People Are Strange

It was another clear and sunny day. It made for an ideal opportunity to make my way through the city in greater depth to visit some of Adelaide’s attractions.  The scale of this place is quite small including the vertical density of its buildings.  Although the architecture isn’t as moving as some other places I’ve travelled, it was refreshing to see many heritage edifices.  I commend places like Adelaide that embrace their rich history restoring/maintaining structures from the early 1800’s whilst integrating them as functional pieces of its present day urban landscape.  Meanwhile a place like Toronto is only too quick to tear down or destroy then erect uninspired design.  

Victoria Square with Postal Office in foreground and Town Hall in background

Although there were ample cycle shops in the city, a fact that I relish when one cannot sneeze without hitting one down here.  I wasn’t able to find a shop that provided rentals.  Like Melbourne, Adelaide possesses a city bike rental system.  Unfortunately, I just couldn’t bring myself to rent a leisure ride.  It’s a shame since the compact CBD is surrounded by trails, parks and gardens.  Alas, a little marché could do the body good although I think I would have appreciated Adelaide more if I had two wheels.

Along the Rundle Street Promenade Mall

The only vibrant place in the city is Rundle Street, which in part is a retail promenade filled with boutique stores, shopping arcades and numerous al fresco dining locations.  As noted the Fringe Festival is running in Adelaide. It is arguably the largest festival of its kind in the world, although residents of Edinburgh may disagree.

The festival breathes life into this quiet town featuring risqué and unusual cabaret acts, musical performances, ample busking in the street, stand-up comedians alongside gallery & film showings and puppetry.  As I made my way down Rundle there were magicians, singers, jugglers and clowns amok.  It made for an interesting peek into the weird, strange and humourous.  

At the end of the strip is the premiere showcase area of the festival known as The Garden of Unearthly Delights. The Garden shifts Rundle Park from a children’s fair ground during the day to an adult vaudevillian playground by night.  Adjacent to the Garden laid another Fringe venue called Gluttony in the Park tagged as a Decadent Feast for the Senses. 

It was at the latter showcase that I took in a musical performance on Monday night from an Irish group called Dead Cat Bounce, with their Bootlegs performance.  It was late start time, but they still managed to coral about 50 folks for the gig. 

The band consisted of a guitarist, bassist, drummer on an electric drum machine set and a synthesizer player. As music began to play, the majority of the youthful audience erupted from their seats and it was a full blown dance party for the next 90 minutes.  It was a blast.  

They played a number of hits stringing together songs from the past four decades, cleverly migrating sound bites from track to track or overlaying one song’s melody with another’s lyrics.  There was no stone unturned from Michael Jackson to ACDC to MIA to Joy Division.  I have to admit it was well conceived and my feet didn’t stop moving.