Thank You!
Many thanks to all who came along to Cirque de Crème Anglaise 4 last Saturday. Not only did we have a record turn-out but I think it was particularly successful in that the flavour of the evening for which we aim came across particularly well. The bands all seemed to enjoy themselves and each other and we all made many new friends.
Garage/J-Pop trio No Cars were on good form (which is more than can be said for the pieces of paper covered in odd illustrations that they display for each song—these get more battered each time I see the band) particularly when it came to the inter-song banter. Not only did they claim to have flown over from Japan specially for that gig but they also claimed to have met in a lunatic asylum, as well as later insisting they had met when working as geishas (yet also claimed to be 17-year-old virgins). Their music has a similar retro vibe to fellow Japanese The 5678s, apart from the strange subject matter (a song about how much they like eating tuna, anyone?). It's impossible to wipe the grin off one's face while watching them.
I'd seen Antony Elvin before, at Kitchener's Travelling Circus but he pulled out several more stops this time, strolling up in what I would have to describe as a minstrel outfit. Accompanying him was Will Summers, dressed frankly as a jester and dipping regularly into a suitcase of wind instruments, variously playing the flute, the crumhorn and other devices the names of which I know not. Antony himself is a very polished singer and guitarist and chooses subject matter ranging from the whimsical ("Wouldn't you like a buttery scone? I know you don't like cheese") to the ribaldly confessional, such as the time he and a friend found their wheeze or persuading wealthy gay men to buy them dinner backfired when they were drugged and date-raped. All human life is here. Well, if the human in question is Antony Elvin.
The Furbelows themselves sullied the stage at that point, which seemed to go down well enough. Sadly we weren't joined by Helena, who had contacted me that afternoon to say that her cold had got worse and her face was bright red (she says she currently looks like a balloon on a pike). Sounds more like swine flu to me...
Finally came our headliners, David Cronenberg's Wife, who were launching their single "The Fight Song". What I hadn't expected was the posse of insane dancing people who came along for the show. It seems to be something of a given that Anti-Folk bands have a small cadre of special fans who dance like lunatics for the bands set then stalk off again. (This theory is based on a sample of three—DCW, Paul Hawkins and Extradition Order.) Anyway, the band played a sterling set of sick, bitter and twisted songs and the crowd rightly demanded an encore.
Final mention must go to Fruity Hatfield-Peverel who was DJing for us, variously from a gramophone with a microphone in front of it for his 78s and the modern wonder of the iPod for the rest of his set. It was a masterful and unpredictable blend of swing, ragtime, lounge, eighties hip-hop, psychedelia, movie soundtracks and much more. I'm very much hoping that Fruity will be a regular feature at future Cirques. The next one of which will, I hope, be around late August or early September.
