The Tattoo

On Thursday night Derek and I went to the preview performance the 60th annual Edinburgh Military Tattoo, and it was absolutely amazing. Because it was a preview performance the media were all over the ground shooting video and photos of the performers, but it was only distracting when soloists were performing. The tickets were half-price, so we had amazing seats that we'll probably never sit in again, but I sure got some great shots. We were 6 rows up facing the castle, so the performers would come out towards us, and leave along the openings in the stands on either side of us. We had great views of the lights and images which were projected onto the castle, as well as the various formations the marching bands made during their performances.

The tattoo consisted of about a dozen bands (plus a choir and two groups of dancers) from around the world, most of them military bands, and about half of them highland/bagpipe playing regimental bands. It was the mass bagpipe performances that I enjoyed the most, although the unbelievable drumming of the Swiss Top Secret Drummers was probably the most exciting. I'd never seen synchronized drumming with fire! They were also the only group to drop something (a flag), but that didn't take away from their amazing feats. True showmanship!

There were a ton of memorable moments, the most shocking of which was at the very start when an RAF fighter jet flew overhead as the castle's cannons fired. That blew everyone away (not literally). The first time the highland musicians entered the performance area (the walkway up to Edinburgh Castle which is now surrounded on three sides by massive stands) was really striking. Linking arms and singing Auld Lang Syne with everyone else in the stands was also pretty cool. The Last Post, performed by three trumpeters on a lower platform of the castle, was followed by the Lone Piper higher up, and this was really beautiful. And the fireworks were great (I love fireworks! although not at midnight when I'm trying to sleep).

The finale, in which all of the participants came out, was pretty amazing (the conductor was up on a platform in the middle of the grounds conducting a couple hundred people), although the singing was out of sync due to having a second conductor conduct the Canadian male chorus who were way at the far end in the castle gate. I wasn't a fan of the live demonstration of the role of medics in Afghanistan, but I understand that this is predominantly a military performance and Britain is at war (though, as the emcee stressed, they're no longer in Iraq).

The performers came from all over, including China, Britain, Tonga, Switzerland, Australia and Canada. We actually saw many of them after the show on our walk home. We live about two blocks away from the castle, so as we walked along one of the roads around the side of the hill we passed a number of coaches (which is pretty typical, as there's always tour buses around there), but Derek spotted some costumed performers in them. It turns out they were all filled with the bands and performers, so that was pretty cool.

I'm really glad we went. We weren't really planning on going this year, but as more and people we know got their tickets, realizing we'd be hearing it every night anyway, and a gentle push from Dad all worked to get us up at 6am a couple weeks ago to get these tickets. I probably wouldn't go to a preview performance again, even though it was pretty funny to watch the photographers run backwards to avoid getting hit, so we'll probably never have such good seats again. But considering we've got a good view of the fireworks from our living room window (which are so loud I jumped at midnight last night, although I think it must have also been the cannons firing that made it so shockingly loud), I think any seats in the stands will be pretty amazing.

So if you're trying to decide when to come visit Edinburgh, August is pretty darn amazing around here (and so far no humidity!). But I think I'm going to find it pretty hard to get used to the noise of the fireworks and the fighter jets every night for the next 3 weeks!

The Fringe Approaches

Edinburgh really is a city of festivals, but August will really stand out as the festival time for the city.  It's during August that two of the biggest events take place: the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, and the Fringe Festival which runs from Aug. 7-31.  And we somehow have gotten ourselves sucked into the excitement and anticipation flowing through the city streets.

Derek and I don't generally go to things, we just don't.  At most we'd go to one concert a year, or a show if we know someone who's in it.  A friend of ours is performing in Rent during the Fringe, so I'll be going to that (Derek too, if I can't find anyone to go with).  Basically I don't generally pay attention to performances or concerts coming up, so when an act pops up that I would have liked to see I usually can't get tickets.  That happened here too.  Ricky Gervais is coming to town for one night with his new show, Science, and of course it sold out in a snap.  I would love to see him live sometime!  Between The Office, Extras and his HBO special I have laughed harder at his jokes (delivery) than I have at probably any other comedian.

We are going to get our fill of comedy in the coming month, even without a hit of Gervais.  Following the recommendation of a friend of a friend, we're hoping to go to the News Review, a comedy review of the past year's news stories.  We're also going with a group to An Improvised History of the World, which should be fun.  And with 2 for 1 ticket specials, some of these smaller shows become very appealing.  £10 for a good night of comedy isn't bad at all.

To get a better idea of what's on offer I picked a hardcopy of the massive Fringe program.  At 288 pages and organized by genre and venue, I've never see anything like it.  Flipping through I spotted an ad for Jimmy Carr, who will be doing a solo stand-up comedy performance on many nights during the festival.  You may remember Carr from that hilarious and awful game show, Disctraction, that aired on Comedy in Canada a few years back.  Derek finds him rediculously funny (he's very witty and controversial, saying awful and awfully funny things), so we got tickets to see him for Derek's birthday.

This past weekend felt particularly Scottish.  The Gathering 2009 took place down in Holyrood Park, and about 50 000 people came out to taste Scottish food, watch Highland games, hear the music, compete in Highland dancing and meet and find out more about the clans.  140 clans had tents and information, including my family's, the Davidson clan, and it was just a great atmosphere and a beautiful sunny day.  On Saturday night a huge clan parade took place, as members of each of the participating clans marched to the bagpipes (including those of the Canadian Legion's pipe band) along the Royal Mile from Holyrood Palace to Edinburgh Castle.  And this convinced me that I wanted us to see the Edinburgh Military Tattoo this year rather than next.  And since we'll likely hear it every night, we might as well see what all the noise is!

I went onto the Tattoo's ticket website yesterday and sadly found that every night was sold out, amazing considering it doesn't even start until Aug. 7.  But there was a glimmer of hope: at 10am on July 27, a limited number of tickets to the Aug. 6 preview of the Tattoo would be released.  Even better was that these would be half-price.  So we were up at 6am this morning and in line by a quarter to seven.  It was worth the 3.5 hours in line -- we got great seats in a better section than we would have if the tickets had been full price.  And I am so excited!!!

An interesting side-note: we're in the background of some STV news at 6 footage today showing some of the many of us who stood in line for hours.  And the girls who were next to us in line had their photo taken for the Scotsman newspaper, so we'll probably check that out tomorrow.  While we were in line I got chatting with the girls, who were also international university students, and the one's friend brought me back a hot chocolate along with those for the other girls in the group.  It was very thoughtful, and the sugar buzz helped make the time go by.