I am up and out of the flat by noon and am pretty proud of myself. The Rose McGowan show is on the Mound a venue I always forget exists because it it huge and removed from the hubbub of the more pedestrian George Square. I suppose it is the place an act should aim to one day play but it always seems elusive and lonely to me as a building.
I genuinely didn’t know what to expect and if I am completely honest, I still don’t know what I saw. It was a sort of high-tech listening party of an album McGowan had recorded that “used all of the sound tricks Hollywood used to manipulate us” for good and healing instead of evil. There is a slide show at the very beginning explaining her background and promoted her book “Brave”. Having just paid 22 pounds for a ticket, I didn’t like being advertised her book as soon as the show started and felt my arms cross. I was just about to say “ Fuck this.” And then she walked on stage in a sort of ethereal, angelic yogi and shapeless princess Leia dress pant. She can command an audience and just when you think she might be mentally checked out there she lets you know she is sharp as a tack and in on the joke.
She asks the audience to close their eyes a lot and walks us through visualizations. There is a lot of artsy stuff going on on the screen behind her and I want to see it. She has a habit of telling people to close their eyes but not telling them when to open them. At one point, she asks us to keep our eyes closed for the duration of a particular song. I oblige but when the song ends she informs us that if we had opened our eyes, we would have seen the artwork she had made out of video of her that was put up on porn hub. I get her point but I would have liked to have seen that.
After the show, she says she will be signing books after the show. I have a place to be but decide to pick up a book anyway. I ask a Chinese student waiting in line what she thought of the show and she said she had come because, “I like the show Charmed.” and then said “ I think someone hurt her.”
One of the songs made the Chinese student think of a word she needed to look up in google translate “intracranial orgasm”. I think that pretty much sums up the show for me. Something I have never heard of, expected to see and not the easiest to explain. I am glad I went, it did take me out of the Fringe bubble and I did leave feeling refreshed. So that was nice.
That’s what she said.
My show went well and was a typical Sunday show in that everyone is lower energy than Friday and Saturday crowds but definitely have longer attention spans. A heavily-medicated person fell asleep in the show which is just as well. A fellow comedian and I talk after the show about how every female comedian she knows has a stalker and how blasé we all are about them. At least mine is too sleepy to do anything.
Boyfriend is in town tomorrow and these dogs are barking so early to bed for me.