Finally we made it to the performance night.

“first chorus: a retrospective” was a celebration of the first 4 years of Virginia Bott’s amazing Band of Singers. Such a joy to be involved with a magic and gorgeous bunch of good people.

The venue: Anytime Place in Brunswick. Gray Taylor and her team of speakeasy angels worked hard to get the venue looking its best. They are incredibly adept at adapting their environment to suit different kinds of performance.

The acoustics and sound engineering: Simon did a truly amazing job with the sound setup. What a dude. Thanks to Marianna and Ro for pointing out the need to turn down the band and the solo singers. Amazingly, we really had a good balance of volume from choir and soloist/band. (i heard later on from someone who sat both back and front that it was still pretty quiet out back in the standing room.

The audience: what a delightful and generous audience we had, filling out the space with warmth and focus.

The director: everyone knows now that Virginia Bott is a complete genius.

The new CD: Cave of Lights, the collaboration between Emma Tonkin and first chorus: band of singers is now available, hot from the CD burning presses. Launch should be around February. So lucky to have a preview copy that we gave a good spin last night after the gig.

Woohoo. Wish we’d recorded it.

Did anyone video?

Neon Toast opens in darkness.. but i won’t tell you why. Let’s just say the lighting arrives unexpectedly.

There are plenty of surprises in this delightful piece from Brunswick trio Eleanor Riley, Kerrily Aitchison and Rachael Dyson-McGregor.

A series of diverse dance pieces touching on life in a bakery, urban dating, the thrill of the chase. Such a beautiful sense of nostalgia in some of the scenes. Although there’s no time setting, it feels like the past, with jazz from the twenties and a bath before dinner. Gorgeous humour in the words and movement. Sifting flour through socks as all three women move so gracefully.

i really enjoyed this show.

Anytime Place has a strong record for astounding performance..
and Neon Toast builds on that tradition.

.

Links:

• Melbourne fringe festival show page.
• Don’t just take my word for it: Also reviewed over at Simple Things, and the Arts Hub.

Extraordinary moments.

For the Melbourne hall of fame 2009, i would nominate the Flying Scribble percussion artist gray taylor for her one-armed drumming set at the Wesley Anne, sunday 28th June.

Not only did she valiantly play with her left arm out of action, she played one song blindfolded. Go gray! You are a star and a legend. We love you.

Oh and Louise was good too. You both rock.

PS

Ooh look here’s Lou and gray again playing at Anytime Place in July, filmed by the Qua on his mobile phone. Video is lame.. get closer man, but it sounds good. This was a really good set. Many people dancing.

And guess what! Update! They’re having a CD launch (single) next Thursday evening 10th September at Wesley Anne.

Woo hoo. Can’t wait.

PPS:

yes Flying Scribble was magnificent:

• • Fab to see gray double-armed again.
  • And Louise’s new fully electric hot red mini-organ sounds just as good as the 6-ton-slider.
  • The Bon Scotts were fun too.

Here’s a review of the single already over at Mess and Noise where you can listen to the song.. in one piece if your bandwidth will do it. Oh and read the comments as well as the review.. you’ll find a funny NZ story and Ben Butcher’s shoot of the ladies gettin glamorous on a Northcote monkey bar.

Fly scribble fly.