march in parts, #3
Lunch with Dad, Wujek’s birthday, and a Yann Tiersen concert.
Monday, 19th March.
Told you the days were really dreary. On Monday, I headed off into town to meet up with Dad. I was meant to meet him at the Old Town, so I trekked through town a little and passed this place, which is rather obviously in the middle of being demolished.
Uh, the Irish pub on the way to the Old Town. Go the grammar! Maybe I should’ve told them?... Nah.
Tata, the lunch place.
All my photos are blurry these days. Sorry about that. Ciocia and I headed to the cinema that night (Luna, whoo!) to see The Wind That Shakes The Barley.
Tuesday, 20th March. Wujek Tomek’s birthday, which means food. Basically.
The table, and the birthday boy.
That first photo is, hands down, my favourite photo for all of March.
Friday, 23rd March. Yann Tiersen concert.
So! Yann Tiersen, the man who did the soundtracks for Amélie and Goodbye Lenin (among other things), came to Poland for the Francophonic festival. Fantastic. Got me some tickets, found me a friend (Karl-like Toronto Paweł from awhile ago) and prepared for a good night. As Tiersen's soundtracks (and most of his albums) are very string, piano and accordion heavy, I thought it’d be an interesting, relaxing concert. Two days before the concert, though, I started finding articles about Tiersen’s recent decision to change people’s idea of what he’s capable of. So, let’s just say the concert was… not relaxing.
The venue, Stodoła, which basically translates to “stable”. Oh yes, lots of band geeks here. And the crowd was fascinating - every second person was speaking something other than Polish. There were chicks with accents speaking French to my right (speaking it with accents, too, because it turned out one was Polish and one was British and French was their only shared language), someone speaking German behind me, and when Paweł showed up, our Australian and Canadian accents got us some weird looks. Yeah!
Now, the support band were Smooth, and they were an electro-soul outfit from France. Awesome stuff. They came onstage filled with energy and insanity; they kept everyone’s attention for the entirety of their set and had a lot of fun with it, too, which is rare in support bands.
In addition to their being fantastic performers, the lead singer, David, had a Gael Garcia Bernal thing going on - which means that, when the show was over, girls flocked to the merch table to get a glimpse and an autograph. I watched everyone fawn and then lined up to buy a CD. Hilarious. He greeted every girl with a kiss to both cheeks while a crowd stood around holding their coats, blushing, asking each other the name of the band and trying to seem aloof. Brilliant stuff.
In case you’re wondering, the CD is rather decent.
And then, after the support, Yann and his band came out.
One guitar; two guitar, violin.
Accordion; three guitar.
It was a very interesting concert, though the support turned out to be better than the main act. Tiersen was good, but everyone seemed to be a whole lot more interested in his soundtrack pieces than his new album, which was bordering on the metal side of rock. Great all round, but the audience got restless - and burst into life only when he brought out the violin or accordion and played something from Amélie.
After the concert, Paweł disappeared into the night and I headed slowly home.
Oh, and beer, the night after the concert. Not mine, of course.