Whats on my mind? Two very brilliant and talented musicians, thats what! As some of you may know, my regular bass player and very close friend, Neil Fairclough, is away all summer long living his dream of touring America and Asia playing bass with Queen! In his absence, I had to fill his (rather awesome) shoes and advertised for singing, bass players to come forward, earlier this year. I actually ended up needing TWO musicians to cover all the dates that Neil couldnt do. Enter two guys Ive never worked with before... Garreth Hicklin and Dan Francis Owen. Well, these past nine shows of The Billy Joel Songbook were the first nine shows that I needed covering by these two gentlemen and to say that the other boys in my band and I were blown away by them both is a massive understatement. No rehearsal, no pads of music on stage, all bass lines and backing vocals beautifully memorised from stuff Id sent them, great performers and diamond geezers to boot! Anyone who was there at the last nine shows in Scotland, Berwick, Telford, Newark and Clacton will testify how incredible these chaps were. In a professional sense, I already feel like the luckiest man alive to have such wonderful guys in my band as Pete Effamy, Joe Evans, Johnny Meaney and Tom Wright (and of course, Neil Fairclough) and now to have found two more hugely talented, dedicated and trustworthy professionals in Garreth and Dan, really does honestly humble me. Garreth and Dan, youre a credit to yourselves and professional musicians everywhere and you did me, the rest of the band and Billy proud. I simply could not have asked for more. Thank you. Heres to the rest of the summer and beyond!!! :)
Posted on: Sun, 08 Jun 2014 23:57:32 +0000