A Down for the Count Road Trip!

In September 2011, we had three gigs, in three days, in opposite corners of the country – the perfect excuse to hire a van for a long roadtrip!

The long weekend started, as ever, at Tesco (if you're ever at a loose end on a Saturday afternoon, come along to Colney Hatch Tesco, as there's a good chance you'll find us there...!)  We loaded up the van with food - some healthy, some less so - before hitting the road.

The first gig was a wedding in Somerset.  We had been looking forward to this gig for ages, because we were being joined by Simon Selmon from Swing Dance UK, who took the guests for a swing/jive lesson (we couldn't resist joining in!) before we started our first set.

At the end of the night we were swung out, so it was off to Leigh Delemere Travelodge for a snooze, followed by brunch....

...before driving to the next wedding in Buckinghamshire.  As we were early we took the opportunity to have a pub lunch before heading to the venue to set up.

The wedding was for a couple who had seen the band at Down for the Count Live - and they insisted we had a glass of champagne whilst they were finishing dinner - we were only too happy to oblige!

After we had performed it was back to London for a sleepover at Mike's before driving to the final gig in Suffolk.

By this time the travelling was taking its toll - with some people needing a 'disco nap' in the van:

The event was a 40th wedding anniversary party in a beautiful house on the seafront - before we set-up we had 30 minutes to enjoy the views - and for Steve to do a spot of birdwatching.

It was then time for the final two sets of a fantastic weekend.  There was still one more surprise in store as we were joined by a relative, who gave an absolutely fantastic rendition of three Frank Sinatra numbers.

Our three-day, 508-mile road trip was a fantastic experience - one we hope to repeat several times in 2012!

The Down for the Count Sound

This week, we share some of our secrets about what makes our 9-piece band sound as good as it does!

We often get complimented on the sound of our 9-piece function band, with comments such as “the sound was simply fantastic.”  It’s always great to hear that clients and guests appreciate the sound, because we work very hard to get our band sounding as good as it does.

The 18-piece Big Band may be the “gold standard” for most of the music that we perform, but sadly most people can’t afford, or don’t have space, for a full Big Band at their events.  It is also hard to get a big band sounding just right underneath vocals, as most weddings and corporate events are in venues that are just too small or intimate to handle the Big Band sound.

However, cutting down on the number of musicians often only serves to ‘water down’ the Rat Pack, big band and soul music that we love to perform, taking away the edge that makes the music so fantastic.

This is why we have carefully selected the instruments in our 9-piece band line-up to be as flexible as possible, and we arrange each song specifically for our band. To the best of our knowledge, our line-up featuring two keyboards, four horns (including two saxes and two trumpets) alongside drums, bass and vocals is completely unique in the function band circuit – so really does give us a unique sound.

One of the things that is different about our band, compared to all other function bands that we know of, is that we have two keyboard players.  In the Rat Pack and Swing sets, one keyboard covers the traditional ‘piano’ parts, whilst the other keyboard covers a huge variety of sounds that enhance our songs (and increase the amount of repertoire we are able to perform).  However talented the rest of our musicians are, songs like “New York New York” and “The Way You Look Tonight” will never sound the same without the rich orchestral string parts.  In the Soul and Motown sets, the two keyboards share a large variety of piano, electric piano, organ, clav, synth, strings and guitar voices to give us a huge amount of flexibility, meaning we can make each song sound as good as possible.

Our horn parts are spread across two trumpets and two wind players (who spend most of the time playing saxophone, but also cover important clarinet and flute parts in the big band and Rat Pack repertoire).  With this line-up, the four players can blend together in a horn soli to make a fantastic ‘brassy’ sound, or the saxophone and trumpet sections can split to play in a classic big band ‘call and answer’ style.

A second trumpet is also far more flexible than a trombone, because the added harmony close to the high trumpet gives our four-piece horn section a much ‘fuller’ sound than you would normally expect. The second keyboard in our band also often joins in with the horn section, filling out the harmonies and giving our 9-piece band a much richer sound.

In the next article, we will have a look at how we arrange our songs for our line-up.

Down for the Count at Pablo & Clare's Wedding, Dartmouth House

On Saturday 15th October 2011 we performed for Pablo and Clare's wedding at Dartmouth House, London.  It was Mike's birthday so we hoped that it would be a fun gig - and it certainly was!  Here is a lovely email we received from them after the wedding - thanks so much for having us, and thanks to Andre Penteado for the fantastic photos.

Hi Mike,

Just to thank you very very much again for the amazing time Clare and I had at our wedding at Dartmouth House on 15^th October 2011.

Your repertoire was spot on, the performance was superb, the sets were great and each and every song was chosen and played according to the moment. It was a ten out of ten performance with Distinction, thank you. A lot of guests remarked how great the music was, and we had the best time ever dancing to the old standards (thank you for the many Glenn Miller songs, by the way!).

I also appreciate your timely expert advice, making us see that some songs that we didn't want at our wedding (like New York, New York) simply must be played, because people LOVE them. It's no wonder that at the end of the evening everyone was shouting "one more, one more, one more": it must happen to you all the time.

And sorry again for disappearing without even a card!

Please pass it on to the rest of the group the satisfaction, indeed the delight that it was to have you playing at our wedding.

Have a great and prosperous 2012!

Pablo & Clare