… but Fringe ’09 is just a week away, and there’s a lot to get excited about. We may have missed out on the chance to see some Aris­to­phanes under the wharves, but here’s a couple of oth­er things that we have our eyes on.

Lies and Oth­er Stor­ies Before Bed had a sneak peak/fundraiser event at Mighty Mighty last week, and it looks to be a riot. It will com­bine film and anim­a­tion with live per­form­ance in the cozy sur­rounds of the South­ern Cross, and with a plot that involves scary hal­lu­cin­at­ory chil­dren, swing­ers’ parties and a European seductress it seems like just the sort of real­ist­ic kit­chen-sink drama that we can all relate to. Or maybe that’s just me.

The music­al line-up looks strong this year, too, and there are plenty of acts worth sal­iv­at­ing over, but … oh my cir­cuits: We Are The Robots! Dis­astera­dio and TVDisKo will be famil­i­ar to many of us, but when you add in Hamilton’s most cha­ris­mat­ic exports, The Trons, you know it’ll be a night of mech­an­ic­al may­hem to savour. More info and You­Tu­bu­lar good­ness over on Mukuna. I’m not nor­mally a fan of gar­age rock, but when the band looks as if it’s actu­ally been built in a gar­age, that’s anoth­er story.

Update: there’s been a slight change of line-up for We Are The Robots, with Heat Like Me repla­cing Dis­astera­dio.