I'd never attended the Edinburgh Military Tattoo before. Nor had Sam, of course. So I booked the tickets well in advance for this year's show....and went.
Tickets are quite expensive! They were, in fact, the biggest expense of the whole trip. But they turned out to be worth the money.
Our seats were two rows from the top of the "new for 2011" arena. It's a completely temporary structure that will be dismantled at the start of September and mothballed until next summer. Very impressive, no roof supports to spoil the view and a steep rake providing every seat with a fantastic panorama.
I am not a fan of bagpipes. Well, not in a "piper standing on a street corner filling a town centre with doleful whining" way. When they form part of a military band it's a different story - the massed pipes and drums band was enormous. We tried counting them but it was impossible. We think there were almost 200 musicians.
The highlight for us both was the Dutch Bicycle Band. What utter lunatic came up with this idea? Serving members of the Dutch army pedal precariously around the arena, in loose formation, playing military marches. And Tulips From Amsterdam. They are 75% band, 25% comedy act, with slapstick falls, collisions and various attempts to run over the band leader. Marvellously unhinged.
Another highlight was the naval gun race. Except, it's not a race any more. Health & Safety have rulad that it was too dangerous in its original form, so now the two teams are only allowed to "show examples of parts of the original contest". They still go for it at full tilt though, and judging by the losing team's body language it still holds as much kudos as it ever did.
The Tattoo's theme this year was The Sea. The Navy performed a display showing how they deal with ships that have been hijacked by pirates.
The guys with rifles made their entrance from the back of the stands, so Sam was delighted to be within touching distance.
The Royal Marines were superb, naturally. The drummers did all that stick waving and choreography thing, and their performance was brilliant.
We loved the Military Tattoo so much that we wanted to go again the next night. Highly recommended!
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