Festival of ...sloth
Having recently returned from my choir's annual trek down to Denmark for the Festival of Voice I spent the day looking at my suitcase contemplating unpacking it and doing some washing.
It was a blast as usual although next year it was suggested we stay somewhere less nice so that we're more inclined to actually participate in festival events instead of socialising in our chalets which where situated on Mount Shadforth overlooking some truely magnificent scenery!
Friday morning I packed and actually managed to get off on time, a friend Nikki catching a lift with me. The trip was pretty good,with us only stopping once for lunch in Williams before getting into Denmark around 3pm. We bumped into the condictor of the Gospel choir Band of Angels (or Bandof Angles as I like to call them) in Williams and then stumbled over 6 choir members in the Denmark IGA store as we picked up snackage and breakfast foods before heading up to the chalets (about 12km out of town). Spent the afternoon/evening getting settled in (moving my bed out into the lounge area because I snore a little) and visiting the other chalets as choir members turned up. Also made the discovery at this point that i had forgotten my pajamas...they were sitting on my bed waiting to be packed! argh! A bunch of us decided to go into town for the first evening concert (to 'get it over with' as some stated because that way they could feel guilt free about not doing anythign else the rest of the weekend). The concert was quite enjoyable with the last group "Totally Gourdgeous" stealing the show with their crazy orange outfits, manaic instrument playing and entertaining lyrics. all their instruments are made with gourds by one band members which is fairly impressive since it included guitar, base, drums, and a uke type mini thing! Checked out the 'festival club' afterward which is basically a post-concerts jam fest venue. It was ridiculously crowded but that was the way it went in denmark as they sold out on tickets andyet never seem to manage to cater for all the people they KNOW are coming . Seriously, the locals seem kind of bewildered by all these people wanting to buy food and stuff even though they know 500 plus people are coming into town for the weekend!
Saturday I decided to skip the workshops as there was nothing there that looked particularly interesting and instead introduced some choir peeps to Guitar Hero from which point onward they were totally hooked . I, of course, kicked their asses since it was their first time playing the game ;) Lunch about 15 of us wound up going to the old butter Factory which has a gallery and restaurant where I had an amazing steak sandwich which had a giant melty slab of camembert on top...yum! I found a beautiful necklace but at $157 resisted the urge to buy it as I don't really where necklaces all that much. It was very cool though, green (predictable) and had an om sign that looked like a 30 which I thought appropriate for me ;)
Anyway the weather took a turn for the soggy and while it was absolutely pelting down a bunch of us decided it was the perfect time to head to the Valley of the Giants for the treetop walk. We were literally the last people they let in since we just bolted in the door at 4.15pm. It was amazing as always, I love being suspended so high in the air in the treetops! Luckily hough the rain stopped just in time for our arrival there! Brillinat!
Dinner we decided to make pizza for eveyone as the town restaurants were booked out so we bought food. Now earlier in he day I had mentioned to a fellow soprano that I was going to buy a bottle of tequila for the evening, an she, and a third sop who heard us talking decided to split some jose cuervo between us. Despite the fact that we had agreed not to be the party house...the evening party was at our chalet that night! Being the kitchen control freak I took over making the pizzas with help from housemates, which we then served to the 20 or so people who rocked up at our chalet that night . After that some dvd's came out with past choir performances (including me singing "Hopelessly devoted to You" ) at which point I cracked open the tequila and the night got a LOT blurrier from that point onwards. Things of interest in the following hours though included some drunken singstar (I insisted on 'Girls just Wanta Have Fun' since the final bones ep inspired me, and then make Nikki mosh with me while singing Song 2 by blur). I think the singing was bad because most of the party gravitated outside where Dave was playing the guitar like a champion and everyone else sang, shook things or in Carole's case played rhythmic but totally out of tune harmonica acompaniment . 2 broken wine glasses later! At one point we even did the Time Warp, Hokey Pokey and birdy dance! Yeesh. Meanwhile in the house I had a bunch of newly addicted guitar hero freaks battling on. Apparenlty even when smashed i still had enough coordination to kick their assess and retained my GH Queen status for the night. Phew ;)
Sunday woke up and was pleased to discover I still had a voice despite the abuse from the night before...which was a good thing since our choir performance was that afternoon. I did however, also have a headache, and once my brain caught up with my stomach, was also rahter nauseous and had to eat a dry piece of toast shotly after getting up in order to settle things down . Everyone else of course found this hilarious nad told me I was extremely entertaining the night before. Good to know! Anyway through etremely bad planning it had been decided the day before that the usual big breakfast cookup was to be at out chalet that morning so once I was feeling less like hurling I and the other housemates started cooking up breakfast as the rest of the freeloaders arrived around 10am to chow down. There are a LOT of photos of me from this morning looking a bit worse for the wear.... 4pm we met in town for a last warmup and rehearsal before our performance at 5.30pm. I had a blonde moment and freaked out thinking i had left the scarves we wear in performance back at the chalets. At someones suggestion i called people who had yet to leave and got them to go check out chalet...no scarves...at which point i ran to my car and found them exactly where I had put them. DOH! Despite the partying the night before we did pretty well, the only problems being the pianist forgetting to repeat two bars and not realising for a while before catching up in "Summertime"...and then we paid her back in Bohemian Rhapsody by speeding up so much i don't know how she managed to keep up! The audience loved it though!
Dinner that night had been booked at the local pub...yet another venue which didn't cope with the numbers as out table of 25 took 1 and 1/2 hours form the first person getting served their meal to the last which was served in a takeaway container! I then headed to the venue where a group called "Spooky men of the West" were to be singing. It was freezing cold and the hall had a capacity of 100 only so me and a bunch of others stood chivering at the door for the whole concert hoping osme people would leave so we could go in...sadly this didn't happen but i did manager ot at least get to the front of the waiting crowd so i could see form the door . Predictably the crowd at the door got a little restless waiting in the freezing cold and many jokes were cracked resulting in a lot of giggliing and whispering. This was greatly exaserbated when one of the door Nazi's stormed out and asked "Who's giggling?!?" at which point we ALL lost it! SO FUNNY! Anyway Spooky men were *totally* worht the wait. they are a group of all male performers (15 I think) who sing about "mens stuff" like tools etc ;) The best one was when they sang a traditional swedish song they'd been taught when on secret mens teepees on the beach with another group. the men all filed off and then one at a time came back on wearing viking hats or version therof! the deadpan looks just made it SO FUNNY. One guy had reindeer hors (as in a christmas headband thing), one guy had a boater hat with party hats taped on, and another had a motorbike helmet thing with spikes going down the middle like a mohawke! LOL! They then, very seriously and earnestly, sang "Dancing Queen". I have no words to describe how incredibly funny and well done it was. They also sang another one about Sleep which can be found on youtube if you search for "Spooky Men of the West". GOLD! Festival club again afterward before bed for SLEEEEEEP (although not much!).
Monday mornign we all met for one last breakfast and then reluctantly trundled on home!
So I'm baaaaack!
It was a blast as usual although next year it was suggested we stay somewhere less nice so that we're more inclined to actually participate in festival events instead of socialising in our chalets which where situated on Mount Shadforth overlooking some truely magnificent scenery!
Friday morning I packed and actually managed to get off on time, a friend Nikki catching a lift with me. The trip was pretty good,with us only stopping once for lunch in Williams before getting into Denmark around 3pm. We bumped into the condictor of the Gospel choir Band of Angels (or Bandof Angles as I like to call them) in Williams and then stumbled over 6 choir members in the Denmark IGA store as we picked up snackage and breakfast foods before heading up to the chalets (about 12km out of town). Spent the afternoon/evening getting settled in (moving my bed out into the lounge area because I snore a little) and visiting the other chalets as choir members turned up. Also made the discovery at this point that i had forgotten my pajamas...they were sitting on my bed waiting to be packed! argh! A bunch of us decided to go into town for the first evening concert (to 'get it over with' as some stated because that way they could feel guilt free about not doing anythign else the rest of the weekend). The concert was quite enjoyable with the last group "Totally Gourdgeous" stealing the show with their crazy orange outfits, manaic instrument playing and entertaining lyrics. all their instruments are made with gourds by one band members which is fairly impressive since it included guitar, base, drums, and a uke type mini thing! Checked out the 'festival club' afterward which is basically a post-concerts jam fest venue. It was ridiculously crowded but that was the way it went in denmark as they sold out on tickets andyet never seem to manage to cater for all the people they KNOW are coming . Seriously, the locals seem kind of bewildered by all these people wanting to buy food and stuff even though they know 500 plus people are coming into town for the weekend!
Saturday I decided to skip the workshops as there was nothing there that looked particularly interesting and instead introduced some choir peeps to Guitar Hero from which point onward they were totally hooked . I, of course, kicked their asses since it was their first time playing the game ;) Lunch about 15 of us wound up going to the old butter Factory which has a gallery and restaurant where I had an amazing steak sandwich which had a giant melty slab of camembert on top...yum! I found a beautiful necklace but at $157 resisted the urge to buy it as I don't really where necklaces all that much. It was very cool though, green (predictable) and had an om sign that looked like a 30 which I thought appropriate for me ;)
Anyway the weather took a turn for the soggy and while it was absolutely pelting down a bunch of us decided it was the perfect time to head to the Valley of the Giants for the treetop walk. We were literally the last people they let in since we just bolted in the door at 4.15pm. It was amazing as always, I love being suspended so high in the air in the treetops! Luckily hough the rain stopped just in time for our arrival there! Brillinat!
Dinner we decided to make pizza for eveyone as the town restaurants were booked out so we bought food. Now earlier in he day I had mentioned to a fellow soprano that I was going to buy a bottle of tequila for the evening, an she, and a third sop who heard us talking decided to split some jose cuervo between us. Despite the fact that we had agreed not to be the party house...the evening party was at our chalet that night! Being the kitchen control freak I took over making the pizzas with help from housemates, which we then served to the 20 or so people who rocked up at our chalet that night . After that some dvd's came out with past choir performances (including me singing "Hopelessly devoted to You" ) at which point I cracked open the tequila and the night got a LOT blurrier from that point onwards. Things of interest in the following hours though included some drunken singstar (I insisted on 'Girls just Wanta Have Fun' since the final bones ep inspired me, and then make Nikki mosh with me while singing Song 2 by blur). I think the singing was bad because most of the party gravitated outside where Dave was playing the guitar like a champion and everyone else sang, shook things or in Carole's case played rhythmic but totally out of tune harmonica acompaniment . 2 broken wine glasses later! At one point we even did the Time Warp, Hokey Pokey and birdy dance! Yeesh. Meanwhile in the house I had a bunch of newly addicted guitar hero freaks battling on. Apparenlty even when smashed i still had enough coordination to kick their assess and retained my GH Queen status for the night. Phew ;)
Sunday woke up and was pleased to discover I still had a voice despite the abuse from the night before...which was a good thing since our choir performance was that afternoon. I did however, also have a headache, and once my brain caught up with my stomach, was also rahter nauseous and had to eat a dry piece of toast shotly after getting up in order to settle things down . Everyone else of course found this hilarious nad told me I was extremely entertaining the night before. Good to know! Anyway through etremely bad planning it had been decided the day before that the usual big breakfast cookup was to be at out chalet that morning so once I was feeling less like hurling I and the other housemates started cooking up breakfast as the rest of the freeloaders arrived around 10am to chow down. There are a LOT of photos of me from this morning looking a bit worse for the wear.... 4pm we met in town for a last warmup and rehearsal before our performance at 5.30pm. I had a blonde moment and freaked out thinking i had left the scarves we wear in performance back at the chalets. At someones suggestion i called people who had yet to leave and got them to go check out chalet...no scarves...at which point i ran to my car and found them exactly where I had put them. DOH! Despite the partying the night before we did pretty well, the only problems being the pianist forgetting to repeat two bars and not realising for a while before catching up in "Summertime"...and then we paid her back in Bohemian Rhapsody by speeding up so much i don't know how she managed to keep up! The audience loved it though!
Dinner that night had been booked at the local pub...yet another venue which didn't cope with the numbers as out table of 25 took 1 and 1/2 hours form the first person getting served their meal to the last which was served in a takeaway container! I then headed to the venue where a group called "Spooky men of the West" were to be singing. It was freezing cold and the hall had a capacity of 100 only so me and a bunch of others stood chivering at the door for the whole concert hoping osme people would leave so we could go in...sadly this didn't happen but i did manager ot at least get to the front of the waiting crowd so i could see form the door . Predictably the crowd at the door got a little restless waiting in the freezing cold and many jokes were cracked resulting in a lot of giggliing and whispering. This was greatly exaserbated when one of the door Nazi's stormed out and asked "Who's giggling?!?" at which point we ALL lost it! SO FUNNY! Anyway Spooky men were *totally* worht the wait. they are a group of all male performers (15 I think) who sing about "mens stuff" like tools etc ;) The best one was when they sang a traditional swedish song they'd been taught when on secret mens teepees on the beach with another group. the men all filed off and then one at a time came back on wearing viking hats or version therof! the deadpan looks just made it SO FUNNY. One guy had reindeer hors (as in a christmas headband thing), one guy had a boater hat with party hats taped on, and another had a motorbike helmet thing with spikes going down the middle like a mohawke! LOL! They then, very seriously and earnestly, sang "Dancing Queen". I have no words to describe how incredibly funny and well done it was. They also sang another one about Sleep which can be found on youtube if you search for "Spooky Men of the West". GOLD! Festival club again afterward before bed for SLEEEEEEP (although not much!).
Monday mornign we all met for one last breakfast and then reluctantly trundled on home!
So I'm baaaaack!