Festival wrap-up

I must have blinked, because August is over.

There’s a build up most of the year, where everyone talks about how things will be ‘during the festival’, and so when it goes by so quickly it’s a shock to the system. For most of a month we looked out the door of the pub and saw hordes of people, a stage full of performers, talked to people about the shows they’d seen and cleared piles of flyers off the tables. Then, on September 1, everything was gone. The Royal Mile is back to its old self, the crowds have vanished, and we’re reminded very suddenly what regular life in Edinburgh is like. It feels bizarre.

I had a great festival. I saw some good shows. I took advantage of the 5 a.m. bar closing time (once or twice).

Also, unexpectedly, I developed an obsession with drums.

It started at the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, which Jase and I went to mid-month. Despite buying cheap tickets and having a view obstructed by a big speaker, the show was fantastic. The best part of the show was these fellows:

The Top Secret Swiss Drum Corp. Unreal.

(The Tattoo runs the month of August, and is held on the castle esplanade, so yes that is Edinburgh Castle in the background)

Then, for my pre-birthday celebrations, we went to see the Tom Tom Crew. Our boss has recommended it; they’re a troupe of breakdancing, beat-boxing, acrobatic Aussies. Awesome.

On two seperate occasions, while talking to customers at the pub, I was told that the Tao Japanese Drum group was the best thing they’d seen at the festival. And because we weren’t drummed out yet, we took that in as our last show of the year. It. Was. Amazing.

Some more festival highlights: (not these routines though, just some examples)

Reginald D. Hunter

Jason Byrne

METRIC.  Emily Haines sounds amazing live. They played this as an encore. There was much jumping.

There was much more than this of course. There was the one-woman show ‘Chronicles of Irania’, and Sylvia Path’s only play ‘Three Women’, and the musical comedy duo ‘Pig with the Face of a Boy’, the Sound and Fury troupe’s ‘Sherlock Holmes and the Saline Solution’, which I went to see because they’d played at the Lyric in Swift earlier this summer. I was not disappointed. I saw a few crap things as well, but the good shows and good partying and spending this last month in Edinburgh with good people made up for all the crowds and the busyness and the odd craptastic comedian.

This is it for Edinburgh, soon, I’m afraid. Jase leaves in two days for London and then Germany, Carla in five for Portugal, Lauren in two weeks to prepare to go to Nepal. Jenny S. already moved to Paris. And on September 20 I head to London and then Oktoberfest and then where ever my rambly heart desires. Oh it will be fun, but oh how I already miss the group of friends I have right here and now, which will shortly be no more. This is the hazard of traveling.

Sigh.

A few pre-festival notes

Dear Tourists Coming to Edinburgh;

Already you’re starting to arrive for the festival season, and as you walk around this fair city you might actually be thinking ‘Man, what a dump.’ Please know that Edinburgh doesn’t always look like this.

The bin workers have been on a partial strike for awhile now. They have a bone to pick with city council, and have lessened their rubbish pick-ups around the city to make their point – particularly in the tourist areas. Edinburgh is usually a very clean city; those piles of heaving bin bags you see on the street are not the norm. Please don’t let this affect your opinion. Edinburgh is lovely. (The rubbish bags have also caused an infestation of sea gulls, who like to pick them apart and spew garbage everywhere. It’s definitely adding to the Royal Mile’s charm.)

ALSO, Princes Street and Leith Walk aren’t usually blocked off and torn to shreds, but the city is in the midst of a ridiculous, over-priced, ill-conceived tram project at the moment.

I hope you can look past these things and see that Edinburgh is still a breathtaking city. She just has a few spots at the moment.

Sincerely,

Aasa

 

Dear Readers of the Blog;

There are already telltale signs that it’s festival season, though technically it doesn’t start until Friday. Outside the pub are bands of street performers in costume promoting their shows, more musical and street performer buskers than usual, and hordes of people. Not as many as there will be on the weekend, mind you, but loads.

When we say ‘The Festival’ starts, we actually mean a ton of festivals start. the International Festival and the Fringe Festival (the biggies), but also  the Book Festival, Festival of Politics, International Television Festival, Edinburgh Mela, the Interactive Festival, the Festival of Spirituality and Peace, and the Military Tattoo all take place in August.

It’s. Mad.

Also, most of the clubs extend their licences to 5 a.m. during August. My pub’s licence still ends at 1 a.m. Yummy.

Cheers,

Aasa.

 Dear Aasa’s Liver;

Prepare thyself.

Aasa.

festy

The festival season is coming to an end in Edinburgh. In August, eleventy-billion festivals happen in the city; this is the birthplace of the Fringe, and the Fringe alone has over 2,000 shows to take in over three weeks.

The pub where I work is on the Royal Mile, the stretch of street that extends from Edinburgh castle to Holyrood palace, where the Fringe street performers do their shows and show promoters force flyers into the hands of the throngs of tourists walking up and down the mile. I have a drawer full of them.

I’m glad I came to Edinburgh during the festival season, to see what goes on and take in some shows. I’m also glad I’ll be here once all the festivals are over, to see the real city, without having to fight through slow moving crowds to get down the street and being buried in flyers. I’m looking forward to feeling like I live here.

I will miss the inherent weirdness of festival. I’ve seen a man laying on a bed of nails and others juggling machetes atop tall unicycles. I saw the Guinness record holder for facial piercing wandering the streets. While I was waiting for my flatmate outside the beer gardens, a panda came up to ask me the time. I’ve seen lots of women on stilts.
 

 

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I have a great flat and a great flatmate, Lindsay, who just got a puppy, Otto.