Ethiopiques in London

In my previous post about traveling, I said that it takes me one month to sort things out after a trip. Well, since one of the links embedded within this text may expire in less than one week, I’m getting this post up pronto.

Last Tuesday night, I left Boston for lovely London; got back Sunday. It was an incredible trip, one that I won’t soon forget. On Wednesday, we had the morning off with an afternoon rehearsal followed by a very mellow evening.

Thursday was spent in an all-day rehearsal. In the morning, we (being the Either/Orchestra) worked with Mahmoud Ahmed and Mulatu Astatke, and in the afternoon, we ran down Getachew Merkurya and Alemahyu Eshete’s sets. A fairly trivial problem with my bass turned into a fairly significant problem, causing me to spend much of the afternoon playing electric bass (but it was a 1970s P-bass with an extra J-bass pickup, so it wasn’t so bad!). That night, I went out with the lads for the most English of experiences: we had a couple of pints and fish and chips at the pub while watching a football match. Spain won. It was great.

Friday morning and much of the afternoon were spent traveling to Middlesex so I could get my bass fixed. It was a very simple matter that was resolved quickly, once the traveling was over. Getting to and from the luthier took an incredible amount of time, but the fix only took about 25 minutes (thankfully, one aspect of the AlterEGO design is that virtually any luthier can make repairs on the bass – it doesn’t take an AlterEGO expert).

Made it to sound check a little late, but managed to get a pretty good sound quickly. The concert itself was wonderful. About 2000 people were in attendance, and each one seemed to be excited about the music. Given the fact that the Nelson Mandela 90th birthday concert was happening just a few miles away, I think it’s pretty fantastic that these 2000 people chose to see us.

We played Mulatu Astatke’s music as well as ever. After the ethio-jazz section, Getachew Merkurya made his way to the stage. Someone has been kind enough to post their audience video of Getachew’s performance on Youtube:

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9d7zWEWLGM]

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkLpW3d7TL8]

Following Getachew was a fantastic Mahmoud set, which inspired everyone for an encore that had Alemayhu and Mahmoud performing on stage for the first time together in the UK – ever. Someone has been wonderful about blogging some pix of the concert. The whole set is at Flickr.

After the concert was a pretty excellent hang that made its way to an Ethiopian restaurant across town. It was a pretty late night.

Saturday morning, the bus came to get us at noon for what turned into another pretty long trip. I think it took about 4 hours to get to Glastonbury, although there was at least one notable stop:

Rick McLaughlin @ Stonehenge

Author at Stonehenge (greatest song ever!)

We arrived, made it through security, and headed off to backstage at the Jazz/World Stage. The festival had 175,000 attendees, so you can imagine that even going from the entrance to backstage (60 stages!) by car too a long time. When we arrived, Joan Armatrading was playing, and she was great. The Imagined Village with Billy Bragg was on next, followed by the unbelievable Buddy Guy. He was truly amazing. Meanwhile, on the mainstage, Amy Winehouse was rocking the Casbah, with Jay-Z closing the night, opposite us.

I think we played wonderfully. Here’s a link to the first 30 minutes of the BBC broadcast (it was live!).

I have also uploaded some photographs to my newly started Picasa pages. Some of them are sort of blurry, but they at least provide a few behind-the-scenes shots of life in the fast lane is like.

Also, I mentioned in an earlier post that we went to Oakland, CA some months ago. Here’s audience footage of some of that concert:

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFuRHfH6QT4]

Lastly, the Boston Phoenix published a short piece on Vicente – here’s what they said. It is looking like a benefit concert for him will be taking place here in Cambridge on July 16. Stay tuned…

One more thing: I am deeply grateful to everyone who has been involved in the Ethiopiques project. It has been a wonderful experience for me – truly a blessing.

Thanks,

Rick

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