Buskers - Part 1
Posted Mon, 08 Aug 2005 08:46:34 GMT to Posted in Life, Reviews, Entertainment Tags buskers, review
Halifax International Buskerfest is once again in motion. Quite a few interesting shows were performed this year. On the first day I went down, I basically ended up watching a series of finales, so I really don’t know how good the entire acts were. As always, the waterfront areas were PACKED with people.
Everyone in Halifax knows of Chaulkmaster Dave. Chances are you have seen his work in front of the Library on Spring Garden. As always, he was down at thje Buskerfest, showing off his talent. His renditions of Spiderman and Batman are simply amazing, as usual.
I’m sorry, but I don’t want to wait around 10 minutes while you are saying you are going to swallow a sword, before you actually swallow the sword. Also, I am getting tired of finales where you get 4 guys to hold a pole while you climb it and perform your 30 second performance.
One of two escape artists that I managed to see, Scot Free managed a constant stream of jokes, puns, and wit while being wrapped in a roll of saran wrap for his grand finale. That’s right, not the traditional straight jacket escape, but sarran wrap. His non-traditional approach, and constant humor made him one of the better shows I managed to see.
According to his website, he is also an extreme skateboarder, and a chainsaw juggler….... while the chainsaw is on.
Stephen Elway
Another escape artist act, this time with the traditional straight jacket. The performer came across as eccentric, and since he escaped while ‘I’m Too Sexy’ was playing, and turned it into a dance routine, it was quite entertaining. The setup to the event, where he had two members of the audience tie him up, was filled with the busker wit I enjoy so much.
This was the best performance of the day, in my opinion. Despite the fact that I couldn’t see some of the breakdancing, due to the sheer number of people watching, the moves that I did see were spectacular. At one point, they pulled some people from the crowd and got them to dance for the crowd. To my (and I am sure the crowd’s amusement), one of these people actually did some breakdancing himself. The look on the face of the leader was amusing. I swear, he was thinking “Off all the people in the crowd and at this festival, I had to pick the one white dude in Halifax that can actually breakdance to a degree”. The famous busker wit was also present here, with such lines as “We will accept any donations, so if you can pull out your wallet, take out 5 or 10 dollars…........ and give us the rest….” and “We are trying to pay for our educations, so if you could give us 5 or 10 dollers, that would help a lot. On the other hand, if you give us 20 or 50, we won’t have to go at all!”
Take Matty Blade, have him eat fire instead of swords, and you have Jeff Collins. I liked (or disliked) there shows the same amount in the same way. After 10 minutes, I was thinking “Eat the damn fire already!!!”
[...] Day 2 of what started here [...]
The only reason this sit is alive is my fans trying to get info on me. I have tried to point out your lack of intelligence to no avail. Once again Stephen Elway is a table magician who does not perform the straitjacket routine.
Once again the act with the song too sexy for my body was Jeff Collins.
Once again the fire routine was Ash circle.
Once again I swallowed 14 swords which was a Guinness world record. Once again 2 ropes holding a 3.5 meter pole vertical. Once again I did 18 shows with 2 broken ribs. Once again my pirate ship if you noticed was on a dangerous incline of the wharf in the wind. Making it almost impossible to perform safely. Who the hell are you, I can’t wait to catch up with you next year when I’m back in Canada. I will get my genius web gut on it.See you then.
Hey, sorry about deleting your original comment. I was cleaning out a lot of spam and hit delete by mistake.
I’m sorry if you take personal offence to my opinion of acts on poles to be boring. I’ve seen various jugglers on poles, people balancing on bikes on poles,fire eaters on poles, and sword swallowers on poles. None have really captured my attention.
As to your corrections… those names were originally taken from the Buskers Guide of that year. If you can provide proper references for your claims, I have no problems updating it.
Congratulations on your Guinness record and your ability to perform with broken ribs. I haven’t seen the former so can’t comment. As to the later, if your ribs were broken during the Halifax show, I was unaware.