A Head Full of Wishes is a site for Galaxie 500, Luna, Damon & Naomi, Dean & Britta and Dean Wareham. With news, articles and lists of releases and past and future shows.
13 Most Beautiful at The Carnegie Hall in Dunfermline
Hazel and I arrived in Dunfermline for last night's 13 Most Beautiful in plenty of time. We headed up to The Carnegie Hall and milled around for a few minutes hoping to bump into Dean & Britta - because I can do "bumping into" I'm just no good at "hunting down". Having failed to bump we headed for a stroll around the town taking in the sights - the Abbey, Carnegie's birthplace - before heading back up to the hall. This time we did manage to bump into Dean (as well as a friend from Edinburgh who'd come to the show). We chatted with Dean & Britta for a while and then headed into the venue.
The Carnegie Hall is a smallish theatre on two levels, the circle wasn't open for the performance but, despite my worries and someone on Twitter's suggestion that attendance would be low, the stalls were pretty close to full by the time Richard Rheem's surly demeanor appeared on the screen to its drony electronic accompaniment. The show progressed beautifully until about 30 seconds into Susan Bottomly's screentest when a loud pop was followed by sudden silence and the vague smell of burning electrics (although Hazel thinks the smell was in my head). The band pulled back and the house lights came up while the crew fixed the blown fuse and rewound to the beginning of Susan's test for a second attempt.
No more unexpected drama accompanied the rest of the films and the show was exquisite. Ann Buchanan's tears made me sad, and Paul America's good-looking cool made me smile, and just seeing the way that Ingrid Superstar couldn't leave her face alone... I'd seen all the films before on the DVD but with the band beneath them made it a different experience - it was hard to know whether to watch the films or watch the band... I think I mostly watched the band!
Finally, Jane Holzer smiled and spat out the last of her toothpaste, and 13 Most Beautiful's only UK performance was over.
The band were summoned back for an encore of Tugboat and Strange, which, as you can possibly imagine, left me fairly weak with delirium. A fantastic show.
We hung around in the bar afterwards hoping, once again, and Dean came over and chatted to us some more. I am genuinely chuffed that Dean & Britta (and in fact everyone I've met connected with A Head Full of Wishhes) are such nice people. Finally Dean headed off to load their taxi and Hazel and I headed back to our "taxi" (Hazel's dad - it was like being 14 again!)