"Krone" was there live

Rock instead of retirement: senior citizens’ band at “Time Warp”

Like every other rock group in the city, but different: the Werder Klub Band.

(Bild: Zwefo)

When 70-year-olds sing their hearts out to rock songs, it's only logical, say the members of the Werder Klub Band from Vienna. The "Krone" was there to see the spectacle up close.

They also have "The Guitar and the Sea" by Freddy Quinn and other hits in their repertoire of around 200 songs. But the "Werder Klub Band" - and their enthusiastically dancing audience - really get going when they start singing "Time Warp" from the Rocky Horror Show or other rock songs. Logically, because everyone here has known the songs since they were written five or more decades ago. Hardly anyone on the stage or in front of it is under 70 years old.

The nine-piece band was founded two years ago in the municipal pensioners' club "Im Werd", and to this day, only pensioners are allowed to join the band. Employees of the Kuratorium Wiener Pensionistenwohnhäuser are also accepted if necessary.

The greatest reward for the band is "when people dance".

(Bild: Zwefo)

"We all grew up with the Stones"
If you ask band leader Joschi (70) how rock'n'roll and retirement go together, he starts to ponder: "My mother - that was a pensioner for me". She enjoyed Freddy Quinn, but "today it's a completely different era. We all grew up with the Stones and Creedence Clearwater Revival and not the Snow Waltz."

Although the age of the band members has its pitfalls, such as frequent changes ("One has a hip operation, the others get too much"), it also has its advantages: Rehearsals are well prepared, and instead of band-internal youth dramas, "lovingly distanced" composure, consideration and insight prevail. Prince numbers, for example, are only taboo for one reason: "It has to be singable for us."

And yet the Werder are a band like many others in Vienna: they are currently looking for a new drummer and: "What every band in Vienna is looking for is gigs." In addition, a rehearsal room away from the pensioners' club, where you can't leave a sound system, "would be heaven on earth." But Joschi says that they can still manage: "We rehearse acoustically, sitting in a circle." After all, that's how the Eagles made their career.