It transpired that the girls weren’t overly social with the band and were dare I say it . . . a little shallow. But we had a laugh and re-christened them the “I.T. girls”. A few of us took it in turns to try and explain to them why the joke was funny as the others watched their confused reactions.

We also met Maggie!! She was basically in charge of us, put up with Chris and made sure we didn’t get into too much trouble. She was awesome and a really good laugh. After we left the airport we bundled onto our minibus and headed out to our hotel. Did I mention we were staying in a 5-Star Hotel??

Well we were.

I think this photo of Mark sums up our response to the room:

The fact that there were 3 more doors inside the bathroom was pretty special. My favorite part of the room being the remote that controlled lights, air conditioning and a bunch of other things. (What a kid.)

Despite it being 11 pm in Abu Dhabi it was still 7pm by our internal clocks so we jumped into a few black Merc’s and drove out to the Emirates Palace for a bite to eat.

Now if there was any hitch to this trip it was this. After seeing the Palace for the first time and walking through this incredible place we were a little disappointed that we were lead to the staff canteen. We’d clearly gotten used to the high life far too soon.

Andy and Mr Mr McCloud sum up the general feeling in this shot.

I didn’t mind the curry with more bones than meat, the grapes with more seed than grape and the tasteless yellow block of … well, yellow. The fruit juice was pretty good all though Fi the backing singer tried to convince me it was radioactive. It wasn’t too bad. At least we got to eat breakfast in our hotel everyday (which was amazing) and we would sample what the Palace restaurant had in store for us later in the week.

After that we took a stroll back to our hotel; The Intercontinental, and sat around in the bar feeling not very tired but eventually calling it a night when the joke telling began.

The First Day In Abu Dhabi

It might seem from your perspective that so far it’s been all play and no work. Well I’ll have you know that after Mark and I got lost trying to find the breakfast restaurant in the morning we set straight to work.

Well, I say work. . . I mean chilling out in the sun, by the pool, drinking ice cold beer.

Being a musician is great!!

It wasn’t till the afternoon that we went back to the Palace to eat at the canteen (the I.T. girls deciding that after eating their once they’d never return) and scope out the Ball Room where we were to play on new years. But before all that it took us a fair amount of time to get through security with all the stuff we’d taken out on the plane, i.e. Mr McClouds Percussion. After half an hour of driving around the Palace grounds being passed from one security check point to the next we called Maggie in to save the day.

See a happy Chris standing by the metal detectors with Maggie on the right sorting things out!

After we got in, ate and dropped off our stuff we headed back to the hotel where we met one of Chris’s mates who were storing the PA and kit that had already been taken out to Abu Dhabi.

John was a legend. He told us all about Abu Dhabi and took a couple of the guys in the band on a beer run – which is quite an exciting story in a dry country. Apparently they drove down a back alley and up to a door to place their order and “make the exchange”. But I have to say, with such tight alcohol laws it felt a very safe at night. There weren’t any drunken football fans trying to fight you or drugged up teenagers trying to mug you. Which was nice

We ended the night by piling into one of our hotel rooms and ordering a load of room service until the early hours of the morning.

I know that we haven’t even blown/hot/strum or sang a note yet, but that will come in the next installment!!

to be continued

The Shades

The first gig I ever did with them I didn’t even have to play a note. About 4 years ago my good pal and sax player at college, Neil, asked if I fancied recording a promotional DVD for a group he played with. That’s how I ended up in this situation:

Thanks Neil!!! (On the left)

They guys had already recorded all the audio in the studio so it was a simple job of miming.

However, anyone who knows me will know how much I hate seeing badly mimed instruments on TV or in movies so whilst the camera crew were taking shots of the other side of the band Neil was teaching me and cramming the trumpet lines into my head. The whole evening was a good laugh and the band were great fun. A month later I got a call to do a proper gig with them and I’ve been their regular trumpet players since.

The Abu Dhabi Gig Brief

Chris Poole (aka boss man) and the Shades have been going out and playing new years gigs in Dubai for a few years now but they’ve been going as a smaller version of the band. This year they went with a 3-piece horn section, 3 backing singers and a percussionist on top of their regular line up.

It’s the first time I’d been round that side of the world and the furthest from the UK that I’ve played so far but I was looking forward to the gig. All I knew was that we were playing at the Emirates Palace Hotel for new years, were staying at a 5 star hotel and that Shakira was playing on the other side of the palace. Not to forget that we had about 20 dancers going out there to perform with us. Cool hey?!

The Journey

Knowing very little about what was going on or how these things have worked in the past I wasn’t entirely sure how we were going to get a lorry full of equipment to Abu Dhabi. I knew that my trumpet was exactly the right size to go on the plane (per. the specifications in the MU handbook) but baring in mind that my trumpet was the smallest instrument in the band I had no idea what anyone else was doing.

As the guys began to arrive I saw Andy (keys player) who told me that he and Chris had already taken the kit, PA, lights and desk out there already. “Job Done” I thought… and then Matt McCloud arrived….
Matt and his 30,000 pieces of percussion.

That along with Andy’s keyboard (which weighed more than a family) and the guitars it seemed that we had little problem. We Spent the better part of 2 hours in our fast track queue which had been opened especially for us, my favorite part were the pompous couples who thought they’d spotted a cheeky way to skip their queue, joined ours and then realize their big mistake.

Chris handled the situation well though. Personally I would have loved to see him explain that the guy who had booked us for the gig was the same guy who owns Etihad (the airline we were flying with) and then walk down the check in desk pointing at the staff saying; “Fired, Fired…. Fired….. … … Fired.”

A threat of having to pay £1600 extra for our gear, 2 hours and 4 security checks later we were through to the flight. But explain this to me: You aren’t allowed to take a bottle of water on the plane with you. Neil had to throw away his tiny screw drivers in his sax case and they even made half the band remover their shoes to check for “sharps”. Fair enough for the tight security. But when lunchtime comes on the plane, why do they give you metal knives and forks anyway??!

Six and a half hours later we arrived in Adu Dhabi. And what a greeting …..

to be continued

Here I go. Off to Abu Dhabi for my New Years Eve gig at The Emirates Palace Hotel.
I’m finally packed, I’ve dug out the hard-case for my Callichio and I’ve removed anything that can be used to make a bomb, such as water bottles and deodorant, from my hand luggage. Yet I’m allowed to take my trumpet onto the plane with me.
You’d have thought that it would be more dangerous to bash someone with a blunt piece of metal than a bottle of water but I’m not complaining as it’s not traveling in the hold!!

I’ve packed my camera to snap lots of photos so that I can bring back some cool stuff to show you.

I’m swinging by Neil’s at 4:30am so I’m turning in nice and early. As always there’s lots to see on my site (documentaries, animations, music samples and podcasts) so I hope it’ll keep you entertained until I get back.

Matt Returns on the 2nd of January… until then, Happy New Years!

I think writing about exactly what I’m doing in the post may very well bore you as much as tweeking CV’s bore me so I’ll save you the precious seconds it takes to read. If I have any success with this I’ll be sure to post that as it could very well give anyone else in my position a few ideas.

This is a fairly new project that we are working on together and the majority of our material to date are some of the more laid back jazz standards. We have a few other ideas to try enhance our repertoire but over the next couple of days we will be trying to find something to make us a little different from other duo’s currently on the scene.

We’ll both be in London together from September so thought it was about time for us to collaborate on a project together. The project name, recordings and gig venues will follow in the near future.

I’m down for an orchestral gig on Saturday which is all over the stave, so I hope my good form continues as it has to be classically high rather than Big Band high (which I find a but harder).

I’ve had some troubles with the company I bought my mic’s etc off so I’m currently waiting for my money back before I try again. So you’ll have to wait for recordings to be posted.

On the plus side Master musician shoots are going well and should be up in the very near future and after hearingChris Lydon’s reaction to his first viewing of the Eurobusk 07 trailer over the phone I think I’ll put up the second trailer next week.

Lots of things to look forward to…

It was a bit of a shame that the raffle, auction and speeches ran on as this left us with only a fraction of the 2 hours we were booked for.

But we gave it hell for the 45 mins we did play and despite the worlds most expensive cup of coffee – 11 coffees costing us a whopping £54.00!! – we all had a good night.

He laughed because I’d forgotten and knew I wasn’t too happy about it. The problem was that he couldn’t do the gig and his dep was coming to the rehearsal. Therefore I had to be there.

I’ve been a bit frustrated because I haven’t been getting my practice back on track to the extent I’d been hoping. It’s so typical of the trumpet!! My chops were great in last nights rehearsal, there’s no reason for it but I was slurring octave leaps to double G’s with no effort.

 I think it’s fair to say that the trumpet is the most temperamental instrument out there – I’ll work it out one day.

The audience seemed to love it as the evening was filled with copious applause, 2 standing ovations and 2 encores.

The only thing they seemed a little unhappy about was that we didn’t come out for a 3rd.
However, after a gig we did in the old days where half of us didn’t have music when we started a 3rd encore the band have since gone by the principle “leave them wanting more”.

This is the second gig we’ve done at the Skakesperience in Stratford and it would seem, the second success.

Good Times!!