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Although I just could find a couple of minutes yesterday to remove the polka dotted header image, I've been wanting to write about The Pipettes' Saturday concert at the Roundhouse since then…

As expected, there were lots of girls, boys and children all dressed in polka dots, with lassos, tutu's and all that stuff. But there were also some unusual people, like a very tough, completely bald and square-shouldered complexion man, which we thought was a bodyguard at the beginning but ended showing himself as a sweet bloke, singing in the ear of his girlfriend and clapping the hands like the biggest fan ever.

There was also a completely drunk man that was miraculously able to stand, but oscillated continuously in an erratic way, sometimes hanging on the people surrounding him and other times placing his head about the shoulders of the poor attendants ahead.

Misty's Big Adventure were the support for the big act. I had never heard of them and I must confess they were quite weird. Somehow they looked to me like a circus parade, maybe because of the singer's hat - something like And now ladies and gentleman you're going to see the most unexpected show in Earth!!- and then that guy with the red suit and lots of hanging hands appears on stage, kind of scaring!

It was a real pity that the sound equalization for this band was soooooo poor. We just could hear the trumpet because we were in front of the girl playing it, and same goes for the chorus. The piano/keyboards player was extremely funny and amusing, with that way of moving the feet at the same time that she played. You have to see it for understanding it. We definitely want to listen more from them.

The big act, The Pipettes live, was somehow disappointing. Although they did really well, singing perfectly, making perfect jokes, etc, etc, it was all so perfect and prepared as it was in this concert I found days before. I always thought that a live was the opportunity to improvise or experiment with arrangements, expand songs a bit more, play them with a different rhythm, kind of interacting with the public, but maybe I was expecting too much from this!

Apart from that, and from the fact that I'm beginning to consider to bring with me a box in order to see something on the stage, I really enjoyed the evening, and quite liked the little funny details as the candies which we were offered before and during the concert (no, they weren't drugs!) and the confetti which was poured from above our heads in the last song, kind of resembling snow. It was so amazing to see people keeping the confetti in their heads after the concert had finished!

Something which surprised me was that I was expecting more fanaticism but people was quite quiet; apart from singing and dancing, nobody threw lingerie to the stage or cried or whatnot. The only passion act that we saw consisted in a lesbian couple having the time of their lives, right in front of a group of super-pure girls-with-mummy which were complaining about the artificial smoke in the concert hall prior to the beginning of the concert, and really looked a bit embarrased.

All in all, it was cool, but I'm not sure if I would recommend it to somebody outside Christmas period. You know, during Christmas we allow ourselves a certain degree of naivity but when it finishes it's kind of different… So it will depend on how innocent do you feel like!

PD We brought a camera but didn't charge it, so you'd better rely on this search for The Pipettes at Roundhouse in flickr for some pictures.

I went to the post office this morning to pick up a valuable item: the tickets for The Pipettes live at the Roundhouse next Saturday!

Since it's only two days until the concert, I take the opportunity that I give myself (since this is my own blog) and therefore declare the following days as Polka Dotted Days (note the header! look at it! - obviously it just works if the people which read the blog through the feed do come here and have a look at the header… now do it).

I discovered The Pipettes a couple of months ago, being curious about what other people were listening to in last.fm, and I discovered about this concert in last.fm as well, so it looks like it's working well as a music promotion platform :-)

And since I'm still regretting not having gone to a concert that La Casa Azul played in Barcelona a couple of years ago, even if they are not directly comparable, I thought it was a good idea to go and start the holidays in a funny way.

It all looks very much like american 60's-ish and those movies about High School graduation balls. I wonder if they will serve punch and choose the queen and the king of the party! Although being a Brit event, they will either serve mulled wine or alcopops or something like that, very girly. Who knows!

I'm looking forward to it - while trying to come up with a polka dotted something to dress with on Saturday, but I think I don't have anything like that (yet) :-)

We went yesterday evening to fruitstock'06. That is a music, fruits and innocence festival, but they also sold beer. Quite a lot of beer indeed! It is held in Regent's Park in London, quite near Baker Street, literary home of Sherlock Holmes!
I had misestimated the weather and arrived with my old sneakers, just in case the grass was wet or something like that but found that
a) there was not such green wet grass, after the extremely long heatwave we've had/suffered
b) it was extremely hot (even hotter because of the sneakers)

Luckily all my sufferings were payed when we went to the extremely long queue for buying drinks. There was a small counter for the thirsty people, and I'm going to do a little non-scientific estimation: the counter was about 6 metres long and there were like 4 people in a one-metre long row. 6×4 = 24 people in one row. There were approximately 6 row before reaching the counter, so that makes 144 people waiting to be served by just around 8 people (I can't tell that exactly since I never managed to see them all… but maybe they were less). That means that each barista had to serve 144/8 = 18 people.

And that explains the long time we spend there. It allowed us for missing almost all Nouvelle Vague live and the beginning of Norman Jay's one.

Once you got the drinks (at least they gave you like a carry-drinks thing) you had to find a way back to where your friends are, passing over hundreds of people sitting in the grass, picnic style. And I was feeling very sorry about having to spill beer over them, as we had to do all kinds of contortions, bends and twists for not stepping over the belongings (and feet) of the people, and obviously sometimes some beer went out of the glasses, and thus fell over the people. But I realised there was not any way of arriving without spilling beer over the people and sometimes stepping over their mats, so I had to do it. Next time maybe the organization could try to stablish some kind of paths so that everybody can walk over them without annoying anyone else, and without having to feel how people spills beer over your toes.
That last reason was the one which relieved me of having arrived with sneakers and not with flipflops - I hate the feeling of cold drink slipping between my little toes X(
Then the sound system was not as loud as it should have been, I think. It was complicated to listen to what they said from the stage - unless you're in the very first row but it was impossible to get there, and the artists weren't that interesting (although it was nice to listen to Gipsy Woman!).

I didn't enjoy the other activities which were proposed, mainly because I couldn't see/find them (so many people was there) but they looked interesting. Oh and another fact I liked was that when we left the place we noticed there were security men preventing people to enter until more people had left, for avoiding the crowd to grow too big. That is extremely good thinking!

On the other hand the ambient was quite relaxed, there was nice people as the organisation had described the festival, so it wasn't a bad evening. I like the idea of having festivals in parks in London (although I feel sorry for the grass as well), and to be able to just take a bus or a tube home when you feel tired - and be at home in 20 minutes.

Fruitstock is still on today so if you read this on Sunday the 6th you can still visit it! But bring your drinks from home and avoid long queues!

Yesterday evening started calmly. In a little coffee house near my workplace, I just realised once again my good luck which can be concreted more exactly in finding an empty table just near the window - to be able to enjoy the moving lights, the nice fade of colour from above to bottom due to the humidity- and also a newspaper ready for me just  over the table.
There are two things I love in this situation: the fact of having that free read there, without having to feel guilty about throwing it because it's useless after it's been read, and the ability to stop that evening, after a tiring day, and look at the other people in the street, walking quickly in order to catch next train home. I'm one of them sometimes, and it is funny to give oneself the pleasure to leave the drama and be just part of the public, from outside.

So there I was, waiting for I-didn't-know-what - literally. Trace had invited me to a certain something he didn't really know how was going to be like, in Barbican, which is quite near my workplace. That's why I just waited there until the meeting time. I was quite intrigued about the something. Would it be a performance? Would it be a play? An installation?
I also hadn't looked for it in Barbican's website. I just prefered to be surprised (preferably in a positive way, of course).

The ambience outside the theatre was quite interesting. It wasn't packed, but there were lots of people, each one quite different. They ranged from the usual super-artistic bohemian elements to the this-could-be-your-father type. And lots of oriental people! (Now I understand why ps has so many admirers in Japan. Keep reading)

The something consisted in an "audiovisual concert", as they call it. The "pieces" were formula and C4I, by Ryoji Ikeda.
I must confess that I was a bit scared with all the advertisement they had made, with notes everywhere and a voice announcement warning of stroboscopic lights and strong sounds during the first part of the show. I was trying to be strong!

I won't give details to not to reveal facts about the show - just in case you manage to see it. But I must confess that it was really very, very cool. It also gave me lots of ideas for future productions, and left me with lots of questions too. Of course, there were also people getting very, very nervous. You could see them, twisting themselves in their seats, even one man that was sitting on my left dissappeared after the interval.

So, all in all, a very well spent evening. Also, it's always great to be in an theatre and not to heard anything - even complaining or disgusted voices, as it's more usual when non-mainstream productions are played live (for example during demoparties). You somehow feel the public is more adult in these cases…

Next Great Event is almost here, and I still haven't finished preparing all the materials for the stunning live performance that xplsv is going to offer there.

Yay!! why do I always have the best ideas at the last moment? :'(

anyway, time to sleep!