Blog: Coincidental Edinburgh

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We're doing Total Hero Team with the Free Fringe again this year, because they're ACE (and VERY MUCH deserving of any support you can give them e.g. by buying a copy of the amazingly GRATE benefit album what I put together). We got approved to be part of it AGES ago, but had to wait a while to find out what venue we'd be getting, as we're only doing two weeks and they sort out people doing a full run FIRST.

I kept saying "I bet it'll be Medina!" to all who asked, CHORTLING as I did so - the Medina is where we played for the first two years that we did the Fringe, and I knew that it had joined the Free Fringe last year. How HILARIOUS it would be, I thought, if out of ALL the many many venues the PBH Free Fringe had access to, they chose that one! IMAGINE!

And lo and behold, we totally DID get given it as a venue - cue much saying "HO! I told you: I AM PSYCHIC, FEAR MY MIND". We logged it on systems, put it on our gig listings, and felt ready to ROCK... until a couple of weeks ago when we got an email telling us that the Medina (now called "The Third Door") had been SOLD and the owners had gone with someone ELSE instead, so we were being moved to somewhere called "The Wilkie House Upstairs".

I couldn't register this on the Fringe website just yet (NB we have to register it there to get our listing in the Big Fat Programme) as it wasn't LISTED yet - INDEED, as far as GOOGLE knew, the Wilkie House had closed down in the 1990s or something, but we were pretty sure we knew where it was, in the Sin Nightclub on Cowgate, just down the STEPS from the GRV where we played the year after Medina. That would be FINE with us.

Then last night I got another email which happened casually happened to mention halfway through that "Wilkie Upstairs" is a slightly different building to the main "Wilkie House" that we knew about and is, in fact, the new name for ... the GRV!

To summarise: we had originally been booked to play in the same venue we used in 2008 and 2009. That fell through, so we were transferred to... the same venue we used in 2010. I am now COMPLETELY READY for THAT to change in a few weeks and for us to end up back at The Buffs Club again! Apparently it has closed down and is being changed into a HOSTEL instead of a social club, but I do not see that as much of a barrier when, clearly, THE GODS OF ROCK are intent on us revisiting all our old venues... and then NOT revisiting them!

For now though it remains "Wilkie House Upstairs (formerly GRV)" over on the Total Hero Team website. When it changes to "Building Site For Backpackers Hostel (formerly Buffs Club)" I'll let you know.

posted 27/3/2013 by MJ Hibbett

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Comments:

Garn, I looked each of those up to see if I recognised them only to realise it was hopeless ... as they're all in areas I'd mainly been to at night, the google maps versions are daylight, and it makes such a difference to how the place looks when the fringe is in town :D If it turns into Buffs then you're plenty handy for Princes Street, the station and the new tram line, whack a few signs out front and catch a load of passing traffic!
posted 27/3/2013 by MarkP

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