Category Archives: Messaged from the Outhouse

The Hague Jazz Festival, Day 1

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Last night my friend G and myself arrived after a pleasant and uneventful trip (thanks to Netherlands Railways and KLM) at our hotel in The Hague and ambled over to the first night of The Hague Jazz Festival 2008. An impressive first night, we were able to check out Randy Brecker, Stanley Clarke and Nile Rodgers. The festival, set up in the World Forum Conference Center is immaculately organised, with thousands of happy punters ambling about, having drinkies, eating some lovely food and listening to some amazing music.

You really couldn’t wish for a more friendly party atmosphere, and there was none of the usual vomiting, violence or aggression that you associate with British festivals. 

First gig of the evening for us was Randy Brecker: This was held in one of the downstairs rooms of the venue, with about 500 happy, relaxed fans grooving to the delicious funk that was oozing from the stage. Surrounded by four musicians half his age, Brecker guided his troupe through an excellent set filled with some superb solos by himself and his outstanding sax player Ada Rovatti that completey blew me (and the rest of the audience) away. Well done Brecker for featuring such a talent in his lineup, especially as her presence and her soli were so much more impressive than his.

Picture courtesy of AdaRovatti.com

 

Next up was Stan (the man) Clarke. A packed auditorium holding ca 1500 people his gig was both beautiful and boring. When playing with his outstanding band, his music spoke for itself without the need for any technical gimmickery. When he started to get the double bass out and dazzle the audience with his skills, it got quickly boring: while it might be interesting to see a man treating his double bass like rhythm- and melody instrument at the same time, it was quickly obvious that this was more technical showcasing than music. Shame.

Stanley Clarke before he got the double bass out.

Picture courtesy of Haags Uitburo on Flickr.

 

The last gig on the evening was Nile Rodger’s Chic. That, my friends, was so far the best gig of the year. Great voices, grooves that even made my scottish friend move his feet and outstanding musicianship (I would pay money to see that percussionist again: think the Muppet’s ‘animal’ antics with the looks of Siegfried and Roy) , topped by a collection of amazing songs: Good Times, The Freak, We are Family, I’m going up, Upside Down, I want your love, dance dance dance, my forbidden Lover, etc. 

Thanks Niles. 

And now on to the second night…

 

Terminal 5. A Survival Guide.

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Today marks my eighth visit to London Heathrow’s flagship, the infamous Terminal 5. After my initial problems with this behemoth, I am starting to make my peace with it. I have no other choice, do I? So, here are my preliminary findings on how to make your stay at T5 as comfy as possible.

Checking in:

After the initial disastrous baggage handling, this seemed to have settled down (my bass guitar made it twice safely through T5), but it’s certainly not particularly fast (especially compared to Luton), so just don’t take that many frocks with you and limit yourself to hand luggage. If you have hand luggage, checking in takes literally 30 seconds thanks to the availability of numerous check-in terminals.

Security:

Security is thorough. Very thorough. If you forget that tube of toothpaste, a deodorant or some hairspray in your hand luggage, your stuff will inevitably be checked manually, and these guys take their time. You will also have to wait your turn for your mano a mano search. Today’s waiting time for a individual bag check was 30 minutes, so you better make sure that glass of Nutella is either in your checked in luggage or at home.

Gate A7. A nice place in a busy Terminal

Rest and Relax

There are numerous food outlets (my favourite being Wangamama, for the best mix of value, taste and location) and plenty of places to put your feet up, but if you just want a quiet spot to charge up your laptop and do some quiet blogging away from the masses (of which there are plenty), head to gate A7 with a coffee and a muffin and enjoy excellent views of one of the two runways, virtually empty seats and plenty of sockets to recharge your laptops.

If you fly Business or First, the Executive Club’s South Galleries are excellent spaces just under the roof of the Terminal with a good mix of food and drinks, but you’ll be invariably exposed to some rich American couple next to you who wants to talk to you about their daughter in Arkansas and the bad food and those horrible nude statues in Italy, so Gate A7 is probably quieter.

British Airways’ Executive Club Lounge. Comfy, but there’s the potential of harrassment

In quintessence: Don’t fret too much when going through T5. At present it’s quite comfy, but be afraid of the time when BA transfers all their long distance routes to the Terminal, as the place is going to be bursting with people, and Gate A7 won’t give respite no more.

Taking the Inter City Express in Germany

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After living in Germany for a considerable amount of time and having to endure the natives, I continue to refute the slightest notion of ever living there again. I acknowledge that it’s a great place to live in, with excellent infrastructure, safe cities, amazing public transport (more about that later), and visiting for a weekend is always fun, but I am always happy when I am back in my little remote village, surrounded by the sea.

Nevertheless, I never cease to be amazed by Germany’s railways. Forget the Autobahn. If you want land speed, take an Intercity Express and enjoy sitting in comfortable surroundings, being propelled forward at 300 km an hour, enjoying the greatest of Germany’s contributions to contemporary society: a Weizen Beer.

You have to hand it to them: nobody does beer in trains as good as the Germans.

The Best Contemporary Concert DVD?

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Today the mail lady brought a much anticipated DVD: A Japanese release of The Prince’s Trust ‘Produced by Trevor Horn‘ showcases the work of my all time favourite producer (hey, I spent my teenage years in the eighties. What do you expect from me? Jack White?). Anyway, in 2004, to celebrate 25 years of his bombast pop, he hosted the annual Prince’s Trust Wembley gig, showcasing some of the artists he worked with. And what a lineup that is:

  • Boggles
  • ABC
  • Grace Jones
  • Art of Noise
  • Yes
  • Propaganda
  • Pet Shop Boys
  • Belle and Sebastian
  • Seal
  • Liza Stansfield
  • Frankie goes to Hollywood

Now I have seen quite a bit of ABC, Frankie, The PetShop Boys and Propaganda live over the last two decades, but I honestly say neither of them ever sounded so perfect. This is a gig of massive proprotions to make Trevor Horn’s rich, orchestral sound possible: I am sure that it I still haven’t got them all, but I counted 8 brass/woodwinds, 8 strings, 8 backup vocalists (some people call that a ‘choir’), 2 drummers, Anne Dudley (the Oscar winning Anne Dudley, who also arranged ABC’s strings on the ‘Lexicon of Love’), numerous other keyboarders and 4 percussionists (including the brillant Louis Jardim), Steve Howe and probably half a dozen musicians I forgot.

This is truly a wall of music. I have seen ABC in various incarnations over the last 20 years, but I can not remember ‘Poisoned Arrow’ and ‘The Look of Love’ ever sounding so luscious on the stage.

Frankie (even in the absence of Holly Johnson) sound glorious, Propaganda, Yes and Seal are magnificent and Seal probably gives the best twenty minutes of his life. Grace Jones is amazingly pitch perfect but outrageous as ever. As a bass player myself it’s fascinating to see FGTH’s bassist to punch himself through ‘Two Tribes”s superfast plectrum based lines. That looks ike amazingly hard work.

All of the musicians look like they’re having an enormous blast. Just look at the face of the drummers. They’re so immersed and enjoying themselves, it’s infecting. I’ve caught myself jumping around the living room with my Macbook in my hands, headphones on head.

This means I have now have two favourite saturday morning DVD’s: Jamiroquai’s ‘LIve in Verona‘ and this. And it looks like there’s a UK release in the pipeline as well.

Get it. It’s worth it.

P.S. And to have a little bit more fun: here’s the world’s grumpiest prog rock band.