By RON LARSEN

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- Hard attendance numbers won't be available for a couple days, but Heritagefest Executive Director Kathleen Backer anticipates seeing some "good" attendance figures when they are ready.

As Heritagefest shut down Sunday night, Backer reflected that "the weather gods were with us," and the changes and additions would make the 2004 edition "a successful one."

"There were naysayers when we decided to add sauerkraut wrestling this year, but we got nationwide attention from it. How many festivals can say that?" Backer asked.

Backer felt attendance Friday and Saturday was particularly strong.

"It's always stronger the second weekend because of the parade, but we had a good turnout for the Red Hat ladies' day (Friday), and there were big crowds at all of Lynn Marie's (Nashville entertainer) performances. The crowd that the sauerkraut wrestling drew (Saturday) was absolutely amazing. Next year we'll have it better organized," Backer said.

While the parade always draws a big crowd, most of it doesn't count toward Heritagefest attendance because almost all of the parade route is outside the Fairgrounds.

"But we had a lot of people coming in after the parade for the entertainment."

As units of the 2004 Heritagefest Parade left the Fairgrounds for its annual 14-block journey Sunday, soldiers of Headquarters Company, 125th Field Artillery, Minnesota National Guard, received standing ovations from spectators lining the route.

This day, the unit -- which sent individual, citizen soldiers to the other side of the globe during the liberation of Iraq -- marched as Heritagefest Parade grand marshals. It probably wasn't coincidence, either, that red, white and blue popped up every so often throughout the parade.

Of course, this being an election year, red, white and blue were the colors under which the politicians and political parties marched.

There was a lot of music, too. The Concord Singers, the New Ulm Municipal Band and all three foreign bands -- the Musikverein Herborn-Seelbach orchestra and Heidelberg Quartett, both of Germany, and Die Oswalder German band of Austria -- and the Minnesota "Over 60" Band rode truck trailers.

Then, there were the Cathedral High School marching band, the SU FU DU drum and cymbal corps from Sioux Falls, S.D., and the Minnesota Traditional Dancers' group from St. Paul that stepped it out the entire 14 blocks.

The New Ulm Battery, the oldest surviving civilian battery in the country, was at full force and on horseback amid a battery of mayors. Courtland's mayor, Bob Schabert, chauffeured New Ulm's Mayor Joel Albrecht, and Hans Benner, burgermeister (mayor) of Herborn had his own car and chauffeur.

In all, there were over 120 units in the parade , which had spectators staking out curb-side, viewing space along the route up to 48 hours prior to the parade's start.

But the parade wasn't the only thing going on at the Fairgrounds Sunday afternoon.

Th Minnesota Traditional Dancers, dressed in white tunics with diagonal green stripes ala suspenders rotated with the Heidelberg Quartett (plus one) in the Rosen Tent.

Quartett director and saxophonist, Andres Paul, wowed the audience when he began playing two saxophones at the same time. With the reed of the tenor sax in the right corner of his mouth and the alto sax reed in the opposite corner, Paul played while holding and fingering the valves of the tenor sax with his right hand and the alto sax with his left hand.

"I've been doing that for about 10 years. It isn't all that difficult to do. The hardest part for me in learning to do it was to get equal volumes of air to both sides of my mouth," said Paul, a music teacher.

'Good' attendance

helped '04 fest