Apologies apologies apologies, I know I know, I have been shoddy to say the least with my blogging and sadly I have no excuse to proffer...suffice to say I shall endeavour to do better in future, and will try and fill in the blanks (or rather, highlights of the past few weeks) in a quick rundown of our activities here in bella Italia...
Firstly, I can't talk about Bologna without talking about the music here. Maybe this is just something that's struck me as I'm one of those types who physically cannot function without music. I ALWAYS have music on in some capacity or other - be it itunes on my laptop, italian radio on my alarmclock (although I do admit the vast majority of italian music is pretty dire) or sashaying through town plugged into my ipod. I'm particularly addicted to the ipod when out and about in town, to the point where if for some reason I leave it at home I do feel as if I've lost a limb. I'm not entirely sure this is healthy, although it does mean I've inadvertently got myself a "soundtrack to the city" (as unbelievably cheesy as that sounds!)
But I'm sure this isn't remotely interesting. The point of this blog today, the gist, the nub and thrust if you will, is the music here, all around us in Bologna. It's everywhere, and covers pretty much every genre you could find.
Recently a fellow Edinburgh erasmus-ette came through to visit from Verona, and after a lovely aperitivo we wandered towards Piazza Maggiore where we found a free concert. This was no busker on a street corner, no no. This was a full on CONCERT, complete with a huge stage outside the Palazzo, massive speakers, flashy lights and hundreds of screaming fans. And all for free! As this was wayy back in September the weather was still warm and everyone was crammed into the piazza enjoying the warm evenings - we joined the crowd and pretended to know what was going on. The singer was a woman named Irene Grandi, who although unbeknown to us uncultured Brits, appears to be uber-famous here in Italia. The crowd knew every word to every song, and despite our ignorance we had a great time attempting to sing along 
The following week I found myself at another gig, though this couldn't have been more different. A friend from my language course invited me along to a gig at the Parco Nord (a big conference centre type thing just outside the city), so I decided to go along and suss it out. Please bear in mind though that this gig was "ska and reggae", something which I'm not exactly familiar with...my knowledge of ska and reggae is limited to a very sketchy aquaintance with the Greatest Hits of Bob Marley (for "Greatest Hits" read Jammin/No Woman No Cry. Seriously, that's it)... although I thought I should broaden my musical horizons and try something new. We arrived at Parco Nord to find Festa Dell' Unita in full swing. Festa Dell' Unita was a month long "festival" (I use the term in it's loosest sense) celebrating how fantastic Italy is. It's run by the PD, who are the second political party and general leftists. This meant that although the Festa Dell' Unita isn't overtly political, it does appear to have definate leftist sympathies, and you wouldn't find too many Berlusconi supporters wandering around, which suited me fine! It was a pretty bizarre set up - the main objective seemed to be showcases for all the different regions of Italy; stands had been set up where you could try regional food/drinks, find out about the history, listen to the music, watch traditional dances and so on and so forth. Also they had stalls for the major immigrant groups so there were lots of South American stalls, particularly Mexican and Brazilian, and a few from Eastern Europe and Africa. Then, completely randomly, they had stalls where you could buy cars, washing machines, fitness equipment and life insurance. Obviously. Ahem. We wandered through the stalls, found the gig which was in a big purpose built tent at the back of the ground (the Festa is temporary, although this tent, called Estragon, is a permanent feature of Bologna's gig calendar) and procured our tickets before going off to sample some of the regional specialities... there were loads of yummy looking food stalls, but this seemed like far too sensible an option so we plumped for the Student Approach to Festa Dell' Unita - try as many different shots from different regions as possible! This was actually a lot of fun, as we sailed past the Cuban stand, the Sardinian stand and the Brazilian stand where we had absolutely fantastic Caipirinhas. (yes, I know that's technically not a shot but hey). We then returned to "Italy" and went into Estragon to see the gig. As my mate is a huge fan of the band who were playing we got in early and headed straight to the front. The crowd seemed pretty hippie, and I did feel slightly left out as I don't have dreadlocks, but everyone was very friendly. Soon enough the band came on, and everyone went MENTAL. It was hilarious, and I've got to say, the music was great! Nowhere as chilled as I expected, they had lots of trumpets and trombones and it had a very jazzy, upbeat feel. Everyone was jumping around as if they were on a giant trampoline and I was having a fab time until all of a sudden an enormous mosh pit erupted out of nowhere and I got dragged in by a very sweaty be-dreadlocked midget (I kid you not)and almost got trampled. Somehow I managed to wriggle away and spent the rest of the set bopping around on the side at a safe distance from the moshers. The best part was yet to come though, as suddenly I looked up at the stage to realise that the lead singer (who incidentally was a huge burly bald bloke who bore more than a passing resemblance to a Potterow bouncer) was marching about the stage brandishing a hammer and sickle. The next thing I knew the entire crowd had stopped singing and were now jumping and chanting with him shouting "COMMUNISMO!!" at the top of their lungs. It was bizarre, I can safely say I have never been to a communist gig before! This carried on intermittently throughout the gig, and was really quite impressive in a weird way! After the gig we wandered back towards the bus, when we passed by the Mexican stand we'd seen before. Someone had been dragged in to join their drinking game, so we stopped to watch...and within seconds were spotted and forced to join too! Protest as I did, it was to no avail and the next thing I knew I had been picked up by some random Mexican man, plonked on a swivelly office chair and was having an enormous plastic cape tied around my neck and a plastic builder's hat rammed onto my head. I was then instructed to keep my hands under the cape,and to hang on to the edge of the seat. Three Mexicans then approached, shouted "OLE!" at me and proceeded to spin my chair round three times... after the third spin a girl wearing a sparkly cowboy hat came over bearing a shot of tequila, which she then smacked me on the head (hence the plastic helmet) with twice, and on the third smack made me drink it. Once said shot had been drunk the three guys surrounded the chair, hugged each other and jumped up and down around me going absolutely crazy shouting "MEHICO MEHICO OLE OLE OLE!" It was quite frankly, the most surreal drinking-experience I've ever been part of, although fantastic, and absolutely hilarious. Other gigs in Bologna, although ace, haven't quite lived up to that one, strangely enough!
A few weeks later a contingent of us Edinburgh eramsus-ers who are scattered between Bologna, Verona and Venice converged in Bologna for the Wombats gig at Estragon again, which was brilliant, although quite strange to be with an Italian crowd who react to bands in a completely different way to British crowds. They sang and moshed (there is so much moshing here! No one dances at gigs, it just turns into a huge brawl!) and seemed to be having a great time, though didn't really react to the band. There was no encore for example; as soon as the band announced their last song everyone just cheered very appreciately then went home...and I don't think our wee group whooping on the side of the stage were enough to get the band to come back, even though the girls almost got us backstage due to some very impressive banter with the security guys!
Apart from gigs, I'm also keeping my music obsession going by teaching myself guitar, and after an inital lesson from a friend am now strumming away at Jolene like a slightly less busty-quiffed-and high pitched Dolly Parton Stars In Their Eyes contestant! There's still a long way to go before I'll be busking at Piazza Santo Stefano with the other students though! I've also joined the choir which is great, although as my Latin isn't so hot I'm not doing so well at the pronunciation so far
Right, enough for now, I'm off to search for gig tickets (I'm getting withdrawal symptoms already!) for the next big show in Bologna!
