I have a write-up on my website. — 3 years ago
http://www.eightfold.net/tiff/wiesn.html
The most relevant excerpt:
“By the official stats, on weekends 700,000 people visit Oktoberfest, or Wies’n as the locals call it. Completing the atmosphere, mentally add raised bandstands with 20-piece oompah bands playing pop medleys or traditional tunes and so much heat from the collected humanity that a tank top is comfy. But in fact, it’s nearly impossible to describe. Within 10 minutes of arriving, we sat at an outdoor biergarten table with Maß’es (the 1 Liter tankards) of festival bier for everyone and the first of many renditions of the two 2004 Wies’n songs: ‘Hey, Baby’ and ‘Country Road’. I’m not joking. An Australian family later told me ‘Hey, Baby’ won a Wies’n theme song contest. And some cold-hearted (or dark-humored) bastard told Germans that ‘Country Road’ is fun to sing in inebriated groups. Which—let’s be honest—it is. So imagine 10,000-30,000 Germans, many in lederhosen, standing on tables with giant festival biers and torso-sized pretzels, gustily singing along to John Denver.
‘Country roads, take me home,
To the place where I belong!
West Virginia, mountain mama,
Take me home, country road.’
It’s hard to convey the absurdity at a proper scale.”
