Posted by karooch on
June 29, 2010
The Cat and the Celtics
The Cat in the title doesn’t have four legs, doesn’t meow and is in fact the singer/songwriter formerly known as Cat Stevens.
My daughter Seona has been a humongous fan ever since she was 13; fourteen years after he gave up his singing career! So when I found out that he was doing some concerts in Australia I knew that tickets to see him would be the perfect birthday present for her.
With the help of her partner Phil we arranged that I should fly up to Sydney on the night and meet her for dinner before the show as a surprise. There were a few hiccups in the plans along the way (not least when I accidentally on forwarded the two tickets to her) but through a web of lies and deceit we managed to keep her in the dark and the surprise was wonderfully successful.
She was totally wound up for the concert; having loaded her iPhone with his entire catalogue and spending the last two weeks revisiting every song he’s ever recorded. So I was a leetle bit nervous that the actual show might not be able to live up to the high expectations.
Fortunately my fears were unfounded. We both had a fantastic time and Yusuf (as Cat Stevens has been known for the past 30 years) put on a magnificent performance with two hours of solid quality.
Seona was totally melted when he sang Sitting (the song that first got her into Cat Stevens). All the favourites from the old days were there and also some new stuff which we both enjoyed too. Amazingly his voice doesn’t seem to have changed at all over the last 30 years. He sounded exactly like his recordings.
Plus his interaction with the audience was brilliant. You really felt that he wanted to be there and was putting on the show just for you. He laughed and joked in a relaxed way with just enough chat between the songs to keep the flow going.
The light show was wonderful with some magnificent art work and Yusuf gave us a taster of a musical show he’s written called Moonshadow which we’re very excited about and are keeping our fingers crossed that it’ll come to Australia.
It’s always risky going to see someone that you have been a big fan of as often your expectations can be impossibly high and it’s easy to find yourself disappointed with the reality. But fortunately all expectations were met by Yusuf last week, and then some.
The Celtics
Long time visitors to Scraps of Mind may remember that the last weekend in June is when I get my annual Folk Fix. The Kilmore Celtic Festival (14 years and going strong) is where Allan and I rug up warm and head up the Hume Freeway to spend a day immersed in Celtic music of every flavour.
Once again Kilmore imported the weather directly from Ireland and Scotland for the event. I realise that the cold in Australia may not be of the professional standard of cold that some of your homes may achieve, but let me tell you Saturday in Kilmore was plenty cold enough for me. Still when the craic is good and the wine is flowing (sorry, I’ve never come to terms with Guinness) what do a few frosty fingers matter?
Several of our favourite acts were there again this year. Bhan Tre returned with a new and excellent fiddler from Dublin who’s backpacking her way around Australia. And of course what would Kilmore Festival be without Ced le Meledo and Bric a Brac; always a great act to watch and listen to. And the Breton/French music adds some great variety to the Scottish and Irish tunes.
Our new band to watch this year is called Shannachie and they’re from the Lake School of Celtic Music. This place seems to be producing some great future talent. They’re still a bit unpolished in their stage presence but we definitely liked what we heard.
And we got a double helping of Braemar this year. Braemar always bring out the Scottish in me, even though there’s really none there (I’m Irish t’be sure). Eddie has the perfect voice for those Scottish laments. This year Eddie and Marc were joined by a couple of friends on the fiddle and the uilleann pipes. The sad thing is that it was Braemar’s final year at the Festival as they are disbanding in the next couple of months. So thank you Eddie and Marc for all the great Festivals we’ve enjoyed with you and we wish you the very best for the future.
As the day drew to a close we head south a few kilometres and called in at my sister Elaine’s place. Also now a tradition for us. A warm and toasty evening with yummy food was the perfect end to another great Kilmore Celtic Festival Day.
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Posted by karooch on
February 16, 2010
Culture in the Colonies
There’s a great scheme going on with some of our independent movie theatres over the last couple of years where they do direct live broadcasts of operas from the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
I’ve been going for the last 18 months and the experience is fantastic. Not only do you get a fabulous high definition up-close-and-personal viewing experience of the production (and The Met productions are seriously over the top), but you also get to see what’s going on behind the curtain when the scenery is being changed between acts. And that has to be seen to be believed. And on top of that, the whole thing is presented by a leading opera star, such as Placido Domingo or Renee Fleming, who catch the lead performers as they leave the stage at the end of an act and chat with them.
A couple of theatres in Melbourne subscribe to this broadcast but my venue of choice is The Sun Theatre in Yarraville; a beautifully restored art deco theatre with intimately sized theatres and comfy armchair style seating. The last opera production was a couple of weeks ago. Bizet’s Carmen, a well known story and a truly magnificent production. And because it’s broadcast live and has plenty of close-up camera work, you get to see all the little prop malfunctions and how the performers deal with them in such a way that the people in the ‘real’ theatre would not actually see.
Just recently The Sun have branched out in this area and are including ballet performances from the Russian ballet as well as plays from the West End of London. These aren’t broadcast live but they’re recorded live and are presented within two weeks of the actual performance so there’s a feeling of currency about them.
I went to my first play on Saturday: Nation by Mark Ravenhill based on a book by Terry Pratchett (nothing to do with the Discworld Series of which I am a huge fan). It’s a production from the National Theatre, London.
“A parallel world, 1860. Two teenagers thrown together by a tsunami that has destroyed Mau’s village and left Daphne shipwrecked on his South Pacific island, thousands of miles from home. One wears next to nothing, the other a long white dress; neither speaks the other’s language; somehow they must learn to survive. As starving refugees gather, Daphne delivers a baby, milks a pig, brews beer and does battle with a mutineer. Mau fights cannibal Raiders, discovers the world is round and questions the reality of his tribe’s fiercely patriarchal gods. Together they come of age, overseen by a foul-mouthed parrot, as they discard old doctrine to forge a new Nation.”
I wasn’t sure how I would go watching a stage play in a movie format. And it took me about 15 minutes to get my head into the right sort of place. But once I was there I truly enjoyed the experience.
The production mixed projected film and puppetry in an unlikely combination with the ‘organic’ performance in a way that worked wonderfully. Speaking as someone who likes a story to be delivered pretty straight and not given an ‘arty’ treatment I was a little nervous of how this was all going to come across. But it worked brilliantly.
I’m always fascinated by stage productions and how so many different places, moods, times etc. can be created ‘live’ in front of your eyes without all the ‘trickery’ that’s available with cameras. The Nation production was a minimal scenery production (not usually my favourite option) and performed on a revolving stage that centred on a dome that represented the Asia Pacific region of a globe of the world, and doubled as the deck of a ship and a South Sea island.
All the performers did a wonderful job and the script explored some interesting corners of the human psyche, whilst still being a fun and entertaining story.
Because they had only received the file from London that day, the Sun team hadn’t had a chance to give it a run through to test it and sure enough, we had a couple of glitches. We lost the last couple of minutes before the Interval and, more importantly, the curtain came down two and a half minutes before the end. Things were looking ugly in the theatre when the management came to apologise for what had happened and said that if we could hang on for about 10 minutes they’d get it sorted and we’d get our ending. Then they gave us all a complementary pass to sooth ruffled feathers and all was well.
So if you’re fortunate enough to live in or around London and you’re looking for something a bit different (without being off the wall) to see, I can highly recommend Nation.
And for everyone else, why not check out your local independent cinema and see if they participate in this worldwide broadcast scheme. It’s a great way to try out something different without buying expensive tickets.
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Posted by karooch on
June 29, 2009
Kilmore Celtic Festival 2009
Someone must have pressed the fast forward button and whizzed the year through, because I can’t believe it’s been a year since we headed off down the Hume Highway on our annual pilgrimage to the Kilmore Celtic Festival.
And of course, my annual homage to the event.
I made this layout using Marcee Duggar's Music Kit with some embellishments from Amy Cheeseman's Heartsong. I'm going through a phase of blending my photos so that they form part of the background paper at the moment.
Once again I meant to buy the early-bird tickets and get the discount. Once again it slipped my mind. Once again I almost forgot which weekend it was on.
But despite all that, once again I have had a great day out at my favourite folk festival.
Kilmore lies about 40 minutes drive north of Melbourne. So from my perspective it’s one of the handiest folk festivals I can get to. And an added bonus is that my sister lives ten minutes away from Kilmore on the way home so it’s become a bit of a tradition to stop there on our way back for a bite to eat and a cosy catch up in front of their fire.
The Kilmore Celtic Festival takes place on the last weekend of June each year and kicks off with a dinner and cailaigh on Friday evening, culminating with a big lunch and concert at one of the Kilmore pubs on Sunday afternoon.
And in between there’s Saturday!
A day packed full of great bands, musicians and singers as well as markets, dancing and workshops.
Kilmore is a small festival and for me that’s part of its charm. There are always plenty of new acts to sample as well as many old favourites to revisit. And this year was no exception.
My favourite band, Ced Meledo’s Bric-a-Brac were in fine form. They represent the Breton contribution to the Celtic culture. And Ced is cute, French and wears leather pants. What more could you ask for? Oh yes, their music is great to listen to.
Another favourite act, Braemar, opened the Festival and woke us up to a set of Scottish balllads. And we enjoyed the return of Bhan Tre who are always great to watch. Each year we like to find a new act that we can add to our favourites and this year we came across two. Both are young bands from the Lake School of Celtic Music. One is called Rant and the other is Dram. Definitely two bands to watch out for on the celtic/folk scene.
And, in what has now become part of our Kilmore Festival tradition, we stopped in at Elaine and Greg’s on our way home. Topping of a terrific day with home made pizza and wine.
Aaaah! Life’s good!
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