen in the north of Germany, I spent only Sunday night and Monday. I arrived at around 8:00 in the evening and as soon as I had made two or three steps onto the scene, I felt immediately this special excitement that I feel any time I have a festival atmosphere around me. This time, it was particularly strong. It does not surprise me for the last open air concert in my opinion was an eternity ago. However, I was thrilled very soon and brushed off all my everyday troubles.

I was just in time to see Curt Cress whose performance was accompanied by terrific fireworks which lit up the sky for about 40 minutes. It was undoubtedly a remarkable show. Inspired by the fireworks, some people tore a cushion apart and scattered the foam rubber flakes all over the crowd. It was like carnival!

The next morning, I was glad to meet my friend Fozzy who was standing in front of the stage. We spent much time obviously – even successfully and eagerly – trying to convince people about Deuce! Until Rory had his turn, there were some other groups like Pandora’s Box from Budapest, Papa Curve, a funny but nonetheless rather good reggae band, then Toshinori Kondo from Tokyo who were playing fairly metallic jazz rock.

During the break, the pushing and shoving and shouting started among the crowd and one could feel the excitement too. The kites that had been gliding in the sky and watched the scene from above had disappeared at around 6:00 PM. Under a sunny sky, Rory and his band stepped onto the stage at last and first of all were welcomed properly. Although Rory had doubtless put on weight since I saw him last year at Montreux, he certainly had not lost his power and energy.

Mark Feltham joined the band again for a number of tunes. I found one of the blues songs remarkably good, but I have to admit I forgot which one because to our surprise Rory too fetched his harp and joined Mark. It was really great.

I enjoyed the whole show anyway and the reaction of the audience proved that they all agreed with me. Rory was certainly the main attraction this day, maybe even of all three days together, but it’s not for me to judge since I spent only one day there as I said before. The band were playing only old numbers, such as ‘Bad Penny’, ‘Tattoo’d Lady’, ‘Moonchild’, ‘Shadow Play’, ‘When My Baby She Left Me’. As for the blues part, ‘Western Plain’, ‘Walkin’ Blues’, ‘I Wonder Who’, ‘Off the Handle’ and ‘Sweet Lovin’ for the encore part.

As I mentioned before, it was a brilliant show and still I was a bit disappointed that they were all just old numbers which means we have to keep on waiting for the new album. Well, perfect things require time. However, I consider this gig to have been sort of a consolation. It was a pity that James Brown was waiting for his turn. I guess otherwise Rory would have played longer.

After the show, Fozzy, my girlfriend and I went to the backstage entrance, but it was impossible to get behind the stage because Mr. James Brown had demanded not to let anybody else in. Maybe he was afraid of assassination. You can never tell. However, we saw more and more bunches of people heading for the exit of their tents to go on with the party.”