Little local festivals can be a load of fun. Just like this one was the other week. A lovely sunny weekend (mostly) and some nice music (mostly). What could be better?
Category: Festivals
This is mainly going to be music festivals, but it could be any kind of festival I suppose.
I found the most amazing thing ever, the Onion Bhajee Scotch Egg
Yeah, I didn’t believe that they were for real either. But they are, and they taste amazing! I got one at the Beyond the Border festival this weekend, which is a great place to be by the way.
Not sure about the spelling of Bhajee though.
Barrow Hill Beer Festival
What a great venue for a beer festival! Lovely beer too.
Edinburgh Festival: Pirates and Mermaids
This is possibly one of the best pieces of theatre / storytelling I’ve seen in a long time. The audience was limited to 8 people per show, which was an hour and a half long. It was incredible. We were asked to our phones on silent but not to turn them off. A strange request, but one that made sense. I won’t tell you why, but if you get the chance to see this show, see it. You won’t regret it, I promise.
Edinburgh Festival: The Bridge by Benjamin Scheuer
To say that this was a moving performance would be a huge understatement. It was incredibly emotional and Benjamin poured his heart and soul into it. I love the songs and the craftsmanship that they showed. In fact, so much so that I bought the album on vinyl. It’s well worth it.
His material is also available for free on SoundCloud too.
Annual trip to the environmental fair
I go to this every year, or at least I do my best to, and it never fails to please on so many levels. Firstly there’s the music, which is probably my main reason for going. There’s three stages, a main stage, a cafe stage and a performing arts marquee. The main stage is ok, I did see one thing that I liked on it this year, which was a band using repurposed tech like guitar hero controllers to make some fairly enjoyable lofi music.
The music cafe had mainly a mix of folk and blue which was really nice, and great to see a hurdy-gurdy on stage in one of the bands. In fact there were quite a lot of acts on here that I enjoyed listening to. Nothing that I’d probably go out of my way to seek out, but very pleasant listening nonetheless.
Lastly there was the performing arts stage. There were a few things on this that I really liked and a couple that I intend to seek out when I have some time.
So, overall in terms of music it was a really useful, enjoyable, and left me with one or two things to follow up on. But that wasn’t the end of the day.
But I’ll save that for another post.
Edinburgh Festival: The Improv of Being Earnest
I was always a big fan of the TV show “Who’s line is it anyway” and so thought this might be a good show to see. It was. All the improv elements were provided by the audience before we went in to see the show and then called out by the director after ringing a little bell. It worked very well and was very funny indeed.
Loved the show.
And there were fireworks too
in Edinburgh
I love the Edinburgh festival. It’s amazing.
Edinburgh Festival: The Sign of Four
I do like Sherlock Holmes although I’m no expert on the books. This stage version of the “The Sign of Four” was excellent. Running for just over an hour in what can only be described as a cave off Cowgate with only five actors it was to say the least, inventive.
Whilst the venue was somewhat lacking, even by fringe standards the performances more than made up for this. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.
A day at WOMAD
Main stage
Radio 3 stage
Big red tent
Only for the day
Ticket
I go every year and love WOMAD, but, not in the rain, and this time around it rained and rained and rained. It was a shame as the day had started really well. But by 9pm it was wet, muddy and cold. I hope it’s better next year.
I am Ashley Elsdon 