Royal Flush Adam Goldsmith
Takes us behind the scenes of the BBC’s recent Platinum Party At The Palace, from his seat in the house band
I’m writing this from my recovery position on the sofa after being in the house band for the BBC’s Platinum Party At The Palace on 4 June in honour of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. It’s been a very interesting experience being part of such a huge machine, where – despite my efforts to make the guitar parts as important as possible – your contribution is dwarfed by the apparatus of the state to such an extent. For instance, it’s the only gig I’ve ever done where the mobile phone reception was turned off during the show by the security services, and because of the presence of the royal family I had to go through two sets of airportsecurity scanners and be unceremoniously shoved aside by the Canadian High Commissioner’s close protection team before I could play a note.
The week before the concert itself, we were required to rehearse at Wellington Barracks in Westminster for a couple of days before we moved to the set at Buckingham Palace, as the string orchestra and brass players we were playing with were provided by the British Army and Royal Air Force. My first inkling of what was to come was when I tried to gain access to the rehearsal room on the first day. After trying to explain I was a freelance guitar player in the house band, I was met with a stony Special Forces-style stare and the question, “Military or civilian?” That was me told, then!
Upon moving to the main stage outside Buckingham Palace it became apparent that the first problem we were, rather predictably, going to have to deal with was the British weather. Someone had decided that having guitar amps open to the rain wasn’t a problem because no-one was ever harmed by electricity and water mixing… The rather cheap fix for this was to have several people run on stage every time it started to rain – which was fairly frequently over the course of a week’s rehearsal – with some plastic bags, in a vain attempt to stop the amps and keyboards getting wet. Eventually, after it was deemed that this probably wouldn’t look great in front of 13 million viewers at home, the amps were relocated to under the stage and mic’d up remotely.
“Moving to the stage outside Buckingham Palace the first problem we were, rather predictably, going to have to deal with was the British weather”
Queen & Country
Of all the artists I backed as part of the house band – Rod Stewart, Diana Ross, Mica Paris, Hans Zimmer, and the West End show sequence – playing with Hans Zimmer was a real treat. He is a true gentleman and a proper musician. One of the interesting and challenging things about playing film-style orchestral music is the amount of counting odd-length bars and extended rest periods that one has to do in order to come in at the right place. While this is always demanding in a recording studio environment when there’s not much else going on, it becomes especially difficult when there are 22,000 people up and down The Mall, a spectacular drone show, senior members of the royal family, and armed security all within a few feet.
Gear-wise, I find it’s best to default to things you know are definitely going to work in these kind of scenarios. My Suhr Bella amp has proved very reliable and a great platform for pedals, and a Telecaster combined with some trusty effects did the job. One thing I’m always keen on, despite it not looking that tidy, is having the power supply to the pedals on top of the ’board as opposed to underneath it. If there are any problems with power or individual pedals, this format allows for the source of the problem to be located and fixed very quickly. When I see people’s beautiful-looking ’boards online, the first thing that springs to my mind is, ‘How easy or difficult would that be to potentially fix on a TV broadcast or studio situation?!’