This Saturday marked the start of a new project that I’ve been asked to be involved with, namely the New Jersey Jukebox, which is a tribute to the music of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.
It goes without saying that the songs are fantastic, and it is a privilege to be involved to perform them.
The band has several guises – the four singers with either backing tracks, four piece or seven piece bands – and the outfit is incredibly professional with personal mixers and in-ear monitoring and bespoke arrangements and tracks.
Signed to a production company, we will be touring major venues throughout the UK (and possibly beyond!), so keep an eye out for us, as this promises to be a brilliant show with wonderful music at it’s core!
I’ve just come to the end of a run of Sweet Charity at the Amey Theatre with the Abingdon Operatic Society. This is the second time I’ve done the show, and I had a real blast doing it.
The music is really interesting, and in many ways quite unlike any other show that I’ve done. The pad is quite unhelpful, really, since it has some directions for the guitarist (such as ‘no amp’ or ‘all on highs’) which aren’t straightforward to interpret! Having said that there are a variety of different styles (big band and tango are the highlights for me) that you have to cover, as well as interesting time signature changes.
A lot of the show is in 2, so quite rapid for much of it, and this requires a good knowledge of lots of chord shapes in each area of the neck.
I mainly used my Les Paul and Raimundo classical for the run, and these guitars did a great job to cover the disciplines required. Playing the Raimundo with a Tango feel was great fun, and sounded pretty raunchy to my ears!
The theatre appeared to be packed every night which was exciting to see, and all appeared to enjoy the production.
It’s now time for me to concentrate my energies into a completely different show, as next week I’ll be playing in Avenue Q at the Court Theatre in Tring. The writing and instrumentation is very different to Charity, so it’s going to be good fun and a good challenge.
Just before Easter I was involved in a production of Jesus Christ Superstar at the Theatre Royal, Windsor. While I didn’t get to see the production itself, it sounded fantastic as the band were great musicians directed by a fantastic musical director. We were left largely to interpret the music how we saw fit, which gave me a lot of room to express myself and put my own stamp on this iconic musical.
I used my Paul Reed Smith Custom 24 Artist pack guitar for the majority of the run, along with my trusty Martin acoustic.
The music is consistent throughout the show, and there are no natural opportunities to change from electric to acoustic, therefore I had have my acoustic mounted in a playing position beside me so I could play it still wearing my electric. This system worked ok, although it wasn’t ideal! Still, I’d have rather have a true acoustic sound than compromise, so it was worth the stretch!
I had to use my POD as an amp sim to keep the volume down in the pit, and I thought it sounded lovely, and took the sound of my pedal board well.
I felt the run was brilliant – really consistent and a great show with fun music to dig into, be expressive and delicate in equal measure. I can’t wait to do it again!
