Post Fringe…

Wednesday, I decided not to go to the Usher Hall for some major orchestra stuff – just as well, because, although the orchestra arrived safely, their instruments did not and the concert was cancelled at the last moment. So, instead of feeling a bit guilty at missing the concert, I now feel lucky about not having wasted the time!

Last night, however, was different.
A gig at the Liquid Rooms featuring both Quicksilver Messenger Service and Jefferson Starship! In the Liquid Rooms. Weird, having two such seminal groups playing together in such a small venue. Although, having said that, given the numbers of attendees, they could have played Cabaret Voltaire instead… Maybe the marketing wasn’t right, or maybe nobody cares anymore…

Anyway, half seven start for QMS, who proceed to play a great 45 minute set. I’m not that familiar with their work (it was 40 years ago!) but some was instantly recognisable. Great lead guitar from Gary Duncan, and also Dave Freiberg (the 2 original band members) and the rest of the band, especially the bass player, Jeff Pevar. Quite jazzy at times, mainly when the keyboard player took his spots.

After a very short break it’s time for Jefferson Starship – not the bloated stadium rock band of the 90s (or was it the 80s? ) but a powerful, tight rock band happy playing smaller venues and still writing new music. The band looks fairly familiar – drums & keyboard are the same players as in QMS, their bass player has stepped up to lead guitar, and Dave Freiberg is back as guitar/vocals alongside Paul Kantner (both from Jefferson Airplane) and a replacement for Grace Slick called Cathy Richardson. She turns in a solid performance, both on the classic tracks like White Rabbit, Need Somebody to Love, etc and on the newer more folk oriented material and a couple of covers. Occasionally the female singer from QMS helps out on backing vocals, so the whole of QMS except Gary Duncan is onstage with Kantner & Richardson as Jefferson! Two groups for the price (or at least the personel!) of one! Jefferson are certainly louder and rockier than QMS, and the bass/lead player gets through an impressive assortment of guitars, etc – slide, mandolin, others it would take too long to describe, and Richardson plays some mean harmonica at one point. They played for about an hour & 20 minutes all in; excellent stuff, although I could have done without Imagine as the first song of their encore…

Much better gig than I feared it might be – but it’s nor every day you get the opportunity to see bands of their calibre and history, even if they are knocking on a bit!
On the other hand, Curved Air should be playing the Queens Hall in October! If they perform as well, I’ll be very happy!

The eX-Fringe

It’s not quite over yet, but I don’t know if we’ll make it to any more shows this year… may still manage an EIF event or two, though!

Back to Friday night… the book festival and Mark Thomas. Probably the only stand-up we’ve seen this year, unless you count Ben Moor. The marquee was packed and Thomas was very engaging and amusing as he related mainly anti-Coca Cola anecdotes. Good fun, but not particularly different from his tv appearances.

The next night, we were back in the tented village again, this time for John Howe. I’ve admired his illustrative work on book covers, etc. for years and now that he’s one of the artists behind the look of the  ‘Lord of the Rings’ films, much more popular! There was a rolling slide show behind him (and the interviewer) as they talked, apparently including some never publicly seen LotR work and he answered questions at length both from the chair (literary ed of the SoS, iirc) and the audience. Interesting, amusing and a good insight into his methods of working. I think both nights ended up with a pint at Reverie afterwards before we finally went home…

Sunday, we had a nice relaxing breakfast in St.Andrews Square waiting for friends from out of town – then we all went to hunt down the Fringe! We saw several acts as we meandered through the crowds towards the Pleasance, although the highlight was probably seeing one of the Aluminium Show men, who paused to pose for Madeleine. Good pictures, I know.
Anyway, finally at the Pleasance, everybody was far too vague about what to go and see, so all eight of us ended up seeing the show Madeleine & I had narrowly avoided going to last week (when we chose one that was cancelled, instead). I wish this had been cancelled as well; in fact, we all wished it had been cancelled! P.I.E. was just not very good. It was a meant to be a comic crime caper but despite moments when we laughed, it didn’t make the grade and was a real disappointment, especially for a couple of our friends for whom it had been their first ever Fringe show…
After that we climbed Arthur’s Seat to restore our spirits – good weather, but cloudy in the distance – and rerturned to go to Polaris; I had recommended it to ensure that they saw something very good and very ‘fringy’ while they were here. We all enjoyed it, even if it was 2nd time around for us!

More strolling about via one of the Teviot bars and then goodnight as some of us disappeared to the bus station and others to hunt for a car parked somewhere near Meadowbank. I assume the bus and the car were successfully tracked down as I’ve not heard from any of them since!

Fringe ix

Monday having been a mess, we also failed to see anything on Tuesday as the performance we wanted to see wasn’t actually on! Discovering this, I then aimed to close a little early and get up to the Churchill Theatre for 18.15 and a Marx Brothers inspired play revolving around the Animal Crackers script. Slightly annoyingly, just as I was about to close, the shop filled up with people coming to see Madeleine’s exhibition and it wouldn’t have been right not to let them. But they liked it, and they spent money, so that ws OK!

Last night we went to see Vanishing Point at the Sweet ECA. Very strange and sensual, with mythic resonances as several people on stilts (on their arms as well) put on an excellent performance representing or demonstrating evolution, totemic creatures, the domestication of animals, love, beauty and extreme bendiness!
It was very well done, indoors in an impromptu white space because it was too wet to perform it outside as they usually aim to do. They have a different show on at the Rocket venue which we may try to see on Sunday, schedules permitting…

We had meant to go on to see Geno Washington at the Jam House but Madeleine had had a long day (including a very damp trip to the Trossachs) and the reviews have been uniformly poor and it would have made for a pretty late night, so we didn’t go.
We’ll either go on Friday night or preserve our memories of just how good he can be by not not going after all…

Weekend Fringe…

Saturday evening was relatively quiet – a string quartet.

But not like any string quartet I’ve ever seen before! Pagaginni played at the Universal Arts Theatre in George Street and thoroughly entertained the capacity crowd. I don’t think it could be called slapstick, but they messed with the music, the audience, each other, as they performed various pieces (with interuptions!). Almost no speech, only the music and the actions as they variously rocked out or took umbrage with each other or fell in love. At one point I really wanted to shout ‘more cowbell!’ and I think it might even have gone down well… Great fun.

Sunday was a bit busier; we failed to get organised in time to have breakfast but started with The Greatest Bubble Show on Earth at the C2 venue. It catered mainly for fairly young children and their parents, but that didn’t stop us enjoying it. Definitely some great bubbles!

Next up was a lecture, Discover Kymaerica at the Sweet ECA. It was a straight lecture with slides but about an alternative world which shared our geography but not our history, and we listened to an hour of tales and legends, etc. from there. Following which we all trouped out to visit the plaque which has just been placed to comemmorate an event in the alternate world’s history. It’s an ongoing project; there are dozens of the plaques worldwide! We finished by singing a Kymearican song.

The third show of the day was One Small Step at the Universal Arts Theatre in George Street, a 2-man recreation of the history of the entire US space program, from the Soviets launching Sputnik to the success of the Apollo missions only 12 years later! Excellent, humourous show acted out with the aid of all sorts of props, from desk-lamps and plastic buckets to hoover hoses, and much more! Another almost sold-out performance.

After that, despite the odd coffee or pint, we needed food!
And got extermely good food at the Indian Tapas Restaurant in Infirmary Street – finishing just in time to cross the road and subject our selves to two hours of minimalist Steve Reich music and  dance to match! Actually, most of it was very good, although I was unaware when I paid my arm & a leg for the tickets that some of it was recorded, not live.

The 100 Metronomes were live though! Even if it did seem fixed so that the final ones ticking were all in a group in the centre and the ‘winner’ was the centre on of the front row. Hmmm….

The dancing was also somewhat metronomic, at times consisting of two dancers turning in circles (literally hundreds, I’d think) and slowly waving one arm up and down! Whatever you might think of the artistry of both the dance and the music, there was no doubt that these guys were dedicated! 20 minutes of playing almost identical sequences on pianos or vibraphones isn’t easy!
It was quite a performance, and at times almost hypnotic.

Today I’ve failed to get tickets for anything, so we shall huddle at home with hot chocolate and avoid the rain! The rest of the week is up in the air, too, as I still have to get tickets for events that may sell out first but there are still several we aim to see…

Fringe the Seventh

Friday night was music night!
Do the still say that on radio 2 these days?

Anyway, the music was Brazilian samba, with added martial arts! The show was the Capoeira Knights: Warriors of Brazil at St. Georges West and included a percussion heavy samba band – 7-piece, with a drummer and 3 percussionists, leaving a guitarist, a bass player and a flute/brass bloke… and  a female singer for some songs. There was also a troupe of guys demonstrating capoeira (the Brazialin martial art disguised as dance by the slaves who developed it) moves and genarally being very athletic!
Not sure if we could have been in the downstairs seating instead of the balcony; the stewarding was a bit lax and we blindly followed other people and ended up there! Probably a better view in return for slightly muddier sound, I guess…
If my camera battery hadn’t suddenly announced it was dead, I would have added a photo of some of them outside in the street afterwards, drumming and dancing. But I can’t, I’m afraid!

After that was a book festival event; Gavin Francis & Francis Spufford both reading from and talking about their respective polar books. Spufford had edited a collection of the best writing on the Antarctic (a companion to a previous volume about the Arctic) and Francis has a book out about his 5 month peregrination abound northern Europe, following early explorers and settlers to the various Atlantic islands, to Greenland and Svalbard and back to Lappland… All interesting stuff, although I chose not to buy the books – I already have too much similar stuff!

Cor, Baby, We’re on the Fringe!

Rosie of rm arts hosted another gallery opening on Tuesday, but it was completely packed (maybe because it was raining outside!) so we didn’t actually fight out way in to say hello. We did hear the live music she had laid on though. Well, the african drummer, at least…

A pint to dry out by at the St.Vincent – almost no beer on! – and up to Surgeons Hall to catch a performance I suppose I could have seen many times in the past 30 years! John Otway & Wild Willy Barrett!  They were great! Maybe not quite as manic as back when they did Cor Baby, That’s Really Free on the Old Grey Whistle Test &TOTP, but Otway was still jumping about like folk’s Iggy Pop! And Willy was playing a taciturn, jaded type like you might see in a trad jazz band (he looked a bit like Dr.John with his waistcoat & straw hat, ponytail etc) except he played some searing electric guitar, along with his banjo picking and bottleneck guitar and various other instruments. A lot of it sounded reasonably folky until every so often Barrett would suddenly go off on a solo of some sort, leaving Otway to try (or pretend) to keep up.

Festival Theatre from Surgeon's Hall

I knew about half the set, I guess, but never expected the instrumentation would include a theremin, big rubbish bin with a speaker in it for reverb, and a saw so Barrett could physically attack one of his guitars towards the end. Literally sawing his guitar in two as he played it! Then he got a hammer out!
I expect he knows a good source for really cheap guitars, as I guess he trashes quite a few!

Should have seen them years ago!

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And last night we considered a musical at Surgeons Hall after failing to get tickets for Aeaeas Faversham Forever at the Pleasance and finally settled on watching The Lost Spectacles perform Lost in the Wind along the road at the Zoo venue.
It’s the story of a man who takes a wrong turning chasing after his map and ends up in a very strange place. It’s populated by innocents whose gobbledegook speech almost makes sense as they go about their very strange lives. There’s very little speech – it’s all mime and physical theatre with odd bits of puppetry as well… It took a little while to settle to it but by the end it was thoroughly enchanting, with an ending curiously reminiscent of the ending to Polaris, which we had seen in the same hall – the same seats, even! – just on Monday!
At one point one of the figures – the newspaper person – reminded me a lot of one of Madeleine’s Alien Surfaces pieces, Our Lady of Darkness by Fritz Leiber…

Fringe, again!

Only one show last night; a quick exit from work and up to the main Zoo venue for Polaris, a physical theatre piece.

It features two men on an old-fashioned antarctic expedition,  pulling heavy sleds in bitterly cold conditions. One of them takes notes on the local fauna; penguins, seals, etc. and later, as their health worsens, they hallucinate about them and also dream about a successful conclusion to their trek. The soundtrack is excellent – mainly electronic with occasional weird bubbling noises creating a real sense of atmosphere.

I don’t want to say too much and spoil it, but the two man Czech cast were brilliant in the various roles they assumed, all without a single intelligible word!
And they got a well-deserved curtain call at the end.

Fringe 4

Saturday.

Not too bad a day at the shop and then we headed off to see The Man in the Iron Mask. We’ve checked the map, we know where to go! But Space have 2 venues 50 yards apart and we’ve assumed it’s in the one with the bar! Their box office doesn’t open until almost too late to tell us that the show’s actually in Old St Paul’s Church, not Jury’s Hotel! Damn that map! But I should have double checked because my shop and Fabhatrix (who also have an exhibition on) are swapped round on the venues map as well…

Anyway, we go (almost) next door and see the last night of a pretty busy, non-stop version of TMITIM, which I didn’t really know much about… It’s fun and fast with a couple of surprises – not least that Aramis (a musketeer who has become a priest by the time of most of the plot) is played by a woman.  And very well, too!

After that, we took a chance up at Southside Zoo (or so we thought). We checked out what was about to start and bought tickets for The Third Condiment, only to discover that it began in less than 10 minutes at the main Zoo venue,  several blocks away. Bah! Got the wrong venue twice in a row!

But, having got there in time, we thoroughly enjoyed it. No set and almost no props, just a play about several people trying to bring to market an alternative to salt & pepper! Lots of jokes and satire and just plain silliness (with a love story thrown in!) Strong script and a good cast, just what the Fringe needs!

Sunday.

Good start to the day – we go see an excellent little exhibition about the roots of Scottish Landscape Photography in the 1840s & 50s down at the Portrait Gallery. Fox Talbot, Hill & Adamson, other less known names and a whole side gallery (1/2 the exhibition) given over to John Muir Wood (no relation to John Muir) who was one of the main pioneers. Good stuff.
Followed by breakfast sitting outside in the re-juvenated St.Andrews Square…

And then things start going a bit wrong.
We skip one show to go see another, get there, buy tickets for the imminent performance, only to discover that the performance seems to be on at two different venues at differing times. And we’re at the wrong place with no time or inclination to dash across to where it is actually on. Fortunately we get a refund easily and retire to the Pleasance to drink beer in the shade of the tent at the rear. Soon we’re watching the heavens open and the rain drive everybody under cover… Madeleine photographs the rain pouring off the canvas…
After this, we decide on another show and end up buying tickets for Girl and Dean, only to be told when we get to the queue that a previous performer has broken a leg and Health & Safety have cancelled the next show while the paramedics, etc. assist him. Apparently there was a staged fight at the end of the show and one performer is supposed to suffer a broken leg. Only this time, he really did!
That’s what either Girl or Dean told us, anyway! So, another refund, some essential shopping, a pot of coffee at Rodi’s and out to Liberton to celebrate my sister’s birthday…

A fairly full day, but an almost complete failure in terms of going to fringe shows!

Fringe goings-on and on!

A brief visit to another Exhibition opening last night – Unreal Edinburgh, a selection of photos of Edinburgh culled from the Flickr group of the same. Some excellent shots – or captures, in Flickr speak, I believe – and free wine and nibbles!

The reason we were invited was that Madeleine is in the group and one of her pictures was on the short list, but just missed being selected. Oh, well… next time!

Suitably fortified, we went on to Cabaret Voltaire in time to catch the last song by Lee Patterson, the support act for Jackie Leven.

Jackie came on at 20.35 and played and raconteured right through until 22.00
It wasn’t really a lot different from the last time we saw him here (only back in March!) and most of the songs were the same… The between song chat was both familiar – I now really like his two terriers, although I’ve never seen them – and new – Celebrity Soap! There were a couple of songs off the new album and an older song called ‘The Garden’ which I have on the Live in a Norwegian Prison cd but maybe not on a studio release. My collection is stored very haphazardly but it wasn’t on the ones I did manage to check afterwards!

A bus took us almost home, with time for a pint at Reverie…

Good set; only gripes were the price of beer and that all the copies of his new cd were gone before I managed to get to the front of the merchandise table… grr. Guess I’ll have to shopping soon!

And this morning the weather’s back! Grey skies; steady rain. Hope it improves for Fringe Sunday tomorrow – I wouldn’t care to be a BCOAF member playing on a dreich day to a damp audience in a tent in a wet field!

see also Jackie Leven (March 2008)

Fringe goings-on

Despite the incessant rain – it’s almost stopped now after 2 days of heavy rain – we went to see a show called Wheels of Life by the Sharmanka Kinetic Theatre group. We’ve been meaning to go see their gallery in Glasgow for ages…

Princes Street was choked with traffic (the traffic lights were all out) so it was just as well I had decided to walk down to the Theatre Workshop to meet Madeleine. Fortunately, I chose one of the lighter spells of rain to do it in!

Anyway, the show was quite short, but pretty intense. It consisted of 16(?) large kinetic figures made of all sorts of discarded junk – from Singer sewing machines, to bicycle wheels, carved figures of foxes, bears, devils, all sorts of figurines pedaling, grinning, spinning. If you’ve seen the Millennium Clock in the museum, you know the kind of thing they do, although these were smaller and, frankly, weirder!

Individual figures were spotlighted as they did their piece and the music was varied, with additional creaks and wheezes from the figures as the rotated and capered about, sometimes strumming toy instruments. We had been issued with binoculars to view the action with, which really worked, as it concentrated your attention and allowed you to see much more detail than you would see otherwise, just looking at the whole stage.

Excellent, slightly spooky stuff!

And we got out just in time to get a bus right home, and out the rain!