July (Will): Weird and Wonderful Gigs

Being a harmonica player - or a percussionist - means that you end up straying into some musically bizarre and niche territories. Here is part 2 - following on from Delia last month - Will’s Weird and Wonderful Gigs:

The Chilli Pasty Incident

My go-to classic tale - not necessarily weird, but definitely hilarious. I did a gig at Moseley Folk Festival about 14 years ago with banjo player Dan Walsh. Beforehand I was pretty peckish, so I ate a pasty. But it soon became apparent that this pasty had a chilli in it. And it was really, really, really hot. The gig got off to a bumpy start straight away, being announced onto stage in a strong Irish accent by the enthusiastic presenter bellowing: “Dan Price…and Will Power!” (Matt Price being another artist at the festival, and Brendan Power being a well-known harmonica player). I had had to down a hasty pint of milk due to said chilli, and bits of stray pasty were gradually making their way down the harmonica. Not helped by starting the gig with my harmonica upside down, producing an absolutely horrendous set of opening notes. One word: calamity!

The Buckingham Palace Gig 

Here’s a wonderful one! In 2011 I was featured in a three-part BBC Two series Goldie's Band: By Royal Appointment (which was a headhunted “future talent show” led by drum and bass pioneer Goldie, where participants were mentored by Guy Chambers, Soweto Kinch, Ms Dynamite, Steve Abbott and Cerys Matthews). The show culminated in a performance in Buckingham Palace to the one and only, HRH Prince Harry. We were secretly very naughty and sat on all kinds of thrones that were surely forbidden to harmonica players and the like.

15 Minutes of Fame..on the Other Side of the World

This one was a little weird..I got flown to a huge concert hall in Hong Kong to play a gig for just 15 minutes. At the end they presented me with a huge bouquet of flowers and I suppose was some kind of certificate, congratulating me on my performance. People were constantly photographing me throughout the soundcheck. Very surreal. 

The Computer Game Character

I played on RuneScape - an online computer game which is apparently quite well-known (although we had no idea what it was). We went to Cambridge to record the theme tune and a few other bits and bobs, but unbeknownst to us, we didn’t realise that we were also cast as actual characters in the games as musicians, until we attended the “RuneScape Convention” in London for the launch. We played live for people who had travelled from all over the world, and ended up leaving as minor celebrities. People kept coming up to us and naming our characters and telling us all about them. It was absolutely hilarious but totally amazing - such a cool experience.

Shaun the Sheep: The Farmer

Natalie Holt - a film composer friend of mine - recently asked me to play on the latest Shaun the Sheep movie soundtrack (the film comes out this October). She ended up using diminished harmonica and whole tone harmonica a lot which is very unusual. It involved a lot of super quick swapping of instruments to get the right flavour she was looking for, recording about 40 minutes of music in total. My character was the farmer, so if you watch the movie, you’ll notice that he is always accompanied by some harmonica by yours truly.

Will x