Edinburgh in festival season is no joke. Severe flooding compounded by a ticketing system usually preceded by the word ‘meltdown’ make for me missing the first 15 minutes of Hibbett’s show. Which is a pity as it’s in a lecture format (complete with old-school Powerpoint presentation). It may be that I’ve missed crucial but less glamourous segments about the initial struggle of a band, but arriving in time for section titles such as ‘The Hit’ and ‘My Drugs Hell’ suggest that the important knowledge for a ‘life in rock’ is still to come.
So there’s enough unveiled to be a useful exercise. MJ (Mark to his friends) offers salient advice, such as advising avoidance of gigs in teahouses, lest you wake up naked in a hotel corridor. Much of the advice is doled via the medium of song, so we learn the ‘Lesson of the Smiths’, and how to ‘Do The Indie Kid’, but the information of most value is that from the top of the tree of Rock. Thus, Hibbett relays some rock star wisdom from John Otway on the after-gig behaviour most likely to result in adulation and free booze. However, Hibbett is no slouch in the cult success realm himself, as the 2 million downloads that ‘Hey Hey 16K’ generated prove, and a Radio One session is self-effacingly brushed off as Steve Lamacq’s revenge on the station. Of course like any good Rock career the fade or burn comes swiftly and the ‘Cover Version’ signals this, so MJ’s appearance just ahead of Echo and the Bunnymen at David Cameron’s favourite festival heralds what may be the peak but also the close of the show, via his ukelele version of ‘Boom Boom Shake The Room’. It’s riotously funny and is just what the Edinburgh Fringe needs.
