Sorry to all for my lack of posting lately. I’ve been busy with the tour and completing another website (almost finished, more news soon…) and internet access has been a little scarce!
A lot of things have happened since last I had time to post properly. A few highlights…
We’ve been having a great time up here in Glasgow. The houses for our week at the Theatre Royal were very good and the Christmas Show (which we’ve been playing since starting back in Glasgow) is proving to be good fun. The run at the Theatre Royal was marred on Saturday by the last minute cancellation of the show. Andy Prior; who was on that day as Frank Sinatra, lost his voice and we had to edit the 2nd Act of the Saturday matinee – no solo Frank numbers at all!! Unfortunately, that was it for Andy – he didn’t have enough voice to go on in the evening so the show was cancelled. Since Chris Mann, our regular Frank, was away doing promotion in Zurich there was nobody to cover and no time to fly anybody in from London!!
This, thankfully, didn’t seem to put off our audience last night in the Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow. We moved there yesterday and played to a boisterous and enthusiastic audience. The RCH is a great venue and the sound is superb; at least for Brass players…
Before Saturday’s debacle, I had the great pleasure of visiting The Wind Section; a fine Brass/Woodwind emporium in Edinburgh. Malcolm Kirkpatrick, the proprietor, is a very nice chap who’d invited me over to meet Leigh McKinney, the bloke behind Eclipse Trumpets.
Eclipse have been causing quite a stir since their launch 3 years ago. They’re making really good instruments at the moment. Their Flugelhorn, in particular, is second to none. Although I didn’t find anything to my taste in the limited stock that Leigh was carrying, I’ve been inspired to book a trip to his factory in the next couple of weeks. Tom MacNiven, who’s been playing 3rd Trumpet with us here in Glasgow, has just taken delivery of his new Eclipse XLR (Extra Large Red) and it’s really wonderful. He was kind enough to let me play it for a couple of tunes the other night and it was GREAT!!! We’ll see what happens…