So, I'm playing bass in a band that's providing the music for this play that a group of Malaysian/Singaporeans were putting on for Chinese New Year in 1989. It was a big deal for them and on drums was a guy who couldn't play drums. He literally had learned to hit the snare and kick together in the time the rehearsals were going on. I had to sit right next to him and guide him through all the songs and what he should do and when to come in etc. He was a really funny guy, but the prop used as the shark in "Jaws" was a better drummer. But there was no one to play the drums so Dave Tan had volunteered and somehow, he'd convinced the people running the play to let him in.
Dang, when he used to do fills.....
It was like a tree falling down !
Anyway, the opening song was called "Hudson Taylor's land" or something like that, and it was supposed to start with me playing a C# on bass, simultaneously with this woman, Catherine, that was playing keyboards. Then I was supposed to slur up the E string and hit an E. I'd worked it so it was really dreamy and almost psychedelic, then as the piece progressed, Dave was meant to come in on drums and then the other band members were meant to come in and it was supposed to build to a climax with Dave and his flaming fills. But we'd practiced it and practiced it and he could get it, as long as he listened to me and didn't fly off on his own.
So while I wasn't exactly flowing with confidence, I wasn't envisaging anything going wrong. We got this !
So, the narrator comes out and does his thing and he had this great trick of ending his sentences with a flick of this fan. It used to bring the house down in rehearsals, it was so funny. And when he does it the first time, that's when the bass and keys were supposed to hit that C#.
So he does his flick and I come in loudly on the bass and Catherine's hands bang down on the keys of the piano and.........
I don't know what happened but our two opening notes are not the same ! Not only are they not the same, but they also sound so incongruous. They sound awful ! So I'm shocked, she's shocked, and I slur up to the E and she's adding her bits and both of us are totally out of tune with each other. But we'd tuned up beforehand. What the heck is going on ? So a few seconds in, I'm in a right panic, thinking that somehow, I'm out of tune. So I start to do a Hendrix, trying to tune my bass while playing and it's just getting worse ! By now, everyone's looking at me and I'm looking around at them shrugging my shoulders and trying to mute my volume and of course, being totally thrown by all this, I've forgotten that I'm supposed to be guiding Dave Tan as to when to come in and he doesn't know his cues without being told and after a while, he starts to guess and comes in at all the wrong times, the singers are thrown because they can't latch onto any tune, Catherine, who has proved to be moody and temperamental in the few months I've known her, starts pouting and stomping, Dave throws in fills without ever establishing a beat and the unrest spreads to the whole cast who, by this point are hoping the ground will open up and swallow us all. The audience either is utterly confused or is thinking 'what a load of shit' and probably wanting their money back {that's the polite version !} and by the time we reach what is supposed to be the climax of the opening number, a mess of enormous proportions has ensued and even though it is February and damn cold, I'm sweating like I'm in a sauna.
Flaming Nora !
When the song ends, there's recrimination amongst the musicians and accusations flying. And then we discover what happened. About 15 minutes before the start, these kids that were supposed to be piano prodigys were allowed to play the keyboard and they were incredible. Superb players.....but they were kids too and they couldn't resist mucking about with the transpose button and so they'd left the bloody keyboard in a completely different key. So I was actually in tune, but Catherine was fixed in another key and because she never needed to transpose {well, not using the button}, it didn't occur to her to look at the transpose button. Until that day, I'd never even heard of a transpose button ! And the key she was left in made the notes too high for the singers ~ even if they had been able to identify any semblance of a tune. And by trying to tune in the midst of the song, I was then out of tune to the guitars and the other instruments. And they were thinking they were out so some of them were trying to tune up. It wasn't even good avant~garde noise !!
Kids !
What a shambles. The rest of the play was an absolute disaster. Even though we located the problem and eventually tuned up, our confidence was shot. Nothing had any life in it, the actors weren't funny or convincing and kept fluffing lines that they'd been nailing in their sleep, we musicians were just 'meh'. We basically just played safe for the rest of the performance and I couldn't wait to get the hell out of Dodge.
Where's the instructions? 