SESSION shenanigans
The studio guitarist’s guide to happiness and personal fulfilment, as related by session ace Mitch Dalton. This month: Christmas! Bah! Humbucker!
IT’S 6.30AM, AND THE M1 IS ALREADY REPLETE WITH HAPPY, LOBOTIMISED FOLK GOING ABOUT THEIR BUSINESS
‘T is the Saturday before the Saturday before Christmas. The alarm goes off at 6am. I resist the temptation to throw the thing at the cat, Bill Murray/Groundhog Day style. Mainly because I no longer possess one. Sadly, Fenda passed on to the great gig in the sky some years ago. It’s cold, dark and wet. And not much better outside. I dress quickly if inaccurately, chuck a mug of organic, free trade, on-message caffeine at my face and stumble into the night. The saving grace is that I’ve prepared all my gear and stage wear the previous evening, thus reducing the chances of mishap and delay. It’s now 6.30am and to no one’s surprise, the M1 is already replete with happy, lobotomised folk going about their Yuletide business. Surely they can’t all be on simultaneous day release?
Despite the best efforts of my fellow auto-loonies, I arrive at the stage door of The Royal Festival Hall at 7.30am. It’s colder, darker and, if anything, wetter. Outside, the street food market is beginning to stir fry. Soon there will be a cornucopia of Ethiopian, Thai, Vegetarian Indian and Western cuisine available to the affluent and mildly intoxicated consumer.
Putting aside unwelcome thoughts as to how I am to reclaim my equipment later, when the area is filled with hundreds of drunken, dyspeptic revellers, I dump my stuff and relocate my vehicle in The National Theatre NCP near-ish by. I take this as an endorsement of my long-held belief that a cultured society is indeed a well parked one.
And so it begins. ‘Christmas Carol Singalong’, with the delightful Jonathan Cohen, The London Concert Orchestra and a hyperbolic cast of thousands. I attempt to retrieve my belongings but the choir has beaten me to it. Its members have arrived en masse and in terrifyingly upbeat mood. “Oh! Hello there! Great to see you! Have you had a good year! Isn’t this fun!” They are clearly not MU members.
Our agreement states unequivocally that I am not required to speak to anyone before an 8.30am rehearsal.
The lift is completely inadequate for the transportation of insanely positive choristers out on a weekend jolly, so I wait my turn. At which point, the handle of my totally original ’80s Gibson 335 case breaks off. Ridiculous. Only 40 years old and it snaps like a twig in the breeze. Heroically, I grit my teeth and continue while pondering the chances of obtaining a genuine retro replacement online. (Answer? You can! And I have! Joy to the world!)
I am set and ready to festivate with just enough time to recaffeinate.
I don’t know if they’ve dumbed down South Bank coffee recently but this stuff ain’t working. The run-through passes in a semiconscious haze but it’s warm; JC (no, not that one) is encouraging and charming in equal measure as he guides us through a roll-call of all yer favourites. I slip into something more uncomfortable and assume the position for a 12.30 show. Disconcertingly, three tunes in and I start to feel rather odd. Is this the start of perfectly-timed festive ‘flu? Beverage induced tachycardia? An overdose of Slade related Christmas ditties?
And then it hits me. This is actually rather good fun. Jonathan is borderline genius at this presenter/piano playing malarkey. No wonder they flock to his shows. He treads a perfectly-judged path between good-natured humour for the not-so-devout and respect for the believers. And he doesn’t labour the point as far as the repertoire is concerned. The Twelve Days Of Christmas is performed as a fast reggae arrangement and, unusually, is over well before its sell-by date. I indulge in some country stylings for Rudolf, The Red Nosed Reindeer (obvs.) And I play semi-tasteful jazz fills for White Christmas.
There’s something for everyone. And I get to road test my newly fitted OX4 humbuckers. I’m not convinced that Larry Carlton evaluated his particular items by employing them on Santa Claus Is Coming To Town or I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day, but I can confirm that they will do the Baby Jesus business if required.
Two-and-a-half hours later, we bring down the hypothetical curtain on our feast of fun. And do it all again at 4.15pm. Yep. Two shows and a three-hour rehearsal is what I call a reasonably full day. But it’s not quite over yet. I pack up, drag my broken body back to the car park and, just as I feared, there is bad-tempered vehicular gridlock outside the RFH.
Predictably, the combination of Addison Lee taxis, Elephant beer and free-range venison burgers has resulted in poor social interaction. It takes half an hour of sophisticated but insistent negotiation to clear a path through the melée. Not surprisingly, sentences concluding with the word “off” feature heavily throughout.
And then another two hours to get home. The good news is that I arrive back in time for the result of the ‘Strictly’ final. Phew!
And with that heart-warming epilogue, I send very best wishes for a groovy ’20 to both my readers.