“Edinburgh is a beautiful city of winding cobbled streets and gorgeous old buildings with that amazing castle on the hill presiding over the whole city. Every August the sleepy capital of Scotland is transformed by the arrival of a massive month long festival, the biggest arts festival on the planet as a matter of fact. The festival draws artists from every corner of the globe like bees to a honeypot – music, theatre, comedy, literature, you name it, it is all here, from huge names to newcomers, and ‘mid-career’ artists like myself. It’s hard to convey the sheer magnitude of the scale of the festival. This is not a big field with a bunch of different sized stages, the whole city is pulsing with art and it is intoxicating. Every possible venue in the city is overflowing with culture, from the opera house to the streets, from rock venues to theatres, gardens and churches, you name it, someone is doing a show there. Shows start from mid-morning and go through into the wee hours of every day, nonstop. Of course, it’s not all pretty. The swarms of people on the streets can drive you crazy, and the sheer volume of acts here means that there is plenty of crap as well as great stuff. That’s why I make my home in Edinburgh at the Famous Spiegeltent.
The same tent that has been gracing the Arts Centre forecourt in Melbourne for so many years, has been coming to the Edinburgh Fringe almost every year since 1995. It is a home away from home for great Australian artists and international artists. Over the years at the festival, I’ve seen everyone from Meow Meow to Paul Kelly grace the Spiegeltent stage in this fair city, its also where I first crossed paths with my buddy Amanda Palmer and the Dresden Dolls back in 2006. Myself, I’ve been playing shows with the Spiegeltent in Edinburgh since 2003, so we have a long and loving relationship. Safe to say, I’ve played more gigs in the tent than in any other venue in the world. This year I am doing two shows a night, seven nights a week at the Spiegeltent for the whole month of August and it has been rammed with great audiences. The club that runs every night from ’round midnight is a wild, free for all MCed by myself and piano player extraordinaire Dannie Bourne. Literally anything can happen at Club Spiegel and regularly does. We’ve had everything from spontaneous 8 piece Cuban bands turning up, to wild Kaperwera dancers, through to yours truly singing Venus surrounded by a bevy of dancing nymphettes from the audience – its a tough life. Just last night I saw two great Melbourne bands at the Spiegeltent – Flap! and the Perch Creek Family Jug Band. Flap! are at the tail end of a seven week European tour and are sounding amazing, they had the crowd in the palm of their hands. I’d never seen the Perch Creek family Jug Band, and they are a hoot! They really are a family, the gig is like a swingin’ , wisecrackin’ backwater rock’n’roll hillbilly shindig and the audience love it. Shout out goes to sister Eileen whose melodic buzzsaw voice reminded me of a young Wanda Jackson, and her manic tap dancing threw in some Ginger Rogers as well, doesn’t get much better than that. Melbourne funk/soul collective Saskwatch are due to arrive in town any day now for a run of dates at the Spiegeltent, something to look forward to.
For me, this is the the way to tour. One night stand gigs are not as romantic as you may think. Endless tours where you end up in a new town or city every night quickly loses its appeal. You see more of airports and the tour bus than anything else, and there isn’t a whole lot of connection to the place where you are. Going to a festival for a whole month means you play a lot of music and you make a lot of friends. Through the years of coming to Edinburgh I have built a huge network of friends and contacts here that I only see every August, and that’s also true of many other artists who return here each year.”
BY MIKELANGELO
