Playing Catch-up

Actual Date: 9 August 2008

The next few posts took place last weekish and well... not today, but I've been totally lazy about writing. Though, I have an excuse: we're moving in less than a week! So anyway...

We decided to partake in some of the Festival Season flair tonight by surveying the Free Scene. Much of the festival stuff costs upwards of $10 per person, and we're trying to save some money, so we've been trying to find free stuff to do. The Guilford Arms pub was hosting a Jazz Festival (I wish I had a footnote ability on here, but the "Fringe Festival" is really an umbrella term for a whole series of smaller fests featuring all kinds of acts that all book through the same office, for convenience and marketing's sake). So we head up to New Town. I took a couple of shots as the sun went down and the moon came up on our way there; not so bad for me and my point-and-shoot. We just didn't feel like hauling a real camera around that night.


I've aways been a fan of jazz, and sometimes it just gets too expensive to indulge, but this was really nice. Nice = free! The band was interesting, in that the lead singer was not the head of the band; this honour (like the extra letter?) went to the drummer. There was also a 2 clarinet players, one of which was the singer and another of which was also the sax player. Plus a very intensive banjo player that we had seen before during our interlude in the Grassmarket a couple of weeks ago. The atmosphere was quite nice, not quite jazz cellar (the Jazz Bar holds that designation), but the traditional oak bar holds some sway with the ambience. They played a whole slew of stuff, from dixie to New Orleans to more classy piano jazz done masterfully on drums and a clarinet.

On our way home, we stopped to catch the tail end of a free stand-up by an enthusiastic Yank and the Canon's Gate pub in their dank and totally retro basement.

The Balmoral Hotel at Night

A shot of the jazz players through the window... a little shaky because the camera is just a little point-and-shoot, and it doesn't do so well at night