The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Streets are alive with the sound of MUSIC
Some legendary names in both rock and roll and circus are heading their way to Dundee
EVENTS
Dundee looks set to cement its burgeoning reputation for live music and colourful festival performances over the next couple of months.
The city’s summer season kicks off with the arrival of family favourite Zippos Circus and its new Magnificent Top Hat show at Riverside Park from June 25-30.
Founded more than 250 years ago, the spectacular big top attractions are led by renowned ringmaster Norman Barrett and feature breathtaking international artistry, including foot jugglers, Kenyan tumblers, Cuban Springboard acrobats, knife throwers, contortionists and dancers.
Brazilian motorcycle thrillers Lucius Team and their famous Globe of Death are the hot ticket, with diminutive martial arts acrobat Paulo Dos Santos returning by popular demand. Show times and bookings are online at zippos.co.uk
Hot on the circus’s heels are the Lady Boys Of Bangkok’s 20th anniversary tour, which starts a nineday run at Baxter Park on June 28.
The glamorous all-male cabaret troupe is staging 12 shows in all at the venue’s Sabai Pavilion, with more songs and big-scale musical production numbers – plus a liberal dash of comedy – than you could point a perfumed glove at. More info’s available at quaytickets.com
Meanwhile, fans of classic pop are likely to relish the latest bigname event at Slessor Gardens – the inaugural staging of the Dun-Dee
80s extravaganza. The brainchild of Nottinghamshire-based promoters Liz Hobbs Group Ltd, the retrofest will bring veteran hit-makers ABC, Hue And Cry, Ultravox icon Midge Ure, Go West and China Crisis to the Waterfront site for an event that is shaping up as Dundee’s answer to Scone Palace’s ever-popular Rewind Scotland.
Hue And Cry frontman Pat Kane says he expects all the bands taking part to be geared up to perform their best-known material – but admits to finding the bill’s 50 and 60-something demographic a source of amusement. “They’re all terribly elegant older gentlemen these days,” he quips.
“It’s funny, it’d be a bit like a sitcom if you recorded it – people of a certain age still getting themselves up on stage. It’s going to be great, though. It’s a great line-up for us and for the audience as well.
“It’s just great that we’re all doing it. If you can sing and you can write and you can play, what’s to stop you if you’re still getting something out of it and people still want to come and see you? It’s a good deal I think.”
Pat – at 55 one of the youngest performers involved in Dun-Dee 80s – is looking forward to renewing past acquaintances at the Slessor Gardens party. “It’s a great hangout backstage at these things,” he declares.
“It’s nice to see people like Martin Fry (from ABC) and we’re great friends with Peter Cox and Richard Drummie from Go West.
“We did a full tour with them about two years ago and Midge Ure’s an old friend of ours from way back, so it’ll be lovely.
“Hue And Cry have been quite inspired by ABC. We very much listened to what ABC were doing with their albums and thought that was a great model for what we should be trying to do with pop music, which was to mix together
They’re all terribly elegant older gentlemen these days. It’d be a bit like a sitcom if you recorded it
soul with pop production and interesting lyrics and attitude.
“Also, We Close Our Eyes (by Go West) is one of my favourite records of that era so I’m very much looking forward to it. My brother (Hue And Cry’s Greg Kane) knows China Crisis better than I do but they’re a band who really benefited from establishing a gentle, sensitive relationship with their audience.
“They got into their followers’ hearts with songs that I love. I love their feel – they’re great – so it’s all fantastic.”
The other big music festival taking place in the city this summer also has a heritage vibe, namely Dundee Fake Festival, which returns to Lochee Park on July 20.
First staged in 2017, it is one of three versions of the same franchise that enjoy annual Courier Country outings – the others take place in Perth and Dunfermline.
Queen tribute Flash top this year’s bill, with Duran Duran, Jam, Killers and U2 look-andsoundalikes also involved.
Given the vagaries of Scotland’s summer, revellers may be relieved that the bands are all playing inside a giant tent.