Yesterday I was being burned to a crisp at the annual Erasem's Knight's Tournament where there were far too many suns and not enough cloud at all. But it was fun nontheless.
Surprisingly, the feature I liked the most was the so-called medieval washing, which was a comedy act by some troupe or another designed primarily for children, but fuck it, it was hilarious. The troupe was certainly perfect at engaging the crowd from close quarters - don't know why, but I find there's nothing better than things acted out right there in the crowd, no stage, no nothing. Just pure genius.
This is more than I can say about the main event. When I last visited this tournament a few years ago I found it incredibly awesome. Perhaps because I was younger, perhaps because it was better. Yesterday everything seemed so incredibly staged, so horribly boring and acted out it was painful sitting there in the sun and watching it.
I mean, what the fuck was it with all the boring jokes aimed at current political and other happenings in Slovenia? I came to see medieval times, fuck off with politics and telling me beauty pageants are stupid. The winner of the beauty pageant even got a mount for a year - yuck. And what the fuck was it with the sound effects on the speakers? CHEESY!
The battles between knights were also quite ... well it wasn't a great sight. It was all so obviously choreographed, so obviously fake it made me feel sick. The czech guys made it a little bit better as usual, but I've seen them do better still - the same group in fact. They were awesome two years ago at Ljubljana Castle, perhaps it was just a little bit too hot for them this time.
What I've always wanted to see at these tournaments, what I've always craved was the sense that I'm at an actual tournament. I want to see LARP for real, I want them to play it as a sport. I don't want them to do fancy dances and make a lot of speech. Just give me a seat and an announcer and let them have an actual tournament. No need for injury, just for the love of god, FIGHT.
Another big blunder I've noticed was that the main event is repeated twice in the same day. Why? Why would you do this to us, and you do it every time at this particular tournament! This is actually the reason I don't have any good photos of the knights, wasn't close enough the first time, girlies didn't want to watch the same thing all over again so I couldn't be close the next time since we went home. This makes me sad.
But it's not all bad, the main event had an excellent slapstick bit with a red-headed knight (I loved that guy, a knight with ruby red head, it was an awesome sight) and the jester.
Oh well, at least I still love that damn castle and will continue to harbour ambitions of once buying it. Now look at the pics, some are almost not crap, despite the situation and the camera's battery crapping out.
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