On 20 August, I went to the Edinburgh Tattoo, which is a big pipe and drum show that gets put on every year during August. It takes place on the esplanade in front of Edinburgh Castle, and military bands from all over the world come to perform.
The first hour of the show was quite good. The opening pipe and drum number, in which the esplanade is filled with hundreds of bagpipers, was a grand spectacle. I had chills. Also, before the pipers came out, a bunch of little kids dressed up as Picts came out and did a little pantomime, which was very cute. Here's an amateur video of it:
The rest of the show was really quite kitschy and twee. There were various military bands playing the usual military band fare. There were highland dancers, doing dances meant to represent whisky-brewing and the industrial revolution. The one truly awesome performance (aside from the massed pipes and drums at the beginning) was a drumline from Switzerland. They were AMAZING. Truly the best drumline I've ever seen.
The last 45 minutes were kind of disappointing, to be honest. All of the performers came back out onto the esplanade, but only a couple of the bands actually played. This part of the performance was a celebration of QEII's diamond jubilee, and was essentially supposed to be a reenactment of her coronation. So some of the bands played a couple of the pieces that were played at her coronation, while everybody else stood to attention for ages. Toward the end, they played the theme to the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever, and there were fireworks. The fireworks were being launched directly behind me, which was annoying, and they also weren't all that impressive. I had heard that the tattoo ended every night with a big fireworks display, so I thought "Okay, this must be the warm-up." Then the lone piper played, high up on the castle battlements, and everybody marched out to "Scotland The Brave," which always ends every tattoo...and that was it. No final bombastic fireworks display. So that was a let-down.
All in all, I'm glad I went, because it's something you should really do if you're in Edinburgh in August. But having done it, I feel like I can check it off the list and never do it again. But who knows? Maybe next year's show will be better.
Cheers, y'all.
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