Orsino Nation [FringeTIX]
Orsino Nation @ The Jade Monkey
6:00pm, Sat 7 Mar 2009
I arrive early, they’re running late. Come the allotted start time, they’re still trying to sort out the sound. There’s three people in Orsino Nation’s live incarnation: Yasmine (a flamenco dancer, branching into music) is singing, Paul on keyboards and tech wizardry, Karen on keys, percussion, violin and backing vox. After much discussion – they lost a pivotal USB hub just before the show – they eventually start… and the opening song is fucking awful. Really, truly awful. The lead vocals are getting clipped to buggery, and no-one seems to give a shit about fixing it.
Christ, it’s actually embarrassing.
The song ends, and they attempt to fix the clipping issue. Oh dear. After another couple of minutes, the problem’s solved – but unfortunately that means they start the second track – a rockier number.
And, honestly, I’ve never felt a greater desire to leave a show.
There’s no real distinct style to Orsino Nation’s music – there’s some Celtic influences, and plenty of tinklings and strangulated song snippets. Instrumentation of the songs is astonishingly bad – simple drum loops with simpler plinky-plonk piano (or basslines) slapped on over the top. But the enthusiasm with which they all attack the task at hand reminds me of a Star Wars geek handing you a copy of their fan fiction which you discover, when you reluctantly read it, is full of anatomically (and physically) impossible acts of depravity between Padmé and Leia… you raise your eyebrows, intent on telling the author that they’ve produced some complete shit, but their eyes are so wide and doleful and hopeful and enthusiastic that you can’t. You just can’t break their misguided little heart.
And this crapulence continues right to the end, including the theatrical stupidity of the final song, hopelessly optimistic in its “leave the crowd wanting more” vibe.
Unfortunately, even giving them the benefit of the doubt for equipment failures et al, just about the only positive out of the performance was the fact that it reminded me of all the decent gigs I’d seen at the Jade Monkey in the past – Bird Lantern, The Mime Set. It’s just galling that Orsino Nation garnered the biggest crowds of the lot of them, that this atonal mess get the biggest cheers I’ve heard within those walls.
Oh god, The Mime Set – they were fucking awesome. I think I may chuck on their DVD now.