Festival Music
THE MAGNETS Acappella group cover pop hits ●●●●●
Their fifth year at the Fringe, The Magnets have once again pulled in a full house to witness their all-vocal/voxbox extravaganza.
For more than a decade this London-based sharp-suited sextet have wowed audiences nationwide and toured supporting the likes of Lisa Stansfield and Geri Halliwell, whilst also earning themselves a fan in the shape of TV star Jonathan Ross.
Comprising (in no particular order) Michael
Welton, Nicholas Doodson, James Fortune, Stephen Trowell, Derek Elroy and the human beatbox himself, Andy Frost, these ‘Six Guys Not Named Moe’, call the shots on an almost fresh batch of pop renditions from Kraftwerk’s ‘The Model’, Blondie’s ‘Call Me’, A-Ha’s ‘Hunting High And Low’, The Killers’ ‘Human’ and an audience participation piece of Hendrix’s ‘Crosstown Traffic’. Aside from Andy’s awesome oral-percussion
performance tagged on the end of ‘Let’s Dance’, the highlight of the show stems from their Y-fronted (but ‘suited’) version of Lady Gaga’s ‘Poker Face’. Without running out of popular material and fresh ideas and arrangements, The Magnets, could be stuck on your Fringe list for some time to come. (Martin C. Strong) ■ Udderbelly’s Pasture, Bistro Square, 08445 458 252, until 30 Aug (except 16), 5.25-6.25pm, £12.50- £14.50 (£11.00-£13.00).
RED CELLO ELECTRIFIED South African cellist plugs in ●●●●●
When thinking of solo cello music, something like Bach’s ‘Six Suites For Unaccompanied Cello’ generally springs to mind. Perhaps something more conventional such as this should have been in South African soloist For everything you need to know about all the Festivals visit www.list.co.uk/festival
66 THE LIST 12–19 Aug 2010
NEXT ISSUE OUT WEDNESDAY 18 AUGUST
Carol Thorns’ thoughts also, as her passionate and highly accomplished playing was let down by her attempts to ‘electrify’ her instrument. Playing stilted fragments of harmonically motionless melodies over a pre-recorded drum loop, whilst showing New Age-esque visuals in the background, her ‘multimedia performance’ is rather one dimensional. Her work may be unusual in the sense that no other cellist performs in this style, but it is devoid of excitement and innovation. Rather, she gives a superficial performance, with each piece hardly differing from the previous.
Thorns does have talent as an instrumentalist however, producing a rich, sonorous tone on her electric instrument, with nimble fingers and a swooping, bowing movement. She does not do herself justice as a musician here though, and her show would have been far more enjoyable had it been interspersed with more traditional repertoire, to showcase her expertise. As it stood, the overall performance was underwhelming to
say the least. (Miranda Heggie) ■ Red Cello Electrified, C Central, 0845 260 1234, until Aug 30 (not 17), 8.30pm, £9.50 (£8.50). HYPNOTIC BRASS ENSEMBLE Chicago fusion of jazz, hip hop and funk ●●●●●
Sun Ra trumpeter Phil Cohran) who hail from the southside of Chicago – and who feature on the new Gorillaz album – are as interested in hip-hop, funk, Afrobeat and ska as they are jazz. Rather, the way in which they whip the crowd into hysteria with rap- along routines and divide the audience in two for a shout-out would be more at home in panto. Then there’s the stripping off of t-shirts to reveal some buff torso, which caused one group of admiring ladies to scream at the boys like they were Chippendales. None of that would matter one way or the other if the music was great. But it’s not. Lacking virtuoso playing, and a long way from the experimental arrangements of Sun Ra, the Hypnotics’ workouts quickly become tiresome. In that context, six-packs and singalongs just don’t cut it. (Miles Fielder) ■ Assembly @ Princes Street Gardens, Tue 3 Aug, part of The Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival.
This nine-piece comprising eight horns and a drummer are not what you might expect at the Jazz & Blues Festival. It’s not so much that these young African-American brothers (all but one of them are sons of one-time Telephone Booking Fringe 0131 226 0000 International Festival 0131 473 2000 Book Festival 0845 373 5888 Art Festival 07500 461 332