Oh What A Night!

Sometimes, when you’ve had a big build up to a special event the actual day itself can feel like a bit of an anti-climax. You know, the day after your birthday, Boxing day or the 2^nd January. I have been working towards my Homecoming Concert at the Swansea Building Society Arena for over a year and working on the Cwtsh Clos Charity project for 18 months, so you might think that come the day itself there might be a possibility of being a little underwhelmed.

Not this time. If anything the whole day was more than I could have imagined or hoped for and in the words of those great 1970’s Pop band philosophers Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons all I could think of was…’Oh What A Night!’.

All pictures courtesy Dimitris Legakis / Athena Pictures

The trouble with getting the band back together once or twice a year is that we never have enough time to actually rehearse. When you’ve been friends for 40 years and haven’t seen each other since last October there’s a lot of catching up to do. We spend as much time telling stories and laughing as we do playing.

I asked the boys to put the date in their diaries a year last September. That was just as well. Nigel the Keyboard player managed to fit this in in-between travelling to Albania and Greece before flying out at the end of the week to Zagreb. Ryan the Drummer had spent the previous weekend in Scotland and was off to France, and Andrew the saxophonist is soon on his way to Prague.

The other problem with so many moving parts to a one off concert like this is the phone keeps ringing or messages keep arriving that need answers. We had 10 extra performers joining us for the evening who we wouldn’t get the chance to play with until the day. That didn’t include the 20 strong contingent form the Morriston ED choir either. All of the guests were coming from different parts of the country. I’d booked some into Morgans Hotel, others were travelling by train or car and all needed directions and timings as you can imagine.

I had left our band rehearsal on Sunday evening to join the Morriston ED Choir rehearsal at the Hospital. Now whilst I write my own music I don’t actually read or write music down in traditional notation. That can be very frustrating for others who do. Fair play to Jonathan Lycett the Choir’s MD. Although I see the occasional raised eye brow when I go ‘off piste’ he always makes allowances.

We had to prepare the choir for 3 different types of performance. The choir were going to do their own show in the foyer before the show, they were going to join me on stage with the band and they were going to sing with me for a special insert into the 6 O’clock New on ITV Wales. I left the hospital in the dark feeling well.

The day of the concert started fairly calmly. Ian Parsons the tour manager and the crew turned up at 11am. By the time I arrived just after midday ‘Lighting Llwyd’ had most of the lights in place and ‘Adrian the Sound’ was making all sorts of funny noises through the PA.

Things started getting busy with the arrival of the band at 2pm. I knew we had a couple of hours before the arrival of the guests at 4pm so we needed to crack on. In the meantime my phone was red hot with updates from the guests and requests for tickets.

First up was Paul Henry. Paul is a Langland Legend. The ultimate surf dude. We had last performed together in front of 17 million people on the 1987 Song for Europe Final. I had bumped into him on the beach earlier in the year and thought it would be fun to get him on stage for Homecoming 25.

In the old days he would turn up with a flashy suit and small Harmonica case. These days Paul plays an electronic harmonica. On Wednesday he had a keyboard and a whole series of amplifiers. He plugged in, we played, it all worked.

Lorriane King and Kirstie Roberts

We also had Lorraine King and Kirstie Roberts joining us on backing vocals, but they wouldn’t arrive until just before the show. They were pros. I wasn’t worried!!!

Mike Doyle had brought Dai Shell and Ralph Evans from the band Sassafras to perform with him. They have plans to go back on the road together next year so this was a chance to test the waters. We had 2 new guitarists to integrate into the band, but these guys were also pros, so it worked like a dream.

Graham Kendrick turned the Arena into Church with Shine Jesus Shine

I have worked with Graham Kendrick since just after leaving university in 1981. He’s best known these days for writing some of the country’s best loved hymns like ‘Shine Jesus Shine’ but I’d been a fan of his work as a singer songwriter before that. We had rehearsed over zoom the previous week, so had an idea of what we were going to do. He set up plugged in, we played through his 2 songs and he went back to his hotel smiling.

Mal & Alyssa Bonagura

By this stage I was conscious of the passing time. Our final soundcheck was with Nashville’s Alyssa Bonagura. As I keep saying she is the real deal. As soon as she walks onto any stage she owns it. As we rehearsed her beautiful song ‘Heavy On My Mind’ Mike Doyle filmed us from the back of the Arena. It was only the following day that I noticed in the most tender part of the song, when we just sing our harmonies with no instruments, I pull back my sleeve to check my watch!!!

All of this was because we had to clear the stage by 5.45 to prepare for the live insert into ITV Wales News. The concert was to be a celebration of the climax of the ‘Cwtsh Clos’ Appeal to rise £160,000 to refurbish 5 two bedroomed houses. These houses are for the use of families with babies in the Neo Natal Intensive Care Unit. By 5.30pm I started wondering where the choir was. I finally checked my phone to find out they were at the Arena but locked outside in the cold.

Thankfully they had warmed up in time to chat to reporter Dean Thomas-Welch before heading to the foyer to raise nearly another £500 for the charity.

My dear old friend Kev Johns was first up with an introduction where as usual he made fun of me before announcing the band. Then we were off and running.

I knew it was going to be an emotional evening as the final item on my running order was presenting the cheque. I have to confess I was overwhelmed when Lewis Bradley from the Swansea Bay Health Board Charity came on stage and presented me with flowers and a plaque. The tears streamed from my face as I thought of the reason behind the concert, and all of the love I had experienced from the Band, crew and audience.