Wednesday 29 August 2007

Today's my first proper day off at home for about three months, I think. I'll gradually deal with the countless piles of books and papers that litter the study.

Saturday was great fun. Enough of the audience were noisily enthusiastic for us not to mind that the critics didn't enjoy it particularly: a gig that like that in a venue like that is never going to please everyone. I'd forgotten that the Usher Hall organ has a carillon, which I hope wasn't too corny when I played it at the end of the big Orpheus saga. Lots of extra points to Johnny doing the lights who lit the entire organ up in red as I sat down to play it.

the view from the organ console in rehearsal

With five minutes to go, I mentioned to Adrian Huge that I hadn't managed to get any headgear for this gig, and he lent me his new black pork pie hat that he'd bought in the Grassmarket hat shop. I'll be going there on Friday I suspect. I decided against wearing one of Em's earrings though (see below).

ill-advised earwear

The prospect of free time approaching means that I may get to start the reading the enormous pile of books that has been building up. What with the comic shop in Moncton (where the guy behind the counter bore a startling resemblance to Comic Book Guy in the Simpsons), the Edinburgh Book Festival, and the very excellent local bookshop at home, my reading list is now quite long. 

At the Book Festival on Sunday morning, we went to hear Michael Rosen who was jaw-droppingly good. He just shambled on at 10am with his rucsac and performed for an hour, and it was like stand-up meets performance art meets poetry: completely virtuosic and seemingly effortless. What a master. I suppose 30 years and more of performing in schools teaches you how to work an audience and keep their attention.

later
I hope Bill won't mind me sharing this sentence of his, from an email to Andrew: it's too good not to.

There's something about playing the theorbo to accompany a singer who's busy pounding the shit out of a Steinway piano with a black rubber dildo while screaming 'Hallelujah Satan!' in falsetto to an audience of thousands that has given me a new sense of perspective about everything else I do.