Sinister: Rimini: A Situation Report or, if you just want a set list, scroll down

Friday, 12 April: Rimini is a pleasant though uncertain seaside city whose economy appears to be based entirely upon beach tourism and lingerie. I am standing on the broad beach in the dark with my feet eased into the Adriatic, looking forward to tomorrow, a day free to wander the town, recon the gig venue, and then bathe in the music that’s just 24 hours away. Although it’s night, the flat expanse of sand is well-lit by the light from the thousands of bars, hotels, and lingerie shops lining the beachfront, the glow reflected off low clouds that promise rain. I walk back to my hotel along the sand, down where the falling tide has left the sand hard and easy to walk on, until the oily-blackness of a canal not named on my map forces me to move up the beach to where the sand is soft, and therefore hard to walk in. It strikes me as interesting that something as impassive and timeless as sand can be so perverse as to be both hard and soft, easy and hard, at the same time. To bed! Saturday, 13 April: Rimini is a pleasant though imprecise town that can’t help but make me recall seaside resort towns everywhere. In places, this could be Delray Beach, Florida, if Delray Beach had the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre and a Renaissance temple designed by Alberti (Gordon? Yes?) and they spoke Italian and had Vespas. I decide to locate the venue, called the Velvet. I have asked at the hotel where Via Sant’ Aquilina can be found, and Andrea, the night desk clerk, thinks I am quite mad to want to go all the way out there. Andrea doesn't know the half of it. “It’s practically in San Marino,” he says distastefully, naming the world’s oldest and smallest republic, or so it claims. He shows me on the map, noting that where I want to go is actually OFF the map. Advises me to go sempre diritto and count semáfori and then bear right when I am nearly to San Marino. His directions are perfect, and I find the club far out a winding, gently climbing road in the middle of green country planted with vines and fruit trees. I am glad that I am researching it early. The show’s not really IN Rimini at all. It’s practically not in Italy. I can see the wee republic which the Velvet is almost in gazing down on the place from its eyrie. I am also glad that I have a car, and wonder how those arriving without are supposed to locate Belle & Sebastian out here in the bush. I am vexed that I was unable to make arrangements with those from the list who wrote me about meeting up, and don’t know whether they are independently mobile or not. Hope so. Since I’m halfway there, I decide to visit the Republic of San Marino. Pity they don’t stamp your passport. It’s a dramatic town/republic, though, beetling above the plains below on a craggy jut of yellow rock. Fortress towers grow organically from the cliffs. Tourists buy duty-free counterfeit perfume and truffle liqueur. I spend the day crawling around the 13th-through-17th century fortifications and admiring the tenacity of the wind in its efforts in still trying to knock these towers down after all these centuries of abject failure in that department. From the highest point in the republic, a tower raised in 1253, I can see the Adriatic sparkling under a springy blue sky just tinged with sea haze out towards Dalmatia. During my brief visit to the republic, two out of the three people with whom I conduct business either try to or succeed in swindling me--I later realise I am shorted two Euros in my purchase of an entry to the castle, and when I tank up, the petrolero tries to take me for ten, but I am too canny. This might explain why Struan’s mention of the San Marinesi a few hours later at the gig draws forth vehement booing from the largely Bolognese crowd. The Velvet is a complete disaster, from a liability underwriter’s point of view. But it is a small place, and I am delighted to be there fairly early and so I get very close to the stage, which is low and small in any case. I am about three metres from the edge of the stage, directly in front of Stuart’s microphone, when the band take the stage. I am shocked at Struan’s appearance; he has aged sixty years since I saw him in Edinburgh less than two weeks ago! Though elegant and dapper in a neat suit and tie, he is bowed with age, and his grey beard reaches to his chest. He is so frail he can barely hobble out onto the stage as the band plays “The Green, Green Grass of Home.” Can this possibly be the same man reportedly spotted jogging through Rimini this very morning? But it IS Stuart Murdoch. He is attended tenderly by a lovely blonde in a nurse’s uniform, a striking young woman who bears a certain resemblance to Isobel. She supports his right arm, as the cane in Stuart’s left hand shakily seeks purchase among the cables and gizmos duct-taped to the stage. She gently maneuvers him to the piano bench and he wearily takes a seat as the band round out their sentimental old-age ballad. Removing their disguises, Isobel and Stuart take their places as the band launch into a rollicking “There’s Too Much Love.” Stuart dances like a maniac. Great start to a fantastic gig. Set List in its (I think) entirety; please bear with my comments: Green, Green Grass of Home as indicated above There’s Too Much Love (ditto). Here I develop some misgivings about volume level problems as reported following the London show last week; Isobel is gesturing frantically for more microphone volume. Her cello is not producing at all, and she waves the bow above her head, pointing, ‘up!’ She gives up, and slouches on the piano bench, petulantly banging a tambourine against her knee. Le Pastie de la Bourgeoisie--Volume issues resolved. Pete Townsend leaps from Stevie. Isobel not sulking. I’m Waking Up To Us--beautiful strings. Interlude while Stuart reads prepared Italian greetings. Stevie manages an unscripted “Buena Sera”, to which Stuart remarks, “I think that’s a bit more like Spanish.” Stevie replies, “yeah, well I heard there might BE some Spanish in the audience tonight.” Sorry we didn’t manage to meet up, Maria Sierra Florez. String Bean Jean (restrained, but not quiet) Seymour Stein The Spanish-sounding one from “Storytelling”, fandango handclapping. (This audience is VERY into handclapping along, by the way, even preventing Bob from properly doing the actual handclaps later when they play TWATTYBUS.) My Wandering Days Are Over The Model (which Stuart jokes, over the harpsichordy beginning, “this is a song by Kraftwerk.”) SOARING strings. Improv bit with Stevie wailing on a harmonica and Bob yanking reggae-esque chords while Stuart chills and drinks water. Then Stuart asks Stevie if he thinks he could sing “Rock Me, Baby.” Stevie seems taken aback, but Stuart points out that he did a fine job with it doing karaoke recently. Question: can the collective you think of anything more entertaining than doing karaoke with those two? Let me know. So Stevie puts his whole soul into this turgid seventies dreck, transforms it, rocks it, writhes like Robert Plant. For any who can’t quite place this song, I’ll sing a bit: TAKE me in your arms, And ROCK me baby Oooh, rock me baby That’s about it. Recognise it now? Continuing: Simple Things The Boy with the, well, you know Fox in the Snow. To the audience: Fox in the Snow is NOT a clap-along-friendly tune. Family Tree Get Me Away From Here, I’m Dying Lazy Line Painter Jane, also restrained, low-key--but nice The Wrong Girl--this song always makes me think of Buenos Aires, where my listee friend Carlos took me to see a band called Bristol, who played this as an encore (also Bigmouth Strikes Again) Ah. Nostalgia. Carlos, ¿te has perdido, por donde andás? Dirty Dream #2 If my notes are correct, what happened next was: (Pause) (Then) WALL OF SOUND, face-slammingly loud and energetic out-tro from LLPJ, completely making up for the restrained muted Monica-Queenless version a few minutes before. At this point Struan expresses the plaintive wish that some fans could come up on the stage and dance. He selects one Francesca and pulls her up, and the band close, as in Edinburgh, with a LOUD, BRIGHTLY LIT and super-psychedelilicious version of Legal Man. This is indescribable, so I won’t, but it is a wonderful closer. There are no encores, but I leave highly satisfied, passing within two metres of Isobel as I exit the venue. I leave her alone. She looks spent. To the short girls I gallantly helped to the front at Stuart’s behest. You’re welcome. Here ends the content portion of this text. Sunday, 14 April: like Belle & Sebastian concerts, long weekends must end, and so I must head back to Slovenia. But Sunday is a gorgeous day, warm, sunny, with enough lofty sea clouds to keep it interesting, so I spend some daylight time on the beach, watching ornate kites spar and sailboats sail. Quitting Rimini, too cheap to buy a map that extends this far south, I am left to follow signs to find my way back onto the map whose southern limit is about two hours north. I am determined to avoid the road I came down, a clogged artery, and head for the autostrada instead; longer distance, but surely quicker. Memo to myself: do not follow signs in Italy. With all due respect to our Italian listees (non mi odiare, Silvietta), following signs is the surest way of guaranteeing that I will NOT end up at the place indicated on the sign. Maybe it’s me, but I generally have a good sense of direction and am an attentive driver. The signs promise Ferrara. They deliver Ravenna. They offer Padova; I find myself in Marina Romea, and on the bloody SS309 again, the road I’d vowed to avoid! I’ve been driving for two hours and am not even back on my damned map yet. The scenery is good, though. Throughout my efforts to locate the main route north I am sailing through fertile farmland in the full embrace of spring. Intensely green fields of young grain, immense orchards of blossoming fruit and nut trees, and vines vines vines, planted with such design that looking sideways at them as I speed by creates a strobe effect, looking down intersecting corridors between the rows, an effect increased by pressure on the accelerator until I worry about an epilectic seizure and think I might keep my eyes on the road. I want to pull off and accost some ancient on a bicycle: what are these crops? Are those apricots? Is that wheat? It makes me think of Saskatchewan, and how the farmers put up signs so you know what kind of future foodstuffs you are bypassing. CANOLA says a small placard dwarfed by an endless sea of yellow. In Alberta you can drive for hours and see nothing but sunflowers and signs that say SUNFLOWERS, somewhat unnecessarily, actually. Here there are no signs indicating cash crops, but decaying stucco barns house barnswallows who joust with my windshield. Few things can put joy in my heart like watching a swallow swoop, particularly the morning after a B&S show, I am finding. But in the end, it’s back to the SS309 for me. Elated and defeated, I stop in a café/fueling opportunity and drink a coffee, looking out toward the sea and the clouds growing anvil-heads. Though the sun is hot, it is snowing here in Marina Romea. Closer inspection reveals that the snow is actually massive amounts of spring tree-stuff; not pollen, but that cotton-wool stuff that some trees seem to send out into the breeze as some sort of bid at asexual reproduction. Is there a term for this material? Any botanists on Sinister? The air is full of it, and the stuff collects in drifts against the sleeping café bulldog. I inhale it, and it bothers my throat for the rest of the ride back to Nova Gorica. But before I continue north I must make a decision regarding disposition of my dwindling supply of Euri; a proper meal or enough cash-on-hand for essentials, such as more coffee, a newspaper in a language I can decipher, tolls, and Red Bull. In the end, I opt for the placebo effect of the chemical strawberry tang. P.T. Barnum was right. The SS309 is a schizophrenic road; it can’t decide if it is autostrada or Main Street of a thousand little towns. Teutonic engineering marvels bear down on my rear-view mirror like they want to emboss my bumper with the Bavarian coat of arms, Mercedes stars, or the four linked rings of the dreaded Audi. My Golf can move along, but the situation is not helped by a speedometer stuck forevermore on 140. Caught up in this German slipstream, I come upon surprise traffic lights Christ! is that thing RED and pedestrian crossings in the middle of nowhere. Crossing the gigantic Po I feel the air temperature drop noticeably. Clouds build and consolidate toward the head of the Adriatic. Eventually Venice appears, and after that it’s all autostrada to the border crossing. I am miffed that the Slovene police, so recently my nemesis, wave me through without even looking at my passport, let alone the gigantic hologramatic new visa which finally allows me to enter their country legally. Back. Every Euro, every kilometre covered, well worth it. JDS Conectate a Internet GRATIS con Yahoo! Conexión: http://conexion.yahoo.com.ar +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. 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