… 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.