Telling the story of the ups and downs, the adventurous and mundane days of one British family's self-imposed exile in the Capital Region of New York State.
This evening, Exile #2 and I left the kids with Nan and Granddad and went to The Linda.
The Linda is the live venue attached to the WAMC studios in Albany. It's a surprisingly tiny place - seating about 200 and it was an absolutely perfect place for us to see Sonos tonight.
These six singers really produced something extraordinary and thoroughly unexpected.
The first two songs were literally breathtaking - it's not often that I have gone to a concert without hearing the artist at all before hand, but it paid off today. It didn't get any less wonderful after that - but I did start breathing again. We were there partly thanks to LLoyd who heard about an a cappella group who do a Radiohead cover and mentioned it to me - I had tickets within 24 hours! The billing said "This is not your parents' a cappella" and it was right - it was unlike any form of singing I had ever come across - certainly I had never seen anything like it live. They effortlessly blend tight complex harmonies, beat-boxing, bass lines and wonderful singing - each of them switching back and forth amongst these roles as the arrangement requires and producing amazing dynamics and textures along the way.
The most striking thing to me was that, in spite of the light use of electronics to assist them, at the end of the day it was the six of them and their voices - nothing to hide behind, nothing to fall back on (except each other), no safety net. And they never needed it.
They didn't do the Radiohead track - and we didn't mind one bit. Every song they did was a thing of beauty - from gentle harmonies to bombastic beats and they come across as extremely likeable and down to earth and really loving what they are doing.
Wonderful. Catch them if you can.
It was hard to choose something - but here you go. A taste of Sonos from YouTube:
Edit: changed the video - this one better reflects our experience I think.
I took Exile #2's parents to the train station this morning so they could visit New York City for the day. I had to drive over the Dunn Memorial Bridge to get there. It's a funny old bridge - all multi-level and sweeping curves and then...well I'll let the picture speak for itself.
They made it back safely too - you'll be happy to know - after what sounds like a good day out.
Here are some more pictures from our trip to Bennington on Saturday - the moose works-of-art are all around the town - here are two - I believe the one with a village inside it is called 'Mooseorama'. The Green Mountains may not have been at their autumnal best, but they were certainly off-green.
The peg board was in the school-house from yesterday. The rest of the museum was charming but a bit stuffy for the kids - all 'do not touch' and yet things placed temptingly within range of adult and child hands alike. The really fragile items were in glass cases which took some of the pressure off. We were left alone to do our own thing in the school house although the watchful eye of a CCTV camera was an unblinking sentinel. At one point a slightly sour-faced attendant came and tidied up around us and our mark on the peg board was gone - replaced by sterile readiness - within a few minutes of our leaving it. Not a problem - but not exactly encouraging fun!
The other part of the museum that worked best for us was the Grandma Moses exhibition. Lots of her paintings along with a short video interview and a few personal possessions. Her story is very interesting - she painted more than 3000 works even though she did not start painting until she was in her seventies. Maybe there's time for a second career in the arts for me yet!
I know at least one of you spotted both the error and my deception yesterday. In fact the pictures were from the Bennington Museum. After our visit to Cohoes Falls on Saturday, we headed east, across the Hudson and then across the state line to Vermont.
Bennington is a very nice place to spend a sunny day and the museum was good too - the kids loved the period school-room and kitchen.
This is what I learned in school:
There were books of "Hymns for Juvenile Deliquents"
I may or may not be a dunce, but I can certainly rock the hat.
The kids look super-cute in dress-up.
Women teachers who got married would be dismissed just as surely as ones who engaged in 'improper conduct'.
Men teachers who attended church regularly got an extra night to go out on the pull 'for courting purposes'.
I wonder if that rule swelled the ranks at church and why the rule-makers were so determined that children needed to be protected from the influence of a married woman!
