guest artists

Wednesday 30th July 2008

5:22 p.m. CET Monday night started off fairly quietly but got busier as the night went on. The audience’s reception was very good but even better when Karen came and sang a few numbers at the beginning of my last set. She sang Nobody Does It Better and Fly Me To The Moon on her own, then we sang Can You Feel The Love and The Rose together with some nice harmonies. At the end of the evening I had a request for Heaven by Bryan Adams which I hadn’t played for a long time but it went down very well.

Variety was the order of the evening last night, with three people (all passengers) contributing apart from myself at various points of the evening. Firstly a guy called Mark played his own arrangement of Autumn Leaves at the end of my second set, which was excellent. During my last set, a group of German students came in, and one of them asked if she could sing Dream A Little Dream so I just about managed to play it from memory despite not having any music for it, and it went down so well that she ended up doing two more numbers, Killing Me Softly and Save The Best Til Last. Finally, at the end of the evening another girl asked if she could sing The Rose, which she did and was also very good.

The recently-released film Mamma Mia based on the musical featuring the music of Abba is currently showing in one of the two on-board cinemas on the ship, so I have had a few requests for their music during the past few days; the other day I played Super Trouper, and last night I played S.O.S.

Only one more week until this contract comes to an end, it has gone very quickly. Having recently been in touch with the agency, there’s a good chance that I will be back on this ship for most of October.

11:55 p.m. BST Not the best night tonight, although Dave Taylor from Live Business was on board and he came to hear Karen and I sing a duet during my last set, which he and the audience seemed to enjoy.

Monday 28th July 2008

4:05 p.m. CET Last night was quieter than Saturday but still went well, with help from a large group of keen Germans who were sat behind me who were singing along to some of the songs. During my last set one smaller group got up to leave but as soon as they heard me launching into The Scientist they quickly back-tracked and sat down again! At the request of two of the older members of the larger group I ended up by playing a part-instrumental / part-vocal version of Shape of My Heart by Sting, which I hadn’t played before.

Last night I met Karen, the new relief Ent’s manager, who is covering for Gareth from tomorrow while he has his regular three trips off. It turns out that she is a singer as well; this afternoon we went up to the piano bar to go through a few numbers and they sounded really good. We may even do a couple together tonight.

Easy (like Sunday morning)

Sunday 27th July 2008

9:25 a.m. BST Last night went quite well, with a steady number of people about throughout the evening, and a few requests. Later on in the evening there was a girl in with her family who recognised me from this ship last year, when she had been on with a group from her school, and whose friend had played her own composition.

A rare occasion this morning, in that I was up early enough to have a cooked breakfast!

Saturday 26th July 2008

4:23 p.m. CET I’ve decided to re-arrange my blog posts from now on, so that the most recent appears first (in keeping with normal blogging conventions!)

Last night went fairly well, despite it being the second of two ‘mad Friday’s of this contract. I played Baby Grand and A Million Love Songs, which I hadn’t performed for a long time, and also Morning Has Broken for Charlie (one of the stewards who works in the Sky Lounge). Towards the end of my penultimate set, one guy asked me to play You’ve Got A Friend by Carole King, which was the next song I had already lined up to play! During the course of the evening, a few people were passing through en route to or from the open deck, and one couple did some ballroom dancing, which was quite amusing.

I do now seem to be able to get connected to the internet on the ship, albeit as far as the Internet at Sea login page :-/

Friday 25th July 2008

5:32 p.m. BST Had an excellent night last night. There were a few people who had been in the night before, and a good variety of people which helped to make it a success. Played a number of songs which I hadn’t performed for a while, including Always On My Mind (which was a request), Everybody’s Changing by Keane, After The Gold Rush by Neil Young (again a request), and wound up by playing No Surprises by Radiohead.

The weather has been superb today. Went to the Timber Dock at lunch time with the entire entertainment teams from this ship and the York. Met up with the members of Night Queen who are on there at the moment, Lisa (Ent’s Manager), Amy (the Children’s Host who started when I was there), and James Long, the magician who was present at the memorable (if slightly painful) paintballing trip last year.

Thursday 24th July 2008

8:23 p.m. CET Monday night was quiet as expected, and I played mostly instrumentals, and also did some improvisation. Despite the bar not being particularly busy the reception was warm throughout the evening. Tuesday was a similar story.

Last night was a lot busier from the start, and I had many requests as the evening went on, including several from one couple who were sat nearby. By the end there were still several groups and couples who had been in for most of the evening, and they all seemed very appreciative, which makes it worthwhile.

Unfortunately, wireless internet access on the ship is still down, and apparently there was talk of them returning to the system of charging, which would be a shame.

Monday 21st July 2008

5:13 p.m. BST Saturday night was a bit difficult as the majority of the crowd were older Dutch and German people. Last night was better, it was very busy, with some people even stood during my second set, although I think this might have been partly as the piano bar was also serving as an observation deck (as is often the case), owing to the unusual weather conditions; as we left Europoort there was an amazing sunset, with some extraordinary cloud formations and a rainbow at the same time. (The sea was pretty rough last night for the majority of the crossing as well.) It was Sophie’s last night, and towards the end of my set, she came up and I played a couple of requests for her, and she and a couple of the girls from the shop who were already there sang some backing vocals! This was a welcome addition, as the last few numbers seemed to be the best received all night.

more ups and downs

Tuesday 15th July 2008

4:46 p.m. BST Last night was probably the best of this contract so far, with the audience receptive from the very start, I even had applause after each of my instrumental pieces! One of the rare occasions where I felt like I couldn’t do anything wrong. I had loads of requests, four in a row in fact, during my second (vocal) set, and more later. One of them was for You’re A Lady which I hadn’t played in a long time. There were two ladies in who I had chatted to the night before, who stayed up to hear me play Night and Day. Also there were a group of young German people sat behind me who were listening intently for most of the evening.

Friday 18th July 2008

5:10 p.m. CET No live blogging today as unfortunately the internet connection on the ship appears to be down.

Tuesday night can’t have been particularly eventful as I made no notes about it. Wednesday night was busy, with more like the kind of numbers I would expect on a Friday or Saturday night than midweek. The audience reception was fairly warm throughout the evening, not least after I had performed Leaving On A Jet Plane by John Denver for the first time. One of the couples who were sat nearby were requesting songs, one of which was for “George Formby and the Range” which I found very amusing (he meant Bruce Hornsby and The Range of course! I expect that a band intending to make a statement about the American Civil Rights movement would have lacked the desired impact with an elderly front-man sat on a stool playing a ukelele crooning about his former window-cleaning antics.) I also played Still Haven’t Found by U2 for the first time in a very long time, and (by popular demand) rounded off with an Elton John medley.

Last night was a similar story, it was fairly busy again all evening, but there wasn’t much of an atmosphere in the bar and things didn’t really ever get going properly. Having said that, there were quite a few people who were obviously listening, and asked for some songs. I played Layla for the first time with vocals. There was a Dutch couple in sat nearby me who had been in the night before (they were on a round-trip to the UK and back), and I was chatting to them quite a bit, so that helped to make the evening a bit more bearable!

The resident band, Four and More have left today and been replaced by What’s Up, one of the few Bulgarian bands I haven’t (yet) met.

11:23 p.m. BST Well this evening was a bit of a non-event, except for during my second set when we were making our way out of the port, we sailed past a large floating platform that had an enormous metal pole attached to it (it was so tall it was even higher than the wind turbines). I would assume that it had, or was going to, form part of an oil rig.

Saturday 19th July 2008

11:10 a.m. BST I have now met the band, and heard them briefly last night during one of my breaks. They have a pretty big-set up, and a sound to match!

novelty factor

There is something of a novelty about this blog post, in that it is the first time I am blogging in real time! One peculiarity was that the Blogger start page was displayed in Norwegian! (I think this is because the internet access on-board is provided by Telenor, a Norwegian ISP). I am typing this in my cabin, where I have found I can now get wireless internet access, which has been recently installed. Admittedly it is quite a bit slower than at home, and I can only get a connection with my door open(!) but it's better than nothing. Plus when you're stuck on a ship in a foreign country miles from anywhere, it helps to have contact with the outside world!

(Actually thinking about it, I was able to connect sometimes from my cabin when I was on here last year, but I only ever got as far as a log-in page, and I never bothered buying an access card as I didn't think it was worth it at £1.85 per hour!)

Last night was something a bit different, it was fairly busy until my 10 o'clock set, despite this I played all instrumentals until then, and afterwards I did sing but the vibe was a lot more along the lines of a 'late-night lounge' type thing, as most of the people who were left were sat close by, which was nice as it made it a bit more intimate. Despite there not being many people there I still had a few requests. My last set didn't last very long as by that point the place was virtually empty.

anniversary

Sunday 13th July 2008

3:51 p.m. BST The last couple of nights were generally much better, partly because it was a lot busier on the ship than on the previous trip. On Friday night, I played quite a wide variety of stuff which seemed to go down pretty well. At the end of my penultimate set, a guy came up and played Easy Like Sunday Morning.

Last night went fairly well, there was a good atmosphere in the bar all evening, and during my last set a woman who was with her hen party sang Promise Me and Mustang Sally, which (as usual with guest artists!) seemed to be the most popular of the evening.

I forgot to mention the other day that Thursday was the two-year anniversary of me starting work back on the ships.

going dutch

Friday 11th July 2008

11:48 a.m. BST I have now done my first couple of nights back on the Pride of Rotterdam, after an absence of nearly 8½ months. As usual it only feels like a few weeks since I was here last, and most of the crew seem to remember me. Have encountered some familiar faces: Gareth is back on here as Ent’s Manager, and Four and More are currently the resident band, who were one of the bands on the Pride of York with me back in the day; and some new ones, namely Chip, who has taken over from Pete as the DJ / Technician, and Sophie, who is the current Children’s Host.

My first night wasn’t really anything to write home about, it started off fairly well, but numbers quickly diminished (sorry, no pun intended!) as the evening wore on. Having said that, I did perform Come Fly With Me for the first time which went down well.

Last night was better, there was a good number of people in the bar throughout the evening. I did my renditions of Night and Day and Summer Wind which also went well. During my last set I had a few requests from a couple of groups sat nearby, so I played a couple of Simon & Garfunkel numbers and Tiny Dancer by Elton John.