Blah Blah Happy (2003)                           home

- a Copenhagen Song Cycle as told by an outsider.

".....Pete Livingstone & Nina Kareis are capable of something quite special.
Where else could you see such beauty combined with satire? "(Citadel)

Blah Blah Happy is a staged concert in which Livingstones Kabinet perform a series of newly composed songs in English. Together these songs describe the prosperous western city of Copenhagen as seen from a newcomer's point of view.

leaning dogs


Since taking up residency in Copenhagen 7 years ago, Scottish composer Pete Livingstone has been in a position to observe life in this city both from the outside and the inside. Given that British and Danish cultures are not entirely dissimiliar, it is the little details of this country's habits and behaviour which tend to catch his attention. These observations have been turned into a series of songs written and performed by Livingstones Kabinet. The songs speak of Københavnerne for better or worse; at times attractive and beguiling, at other times terrifying. The tone is reflective rather than moralising, employing a perceptive, quirky humour as the means to parody and provoke. All songs are in English, with spoken texts in English and Danish.

Blah Blah Happy finds itself in the cross-over zone between concert and theatre; a darkly comic performance with strongly theatrical elements inspired by the Weimar Cabaret of 1920's Germany. Livingstones Kabinet invite you to join them in a dusty, delapidated space such as you might find in the world of R.W. Fassbinder or David Lynch. A place where the performers have been hanging around for a long time, maybe decades, after closing time. A frayed cabaret ensemble consists of the seductive, cracked-voiced chanteuse and the lush, exotic tenor backed up by the pale yet strangely virile HUHAHU male voice choir.