Brisbane Festival
It's Brisbane Festival at the moment! It used to be called 'Riverfest', but I guess after the river flooded nobody felt much like 'celebrating' it anymore. In any case, it's three weeks of cultural events and pavillions all over the place. I missed 'Riverfire', which is the big jet flyover and fireworks display, but aside from that I've been making the most of it.
They've set up a tent in the middle of King George Square in the city for events - there's also stacks going on over at the Library and QPAC theatres and Powerhouse.
The Spiegeltent is especially awesome, though, because it comes complete with giant dandelion lights.
Last Wednesday, I went to see Shugo Tokumaru and Kate & Max.
Kate and Max were the warm-up act. Their music is probably best described as 'nostalgic road montage' music. Listening to it, all I could do was picture scenes of people drinking coffee alone in diners while looking out of the window, or driving through the suburbs taking the occasional drag on a cigarette.
This is about the only Youtube clip I could find of them, but it has decent sound quality. They're actually pretty good, fairly easy listening.
A shot of Shugo Tokumaru and co setting up. This guy is some kind of musical genius, writes very happy and whimsical pieces, and he comes through even more amazing live than on youtube. All the songs were in Japanese, except for one cover he did of 'Video Killed the Radio Star' with an accordian and kazoo. Here's a link to some of his songs: Lahahaha and Green Rain.
Interlude: While walking through the city before the performance, noticed a big spanking new Swarovski store, but more specifically, this:
Is there truly a market for this?
On Friday I also went to see Tripod! This is an Australia comedy musical trio I've been a fan of for a long time, ever since they featured on Skithouse some ten years ago. They're still totally awesome.
Ha, well, two of three in the shot isn't bad? They didn't play many of their olds songs, unfortunately, but their new stuff was pretty good too.
Check out some links: There's A Hot Girl In the Comic Shop, The Credits Song, Wedding Song.
On the weekend I went to the Brisbane Writer's Festival! Which has been timed to coincide with the Brisbane Festival, I assume. I checked out the Melbourne one too, but actually wound up liking the Brisbane one a lot better. It was much busier and seemed like it had a lot more interesting talks? Maybe because Melbourne's is two weeks and Brisbane's is only five days, so they had to cram a lot more in. The talks were a lot more interesting too, probably because this time I exclusively attended panels.
Except it was also freakishly cold and windy on the Saturday! (By Brisbane standards, anyway.) Not a problem you would think, except there was a whole stream of panels being held out on the Library Terrace, pictured here. And being Queenslanders, nobody is prepared for any weather colder than 12 degrees. The microphones didn't much like it, either.
Also, I nearly got hit by a falling piece of canvas pulled loose by the wind. That was exciting.
The wind also made this odd... poster... thing... put up for the Festival very interesting. It's made of heaps of strips of plastic, which in the high winds made a fabulous roaring sound.
...I still can't quite figure out what it's meant to be. Does it look like letters to anyone?
Also went to check out the free Interactive Light Tunnel display near the Ferris Wheel.
This was pretty cool, especialy for free entry. They've set up a dark tent full of mirrors and screens and Xbox Kinects.
The display switches over from time to time, and some of them you can interact with. It's a bit laggy, but if you go with some kids or a friend it's a lot of fun.
And the mirrors in particular produce a really beautiful effect.
Some kids nearby enjoying it.
One more for good luck.
Time out in the park.
Despite the cold windy day, the first sign of Spring.
There's the Santos City of Lights, which is held every night for the duration of the Festival. It's sponsored by Santos, which I'm guessing is an energy company, who until this moment I only knew as the people who owned one of the new skyscrapers by the river.
It's a big light and laser show, projected from the buildings by the river (and onto the buildings, in some cases.)
They have these pontoons that spray water up into the air (pumped directly from the river) that created a sort of 'screen' for the lasers to pass through. The photos do not even come close to doing it justice. My camera was all like 'wtf are asking me to take photos of, it's dark, I quit'.
The whole thing is set to music, too! Inception soundtrack was very appropriate but made me laugh.
The festival's running for three weeks, so there's a week left of it still - have a couple of events to go to yet, should be fun - especially the free Jazz on the weekends. Brisbane has started throwing festivals all over ther place. Now we just need one for Summer and Autumn too and we're set.
They've set up a tent in the middle of King George Square in the city for events - there's also stacks going on over at the Library and QPAC theatres and Powerhouse.
The Spiegeltent is especially awesome, though, because it comes complete with giant dandelion lights.
Last Wednesday, I went to see Shugo Tokumaru and Kate & Max.
Kate and Max were the warm-up act. Their music is probably best described as 'nostalgic road montage' music. Listening to it, all I could do was picture scenes of people drinking coffee alone in diners while looking out of the window, or driving through the suburbs taking the occasional drag on a cigarette.
This is about the only Youtube clip I could find of them, but it has decent sound quality. They're actually pretty good, fairly easy listening.
A shot of Shugo Tokumaru and co setting up. This guy is some kind of musical genius, writes very happy and whimsical pieces, and he comes through even more amazing live than on youtube. All the songs were in Japanese, except for one cover he did of 'Video Killed the Radio Star' with an accordian and kazoo. Here's a link to some of his songs: Lahahaha and Green Rain.
Interlude: While walking through the city before the performance, noticed a big spanking new Swarovski store, but more specifically, this:
Is there truly a market for this?
On Friday I also went to see Tripod! This is an Australia comedy musical trio I've been a fan of for a long time, ever since they featured on Skithouse some ten years ago. They're still totally awesome.
Ha, well, two of three in the shot isn't bad? They didn't play many of their olds songs, unfortunately, but their new stuff was pretty good too.
Check out some links: There's A Hot Girl In the Comic Shop, The Credits Song, Wedding Song.
On the weekend I went to the Brisbane Writer's Festival! Which has been timed to coincide with the Brisbane Festival, I assume. I checked out the Melbourne one too, but actually wound up liking the Brisbane one a lot better. It was much busier and seemed like it had a lot more interesting talks? Maybe because Melbourne's is two weeks and Brisbane's is only five days, so they had to cram a lot more in. The talks were a lot more interesting too, probably because this time I exclusively attended panels.
Except it was also freakishly cold and windy on the Saturday! (By Brisbane standards, anyway.) Not a problem you would think, except there was a whole stream of panels being held out on the Library Terrace, pictured here. And being Queenslanders, nobody is prepared for any weather colder than 12 degrees. The microphones didn't much like it, either.
Also, I nearly got hit by a falling piece of canvas pulled loose by the wind. That was exciting.
The wind also made this odd... poster... thing... put up for the Festival very interesting. It's made of heaps of strips of plastic, which in the high winds made a fabulous roaring sound.
...I still can't quite figure out what it's meant to be. Does it look like letters to anyone?
Also went to check out the free Interactive Light Tunnel display near the Ferris Wheel.
This was pretty cool, especialy for free entry. They've set up a dark tent full of mirrors and screens and Xbox Kinects.
The display switches over from time to time, and some of them you can interact with. It's a bit laggy, but if you go with some kids or a friend it's a lot of fun.
And the mirrors in particular produce a really beautiful effect.
Some kids nearby enjoying it.
One more for good luck.
Time out in the park.
Despite the cold windy day, the first sign of Spring.
There's the Santos City of Lights, which is held every night for the duration of the Festival. It's sponsored by Santos, which I'm guessing is an energy company, who until this moment I only knew as the people who owned one of the new skyscrapers by the river.
It's a big light and laser show, projected from the buildings by the river (and onto the buildings, in some cases.)
They have these pontoons that spray water up into the air (pumped directly from the river) that created a sort of 'screen' for the lasers to pass through. The photos do not even come close to doing it justice. My camera was all like 'wtf are asking me to take photos of, it's dark, I quit'.
The whole thing is set to music, too! Inception soundtrack was very appropriate but made me laugh.
The festival's running for three weeks, so there's a week left of it still - have a couple of events to go to yet, should be fun - especially the free Jazz on the weekends. Brisbane has started throwing festivals all over ther place. Now we just need one for Summer and Autumn too and we're set.