On tour with the BBC Concert Orchestra

BBC Concert Orchestra bass player Andy Wood blogs from the band's current US tour

1. SOME SCENE SETTING ...

Right... cab's due at twelve... flight's not 'til five past four. Should be there in plenty of time: check-in; security; quick drink (followed by several slow ones...); board plane with last minute dash to gate 306 which probably isn't even in the same postal district as the rest of the Terminal. Perfect. Just got time for a few last minute checks. Let's see: passport, check; keys, check; turned off gas, check; suitcase, check; dignity....? Ah, no point taking that, chances are I'll only go and lose it within five minutes of arrival... Hey, let's not be over optimistic here: Departure...

Some hours later in a departure lounge ...

There are quite a lot of concerned glances being cast in our direction. Innocent members of the public are clearly wondering what this strange party of people represent. They try in vain to convince themselves that they are sharing the bar with a group from the Nervous Flyers Association: wherever one looks, nerves are being steadied. Dutch courage is the order of the day. The steadiness of nerves is inversely proportional to the steadiness of balance... but what can you do? These people are clearly very nervous. Or so bystanders keep telling themselves. When all else fails, a stubborn refusal to admit the truth will see them through... either that or acknowledge the horrible reality that they are sharing a departure lounge bar with... musicians.

2. MORE SCENE SETTING 

When first approached about writing a 'tour blog' I backed away nervously. When next approached, I turned full tail and ran like hell. The fact that you are now reading this is incontrovertible proof that you can run but you can't hide.

When given more time to consider the implications of my appointed task my reaction was 'well, that's an interesting way of handing in your resignation.' Consequently I am sure that you will indulge me when I tell you that for the safety of all concerned some names and places – and indeed anything that may be considered founded in fact – may have been changed....

'We're like a family, you know.' All sounds cosy enough, doesn't it? Sure? Just think about it for a moment: most of us have pretty much grown out of going on holiday with our parents by the time we're sixteen. And here we are, fifty of us, no escape for three weeks. And I'll tell you what, this motley collection are less Waltons, more Addams Family, take it from me. Touring: a tricky business and not a cakewalk... there'll be emotional outbursts, doors slamming, going to your room in a sulk, tears and tantrums, and somewhere amidst it all, a few gigs. Still, I'm sure we'll muddle through, but first things first: suck on a boiled sweet - it's time for take off. Are we there yet...?

3. A MOMENT'S RESPITE TO GET YOUR BEARINGS

Er... yes... and a pretty tough time we've had of it too. Cab, departure lounge, plane, coach, evening meal: all that sitting around takes it out of you, I can tell you. Fortunately we've got a day off in Boston to get acclimatised.

Boston, it has to be said, seems a pretty civilised, genteel kinda place, affording you plenty of opportunity to wander around a bit, sit down a bit, have a wee coffee, have a wee drink, have a bit more of a wander around. And there are plenty of closet culture vultures in the band whose lust for learning, need for knowledge and ache for artistry was more than met by a walk round the Museum of Fine Arts 'One of the largest museums in the United States, attracting over one million visitors a year, it contains over 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas' - that's according to Wikipedia so the accuracy of that observation is anyone's guess. Still, you takes your culture where you can find it and they all seemed happy enough – heck, some of them even walked round the inside...

My one (printable) regret about our time in Boston was to have missed out on another more than worthy art collection at MOBA – the Museum of Bad Art. Anyway, not everyone is suited to the museum circuit. The BBC Concert Orchestra is comprised of myriad personality disorders / types. And between us we soaked up pretty much all that Boston has to offer in the short time available to us. We even had a quiet chat in a bar with the ever-charming Dean who once considered buying our new principal conductor Keith Lockhart's house in Utah, only to ultimately discount it as having a rather poor, disappointing kitchen. But hey, if you're forever travelling the world being generally showbiz, you don't really need a swanky kitchen... by the time you get to that stage one probably just expects silent, deferential folk to lurk in the shadows, bearing silver salvers laden with gin and tonics and tasty morsels of finger food, ready to rush forward at the merest hint of the Maestro's arm reaching out, clutching for refreshment.

4. TIME TO GO TO WORK - AFTER A FASHION

D'you know, I think I'm quite looking forward to doing a bit of work now. Reunited with my bass ... always nice after a few days apart (allegedly). Can be quite a nervous moment as you surrender your pride and joy to the tender ministrations of Heathrow's finest. Amazingly however, despite their best efforts, the bass escaped completely unharmed...

We're rotating two programmes while we're out here. A rumour's just started going round that we're not going to be allowed home until we've nailed them. Since, on that basis, some of us might never make it back, I'd better start thinking about who to leave my record collection to – don't all shout at once...

Anyway, Gig One was a Marriage of Figaro Overture (well, THE Marriage of Figaro Overture I s'pose), a chunk of Mendelssohn – a couple of bits from Midsummer Night's Dream and a piano concerto – and Vaughan Williams's Fifth Symphony. And it earned us our first standing ovation of the tour. Either that or the last bus home from Worcester departs very early... The piano concerto was a real highlight: I didn't even know Mendelssohn had written one, and before any of you start making snobby assumptions about poor education and musical knowledge, you probably didn't know that the first punk single was by The Damned, released in 1976 and titled New Rose, so let's just call it quits eh?

But back to my point, (I'm sure I had one,) our soloist Ilya Yakushev is a bit of a star and a very nice bloke: he'd have to be to get such a spontaneous warm response from us lot, and his fingers of fire left everyone on stage and in auditorium pretty much spellbound.

5. ON THE ROAD AGAIN

There's a certain timeless quality to being on tour. Not good, not bad, just timeless. A routine repetition that doesn't bear repetition. Hard to believe that it's not even been a week. In reality, just a few days; in dog years, a few months; in tour years, a half-waking dream-like state that could last a lifetime.

The roads are straight-ish; the journeys, slow-ish; the view, limited; the sides of the freeway/interstate/toll (choose favourite sounding American word) bounded closely on either side by trees bearing all the colours of The Fall. I won't list them here for fear of reading as if I'm quoting from Joseph's Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. But you get the idea. And I don't wish to sound churlish so I'll readily concede that for the first three hours or so the trees look pretty good.

You may have heard it said that 'everything in America is bigger'. I don't really want to sign up to sweeping generalisations but I will tell you that our 7-hour bus journey took 9... Oh... hang on... we've just driven past Baltimore... bring back the trees... please....

6. LET'S GET INTERACTIVE

It's all the rage: breaking down the barriers between performer and audience. Let the reader learn what goes on when we're not in tails. 'Course the moment you do let people know what goes on behind the scenes, that's when the recriminations start ...

There's some concern that I'm not really going into enough detail about the places we're visiting. Well now you can help yourselves. There now follows the official BBC Concert Orchestra East Coast of America Do-It-Yourself Interactive Tour Blog – that's BBCCOECADIYITB for short...

Simply choose a town from list A; an adjective from list B; a state of mind from list C; a concert programme from option D and insert into the following sentence:

Off to (A) today, it's a (B) town; feeling quite (C) after last night not sure if I can cope with today but am sure the adrenalin will flow again for tonight's performance of (D).

LIST A: Worcester, Schenectady, Fairfax, New Brunswick, Annapolis, Newport News, Danville, Greenville, Athens, Atlanta, Panama City, Vero Beach, Longwood, Daytona Beach, Gainesville

LIST B: Nice, nasty, pretty, ugly, big, small, rubbish, sprawling, compact, ghost, university

LIST C: Euphoric, fragile, emotional, tired, hungover, inspired, sensitive

OPTION D: Mozart, Mendelssohn, Vaughan Williams or Balakirev, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Rachmaninov

Excellent... that should give you all you need to do as good a job as me at this writing lark... I might have a few days off now... Oh, and don't forget the trees....

You can see the BBC Concert Orchestra's full tour schedule by clicking this link

Read more about the tour and an interview with Keith Lockhart. Click here.