Jazz Emu: Five Magical Moments From Music History
Fringe Magic
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Fringe Magic 〰️
Image: Matt Stronge
It’s time for Edinburgh Fringe 2025, and with it, our annual feature series! This year, we’re celebrating the special, unique Fringe moments — the ones that feel like pure MAGIC…
By Jazz Emu
Salutations. I’m unpretentious comedomusicologist and humble genius Jazz Emu, and this is my list of Music History’s Most Magical Moments.
Bob Dylan “Goes Electric” (1965)
In a show of shameful selfishness and a lack of artistic integrity, Bob Dylan disappointed his adoring fans by “Going Electric” at Newport Folk Festival 1965. Having up to that point been just a regular organic human, Dylan had his internal organs and central nervous system replaced by electronic circuitry at great expense to both himself and the US national grid. Bob, or should I say Rob (short for Robot), then danced The Robot, whilst making the internet dial-up sound, for just under an hour. Horrific for fans of Acoustic Folk, but a huge triumph of transhumanist cybernetic organism technology, so on balance overall: pretty magical.
Queen at Live Aid (1985)
Widely considered one of the greatest performances ever, Freddie Mercury of Queen captivated a Wembley arena audience with a prolonged Call and Response. Mercury sang things like “bweedup”, “wedobbydup” and “shaydladeedop”, and the audience sang that sort of thing right back at him, not quite as well. It was a shame, of course, that these specific words turned out to be the exact incantation that opens a portal to hell, and the entire crowd was swallowed up into infernal damnation. But, on the plus side, it kept Bob Geldof very busy for the next few decades running fundraiser events for the families of the damned.
The Launch of Napster (1999)
The file-sharing service that would turn the music industry on its head was started by Justin Timberlake in 1999. Basically Justin Timberlake wanted Mark Zuckerberg to take out the ‘the’ from The Facebook, so that he could have the ‘the’ and call his company The Napster, because thanks to Reaganistic austerity, there was a shortage of ‘the’s in the US economy. But sadly the hunky rowing brothers (Winklevoss twins) were pretty keen to be called The Winklevoss Twins, and they got involved too and it all got pretty messy. Sorry, to be honest I’ve not watched the film for a while but I think that's sort of the jist of it.
Elton John at Diana’s Funeral (1997)
Performative glasses-wearing crooner Elton John doubled the already noisy boohooing at People’s Princess Diana’s funeral by singing a very long song about a candle. Everyone bangs on about this moment so the editor said I had to include it, but honestly the guy’s overrated, and anyway I didn’t even want to be invited to perform at the funeral. My own song “Gone Like A Crisp In The Breeze” was just the best-written song of the late 20th century, but I guess hearing something so transcendent on such a difficult day would’ve been too much for the little mourning princes.
Jazz Emu’s Reverse Stage Dive (2018)
They didn’t think it was possible, but in 2018 I proved my detractors wrong by personally picking up and carrying to the back of the room every single member of the audience. I’d estimated fifteen hours for that size of audience, but thankfully it got a lot easier as the night went on, as after the first 10-15 R.S.D.s the audience had thinned considerably. I ended up doing 23 then called it a night with my traditional sponge bath and an Iced Tea: Cold, Long and Island.
Jazz Emu: The Pleasure is All Yours is running from July 30th-August 24th, 9:50pm, at the Pleasance Dome (Queen Dome). Tickets here
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