street music

[helenic]

There were buskers in town, set up in the pedestrian zone outside Holy Trinity, a four-man band in woolly hats playing a wonderfully cheesy type of funk rock, complete with harmonicas and speedy guitar solos. They grinned at each other, squinting in the January sun, and the keyboard player alternated between improvising on what appeared to be the "Hammond Organ" voice and a variety of tinker toys, like those xylophones you get at the Early Learning Centre where every block is a different rainbow colour. They were surprisingly good. I stopped to listen for a while on my way back from Sainsburys, smiled at the other passersby lingering nearby with their hands jammed in their pockets, and walked on feeling decidedly cheered.

Comments

[detroitfather.livejournal.com]

This is the most fun thing I've seen posted on LJ in quite a while. If I lived nearby, I would so be there with a Fisher-Price mandolin!

[libellum.livejournal.com]

yeah! when I was at school we had a Fisher Price orchestra with the little saxophones and things. Our greatest moment was Flight of the Bumblebee on kazoo solo. I should start one of those things here ...

[maga-dogg.livejournal.com]

If there's one thing I can't abide it's a guitarist in a wooly hat.

[libellum.livejournal.com]

no man, he RULED! He did the most amazing improvised solo and hell, if I was playing outdoors in that weather I'd wear a woolly hat too :P

[envinyata.livejournal.com]

wow! i would have loved to see this. :)

[libellum.livejournal.com]

buskers usually make me sad, especially since I rarely give them money (although I buy the big issue and I give food to beggars) but these weren't doing it to beg, they were just having a laugh. I think if I had a band that's the sort of thing I'd do. It had a festival mood, as if they were for gay pride or something (obviously they weren't) but you know, that sort of carefree celebratory feeling. It really brightened my morning :)

Bitchin'

[hockeyhippie.livejournal.com]

I wub street music, mostly because no one in my town does it. So when I'm travelling and I see it, it excites me. :P

Re: Bitchin'

[libellum.livejournal.com]

there are always buskers in cambridge. Mostly just cold people wrapped in blankets trying to play tin whistles, which just makes me sad (although there's a girl who I don't think is homeless, who occasionally plays the tin whistles extraordinarily well, which is always worth a listen) but I've seen quite a few festival type things as well. This was the first time it was an actual band, however ...