I’m starting this post knowing what I want to say, but having absolutely no idea what order the words are going to come out in. This is probably not good. Anything could happen in the next few paragraphs…
So, last Saturday was my first concert of the year, with David Wright in Best in The Netherlands. I’m never entirely sure if I should capitalise the “the” in “the Netherlands” or not. Anyway, the first half was just us performing, the second half was the “a
nd guests” part, including Stephan Whitlan, Ron Boots and Frank Dorittke. We’d planned the set lists, we’d rehearsed, and we were all ready to go! I was particularly thrilled because the leads on stage ended up looking like this:
(I had to untape my mic lead because I like to wander all over the stage, but not until I’d taken this photo!)
Except David and I were both struck by variations on the winter virus that’s been doing the rounds. Our symptoms were different, but one thing was the same…neither of us could stop coughing! Which is annoying enough when you’re playing keyboards, but when you’re singing it becomes noticeable fairly quickly!
Or should that be cough-y breaks?
So we did the only thing we could do. We admitted to the audience right at the start that we were coughing. We proudly displayed bottles of water, throat lozenges and cough medicine next to us onstage. At the end of the first track (“Dreaming Desire”, from Beyond the Airwaves volume 2) we both coughed. And coughed. Someone from the audience shouted “its a cough-y break!” And so, what could potentially have been an embarrassing problem became the joke of the evening!
The concert went well, despite us both coughing like we’d had a 50 a day habit since we were twelve. Miraculously, my singing voice was entirely unaffected. For the first time, we performed the full (edited) version of “Prophecy”, including the part I swore I’d never risk singing live – the top D at the end of “Beyond the Veil”, a note I’d never before sung in public. Result!
In the second half, the high point for me (and, I suspect, quite a few other people) was “Chameleon”. It started out quite sensibly and quickly turned into a 5-way jam, with both me (with mic) and Stephan (with keytar) playing extra notes on Ron’s synth at one point!
So despite the coughing, my first concert of the year was a success. I’m just about recovered now, David’s not quite there yet, but we’ll be back in the studio tomorrow, now to concentrate on my solo album for the next few months…
…and in other news, my crowdfunding campaign is now on 102%! There are still 4 more days to go though, so if you haven’t backed me yet and have been wanting to, please do!