Brian Ferguson’s diary
Aweek after discovering Edinburgh International Festival director Fergus Linehan having a fly pint in one of his favourite watering holes near its headquarters on the Royal Mile, I found culture secretary Fiona Hyslop lapping up one of her favourite bands for the second time in a week.
After telling potential ticket buyers award-winning Highland outfit Elephant Sessions regularly prompt scenes of crowd-surfing with their high-octane live shows, it was something of a surprise to find the Queen’s Hall’s dancefloor filled with rows of chairs, as if ready for a classical music recital.
But Ms Hyslop and the band’s army of devotees did not need a second invitation from fiddler Euan Smillie to “dance anywhere you want”.
So much joyful exuberance unfolded in every available corner of the venue that the occasion prompted its marketing manager, Emma Mortimore, to tweet later: “Not seen the QH bound like that before.”
Charlotte Square Gardens is probably the most unlikely venue in the city for a battle of the bands contest to unfold. But that could be on the cards according to reports emerging from Ian Rankin’s debut performance there with his “dad rock” band, Best Picture.
Formed with Scottish pop legend Bobby Bluebell and journalists Kenny
Above, Elephant Sessions exuberance. Inset, Val Mcdermid
Farquharson and Euan Mccolm, they made their hometown debut at the Book Festival’s Unbound cabaret night.
Among those in attendance in the Book Festival Spiegeltent was rising crime writing star Liam Mcilvanney – son of William Mcilvanney, “the godfather of Tartan Noir” – who is already speculating about a showdown with a rival outfit.
No fewer than six crime writers – Val Mcdermid, Chris Brookmyre,
Doug Johnstone, Mark Billingham, Stuart Neville and Luca Veste – make up the Fun Lovin’ Crime
Writers, who debuted at the Book Festival last year under the banner of “murdering songs for anyone who will listen” and will return to the Spiegeltent (after a series of gigs at other book festivals) on 23 August.
Two weeks have now passed since my first festival event and as it will all be over in a fortnight’s time I hereby declare the official half-way point has been reached.
With the days and nights having long since merged into one it is no surprise that even the Edinburgh International Festival is starting to lose track of things.
Its ever-impressive roundthe-clock Twitter account jumped the gun a bit in the early hours of Monday by asking whether The Jesus and Mary Chain had “raised the roof ” at Leith Theatre – which would have been an impressive feat given they were not due to take to the stage for the best part of 24 hours.