mekyria | Summer darkness - update I (Reply)

Too tired to do the complete write up, but I still have a bit of energy left in me after three days of gothic festival fun. Actually, the festival was less fun then it used to be, because:

gunnar and swas weren't there!
The line was not promising
the festival organisation ccut severla of the fun items out, like the sunday picknick and the gothic walk :(

Still, there was fun to be had and black eyeliner that needed to be smudged. So Ikaiya and I started out on friday with Letzte Instanz, which was a nice German folk/rock performance. A bit heavier on the guitars then Schandmaul for isntance and without a bagpipe. The leadsinger made the crowd do his self-invented secret handsign for his band, forming an l with your right hand and a i with your left. Considering it makes you look like an idiot, he was pretty convincing and got everyone jumping and giving it a try. We caught the larger part of the Cruxshadows. The music didn't leave much of an impression, but they brought two cheerleaders and an leadsinger to amuse us with lights, flags, spontanious dancing of leadsinger in the audience and bright lights. It seemed to do the trick for most of the people there. I for one will not run to the neares cd store to buy their album, but wasn't bad. If I had to describe it, I would say it was vanilla taste gothic music. Then off to church, the midnight concert was by Sieben. His set was a bit heavy on the slow songs, but he's still pretty amazing.

Saturday
Since the weather was incredible hot I thought I'd go with a skirt and shirt, but it was slightly colder and I went with the victorian skirts instead. Topped with my good old PVC Vollers corset by lack of the matching jacket, that I didn't make. First stop was the Catherijne Convent, a former convent that is now a museum of Christian (art)objects. I visited it a couple of times before to see the treasures of the pope. My mother visits quite frequently for her study in Theology. We did a short tour and a kind of workshop in calligraphy. The guide brought us to an empty classroom, pointed us towards stencilled examples and materials and off we went. Ikayia did her last name, I tried my hand at enlightening the capital of my first name but got a bit frustrated when the red ink turned out to be runny and my intened dragon became a big blob.

We went to Tivoli the Helling for Rose Kemp: watched a song, then walked back. Definitely not my cup of tea, though I applaud the leadsinger for wearing a vintage beaded dress. The black cloak might have been a bit over the top. The music didn't appeal to me because it was intended to be very dramatic, and less about technique. As with bellydance, I say: you can only get away with the dramatic look if you back it up with solid technique.

After arriving at the dom square once more, we caught the last part of Siebens show (This time varied with some livelier stuff). We went through the market place during the fashionshow and stayed for balfolk with Celts without Frontiers. Sofar I've heard basic folk stuff from them: they are technically sound, I'm guessing conservatorium students, but they don't have their own sound yet. The charming leading lady explained several balfolk dances and they did a couple of songs afterwards to dance too. Pleasant weather, nice music and belgium waffles with whipped cream and strawberries: what more could we ask for? I even did an attempt at Tango with a guy named Onno.

Orfeo did a set after Celts w/o Frontiers. We danced a little, decided that we were tired and went home. Ah, the days when we could party all day and night!

Sunday
I slept in late, though Jeoffrey was even later. Sleep deprivation gave me a headache but I took asperin and went out anyway. I need at least nine hours of sleep a day to feel rested and have to catch up in the next few days. The first concert was Tyr at 15.00 and it was a pleasant suprise. Tight guitarlines, great vocals by three of the bandmembers and beautiful melodies. They have my vote!!Korperklaani was a disappointment with less music and more screaming. eriously, incorporating folk is more then having a fiddle and screaming a Finnish folksong. It vaguely resembled the version on one of the albums of Laïs and with the thought that I would be better off listening to my MP3 collection, we took off. The last concert was acoustic: Floor Jansen and a string quartet, playing songs from her band After Forever and other work. Set in the museum 'Van speeldoos tot Pierement', in a renovated church (we have quite a lot of them in the medieval city center) her voice was magnificent. Incredible, it gave me goosebumps more times then I could count.

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