Live at Edinburgh Castle

She does The One Show Nonu; replaced [seamlessly] the one who moved to ITV with Adrian Chiles.

Thanx , Tegan , I know who she is now !

Happy to be helpful, m'dear ...

x

I tuned in to watch El Divo and was not disappointed.

The whole thing was lovely, in spite of the fog. What a lovely mixture of music. And I thought Alex Jones was great.

Glam

EL DIVO? ?

I wasn't that impressed with any of it personally. I would have liked to see more Smokey Robinson.

I thought most of it was awful! Katherine Jenkins and Alfie Bowe and the lady who sang in the gateway of the Castle (sorry, her name escapes me now) were very good. Alex Jones was rather dismissive of her performance though (which I thought was rude). Ronnie Corbett seemed to be struggling rather, didn't he - and as for Alex Jones chivvying him along at the end and reminding him to say "Bye bye"......

I especially liked the bit at the end where the pipes were playing I think
10 thousand miles I would love to get that on a recording>#

There is something very haunting about pipes , love them to bits !!

All I heard of the concert was the firework finale - I had forgotten about it and gone to bed. When I heard the bangs I thought it was another thunderstorm, but then realised that they were too regular for thunder - almost musical!

I'm glad I didn't bother. The jazz carnival cavalcade, on the other hand, was brilliant. I had a double ration. They played and danced their way along the garden side of Princes Street in Mardi Gras costumes, and when the last band (the pipes and drums) had passed, I assumed that they would be turning up Lothian Road and along under the castle to the Grassmarket, so I crossed to the shop side to make my way to the buses in Shandwick Place. I don't know whether it was planned, or if the leaders lost their way, but they swung round at the West End and returned along the shop side of Princes Street again for a second pass. At one point there were jazz bands playing on one side of the street and a pipe band across the reservation on the other blasting forth.

When I die, I would love a New Orleans jazz funeral!

A pipe band has to be heard out of doors, Nonu.

I didn't like to say that about Ronnie Corbett Marelli [in fact I wrote something but erased it] but the bit I saw with him in [I was nipping in and out of rooms] looked rather embarrassing . Wasn't quite sure why he was there. I would have been happy to see more of Kaiser Chiefs [caught them on iplayer]; one of the bext live bands going imo. [and I still maintain that Smokey Robinson can't sing any more; Boy Georges voice didn't sound too good either and I didn't like the comment he made about the drummer..seemed a bit barbed to me]. Gosh; I am being a misery aren't I [sorry]. I always love to hear the pipes playing.

Elegran, we were there this afternoon! It was fantastic! We stood up at the Mound and watched the procession, then (after a swift half on the Royal Mile ), caught up with it all again in the Gardens. The Caribbean drummers - and the Beltane Fire Drummers - were brilliant!

The Beltane Fire Drummers? I've seen them [only on utube]. They're amazing.

Tegan, I did just feel that Ronnie Corbett was out of his depth, and I felt embarrassed for him. Smokey Robinson hasn't got a good voice any more ....and neither has Boy George. There again, it was live and probably the acoustics weren't as good as they may have been in an indoor situation. A few years ago we went to see Van Morrison at the Usher Hall. His voice had weakened as well, which I suppose is just the way of things.

I started to watch it and then resorted to Lewis (repeat) for the rest of the evening. I found it stultifiyingly boring, amateur and second rate - well the bits I saw anyway - sorry folks

Pumeza looked and sounded amazing. Not my kind of music at all but I did stop what I was doing to watch her.

Marelli I was opposite Frederick Street, in a nice position with shade from the trees at the edge of the gardens.

Beside me were a family who kept the children on the kerb, back from spilling out into the road. A pity a lot of adults did not stay back. Some were standing permanently in a gaggle a yard or two out, cameras to their eyes, almost in front of the children, so that they (the kids) could only see the performers once they had passed the adults and were directly in front of them.

It was all quite 'mannerly' on the Mound, Elegran! We found ourselves standing on the wall and hanging on to the railings, to allow people to move along the pavement. Children mainly sat at the kerbside.

We recorded the concert, as we knew there were only 3 acts that we really wanted to see/hear, but it turned out to be 4, as the South African opera singer was amazing, such a beautiful voice, lovely eyes as well. We loved Il Divo, as expected, but I was disappointed that Alfie Boe and Kathryn Jenkins performed as a duo, rather than separately, I hoped, in vain, that they`d each be back later, but it wasn`t to be.

I turned it on when Ellie Henderson was on (I think that's her name), who I thought was rather good.

As for the rest, I thought it was very dated and slightly embarrassing - Boy George singing hits from goodness only knows how many years ago, ditto Smoky Robinson (whose records I love but his voice isn't very strong now). I thought his duet with Jessie J was boring.

I liked John Miles at the end though.

Glam

El Divo?

El Divo, Il Divo...it's only one letter, Nonu!