The Imaginary Menagerie & Northern Lights

As someone who has (so far) found the 2008 Adelaide Fringe to be severely underwhelming and lacking imagination, it was a welcome relief to experience a couple of performances and presentations for the opening of the 2008 Adelaide Festival which restored my faith in Adelaide's festival season.

The Imaginary Menagerie consisted of three 20 minute sets by Hidden City in the gregarious atmosphere of Elder Hall. The combination of electronics and live instruments was very good at times, especially during the quieter moments when Stephen Whittington's Satie/Monk piano came to the fore. The sound overall though was a little imbalanced at times though, as Derek Pascoe's saxophone occasionally drowned out the other instruments. However that shouldn't discourage from the good overall performance by the group and the fact that this was the first proper electronic/experimental music performance I'd seen in Elder Hall in eons. Hopefully it will be more of a common occurance in the future.

Afterwards, the festival opened proper including some lovely (albeit slightly gaudy) projections on the facades of prominent buildings along North Terrace. A nice night.