Delft Blues Day Two

And back we went.

After enjoying dinner at the Ruif with Matt's lab mates, we all headed to the Stars & Bars for the second night in a row, this time to watch Memo Gonzalez & the Bluescasters perform. The place was packed to see Memo perform on his harmonica. I am not sure if he was "three hundred pounds of Texas dynamite" or not, but the band did play a nice mix of country and blues.

When Memo took a break, we headed back to old town and to De Waag to hear Professor Deaf & His Eardrums. We knew the Professor (dressed in a graduation gown and mortar board) must be good when we saw the place was so packed that the crowd was bursting out the doors. We squeezed in to listen to the eclectic group, with their funny hats, play a range of instruments.

The music was good, the atmosphere was excellent, and the draft beer was better, so we stayed a few hours to listen to bluesy-jazz music. We stayed all the way to the end - long enough to hear the encore of Elvis hits. Although our group of friends headed on to the next performance, we headed back home. Matt was due to play 5 frisbee games the next morning and it was time to get some rest.

Delft Blues

This weekend Delft is hosting the Delft Blues Festival - a musical play on their fame of blue Delftware. Bars and cafes all over town are hosting solo, duet, and group performances, with free entry. We took this as an opportunity to visit places we might not have frequented otherwise.

We started by celebrating Valentine's day (a day early) with dinner at De Zeven Zonden (The Seven Sins) and music by Bluesinn. The atmosphere was cozy and unique; the dinner was delicious and unique. The restaurant was filled with these wonderful custom made light fixtures, in fact most of Europe is filled with wonderful custom made light fixtures.

I opted for the special Bluesmenu and was not disappointed. My dinner started with a kangaroo carpaccio with a mango sauce; I wonder if they import the kangaroo steaks or if there is a kangaroo farm somewhere in the Netherlands. Regardless, the carpaccio was wonderful - it almost made me wish Matt had ordered the kangaroo steak for dinner. But neither of us were disappointed when we got our dinners, completed with the perfect roasted potatoes. Here in the Netherlands, they put bowls of potatoes on your table just like an Italian restaurant would put bread on your table in America.

It was strange to be sitting in a restaurant in the Netherlands, eating kangaroo, while listening to Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown and Walking in Memphis. You never would have known it was a Dutch blues band up there and not blues trio out of the south.

After licking ever bit of yogurt ice cream and strawberry Indonesian cake off our plates, we headed off the Stars and Bars - probably the only country-western bar within an hour train ride and the CLEANEST bar and pool hall I've ever seen. Charley Cruz and the Lost Souls - a pop/country/blues band was supposed to be playing, however, I think they let their kids perform the warm-up act. The teenagers were pretty good, but I didn't care for the beer on tap and time is relative thing here so we headed home after the warm-up group. But we might be back tomorrow to hear Memo Gonzalez & the Bluescasters - straight from Dallas, Texas.

Wicked

We finished New Year's Day off with a showing of Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theatre. I have read other books by Gregory Maguire and knew I was in for a treat in the fractured fairytale; I just didn't know for how big of a treat. It was a wonderful show; the set and the cast were amazing. My favorite part was the monkeys. They were so life-like, but wonderfully artsy at the same time.

The story just drew you in and everything from the original story was expertly woven into the fractured tale. Now I can't wait to read Maguire's other books. I have been trying to find Wicked and A Loin Among Men at the library and local bookstores for a few months now with out any luck - I guess I will just have to order them from Amazon.

Now if we can just get back to London to take in some more fabulous West End shows and intermission ice cream...

National Museum van Speelkok tot Pierement

...or the National Museum from Chimes to Barrel Organs.

It is a wonderful museum that concentrates on mechanical music machines - they have over 600 of them on display. The collection ranges from tiny jewelry music boxes to huge fairground barrel organs.

The museum finishes with a children's room, where they can explore how the machines make music. With your ticket the front desk hands you a music card strip for every child. This music card strip allows you to punch holes in it and play a medley in the music box. After seeing the activity in action, I just had to participate. Armed with my "I'm an elementary school teacher" line, I marched up to the front desk to request two strips for Matt and me. The amused front desk attendant kindly handed over two strips with chuckle.

And off we went...

First we marked the notes on our cards using song templates, like "Teletubbies", "Flintstones", "Bonnie over the Sea", and what I think was the Dutch national anthem. I chose "Flintstones".

Next, we punched a hole for each note we just marked.


And then, we stuck our music card into the player.


And whalaa! Music!

Matt, unsatisfied with the assortment of children's songs, decided to compose a tune himself. Fortunately for you, the camera was on hand to capture his music box debut performance.