My diary of the 2012 Hydra Rebetiko Conference.
Saturday
Saturday started with another nice Mistral Hotel breakfast, which I failed to photograph. Sorry about that, but I can assure you it was both good to look at and good to eat.
I believe the only activity for the early part of the day was with Peyman Heydarian in the Melina Mercouri Hall [sounds like "Cluedo"] but instead I went around taking as many pictures as I could, with my camera set up for HDR. There is a whole album of them on Google+. Here is one of my favourites...
I even had time for a beer, although I skipped lunch, before heading off for a siesta.
So, why was the Rebetiko Gathering on Hydra this year so quiet? Apparently, not only were there no offers of papers or lectures, but, unlike his predecessor, the present Mayor of Hydra, a Mr Angelos Kotrinis, gave absolutely no support for the gathering this year. It appears he feels his personal taste in music is the only valid one, and he does not like rebetiko. Shame on him!
In the evening, I went to the Douskos Restaurant, and found there was a small table reserved for the Rebetiko fans. There were also tables set up for huge numbers of people, so they were probably catering for a wedding. My friends turned up soon after, so we were all set...
The band was not large, being only four, when Ed joined in on baglama, but their enthusiasm and large repertoire of mainly Pireaus style rebetiko helped enormously. I was able to put my recording gear on the window-sill behind them, so this years's recordings have rather less of me droning nonsense than some previous years. Many thanks to our brave little band, for without them it would have been a dreadful evening. The service at the Douskos restaurant this year was abysmal, unbelievably bad. I think the waiters must have been told to ignore us altogether. The people I was with all agreed that we would rather miss any future concerts than give another cent to Mr Douskos.
Still, the music is what matters! As well as sound recordings, I took this video with my camera. The sound is not as good as the window-sill recordings, but I hope you like it!
Anyway, by about one in the morning, I was exhausted, and left to get some sleep before I caught the 6.55 hydrofoil.
The future?
I've been going to Hydra since 2003, and there have been good conferences, great conferences, and - this year - almost undetectable conferences. There has been good music, great music and unbelievably wonderful music. If there was any bad music, I must somehow have missed it. I made many friends on Hydra, more than anywhere else, ever, and I thank those friends unreservedly for putting up with me. My health is not quite as robust as it once was, and neither are our finances, so it seems likely that this was my last visit to Hydra for the forseeable future. In my blog, I gave the impression that Hydra Conferences were not going to happen any more, which would have been sad, and got a rapid response from Ed Emery. I'll let him have the last word...
The Hydra Rebetiko Gathering is emphatically NOT dead. The islanders, and our many friends and supporters, have made it clear to me that it is simply not possible to bring it to an end. Therefore the next Gathering will take place on the weekend of 4-6 October 2013. If you wish to register to attend the Gathering, please write to me at: ed.emery [@] soas.ac.uk