As Lesley the Librarian left at the end of a great night she told Ogz the band's accordionist that Orkestra del Sol are brilliant. She's not wrong, in fact when the sell out 300 audience started doing the polka (most having just learnt
the dance) we feared for the floor! Without doubt Edinburgh band Orkestra del Sol know their musical chops, Marcus Britton on sousaphone never runs out of puff and occasionally sounds like an inevitably slightly less agile cross between Bernie Edwards and Willie Weeks, but with Calypso Collapso, the Clockwork Violinist and El Presidente the band have to be actors as well. The only disappointment of the evening was when just 94% of the audience joined the conga line. Discouraging because as signees of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol the UK is committed to 96.43% conga line outreach and engagement by August 2008 but then, maybe it doesn't apply to Scots, either way we loved Miss Olga's hat ... actually, we love Miss Olga.
fr 11 ja 08
1973 The Open University awarded its first degrees
Orkestra Del Sol is a dynamic and brassy carnival band with a good dose of anarchic humour. Based in Edinburgh, they're a high energy ten piece band playing gypsy wedding party, bar-mitzvah-meets-panto, Balkan rhythms to Middle Eastern pop, an excursion into calypso, and even some terrible break dancing.
On at the Manor Ballroom, Ipswich today fortnight and just gotta see them ... any band that runs on stage is the right stuff in our book. Nice one Howard, pure madness!
