5 hours ago
4
On Wednesday afternoon I receive a text that seems to suggest the band I’m in has been invited to play live on national radio. Twenty minutes later, the guitarist rings me.
“Did you get my text?” he says.
“I’m still staring at it,” I say. “Saturday as in this Saturday?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Are you up for it?”
“My heart is pounding just from the text,” I say.
Within a few hours the thing is confirmed – at such short notice only four of us are available, which is coincidentally the maximum number of musicians the studio can accommodate. I am one of them.
We’ve played live on the radio before, under many different and challenging circumstances. But we were always playing one of our own songs – a song we knew and had played correctly many times before.
On this occasion, however, we are to appear on a regular slot where musicians interpret football chants – or, in our case, cricket chants. Even that should be easy: after all, drunk cricket fans manage to sing them without difficulty. But the opportunity to rehearse is limited, and the risk of disaster seems high.
“That’s why we do these things,” says the guitarist when three of us meet on Thursday afternoon, at the fiddle player’s house.
“Is it?” I say.
We sit and listen to the original song on which the first chant is based: Sloop John B, by the Beach Boys. We have a protracted argument about how our version should start. There follows an inaugural run-through, and a short silence.
“Jesus Christ,” says the fiddle player.
“My part is very high for me,” I say.
“It’ll be fine,” says the guitarist.
We have another run-through, followed by an argument about how it should end. We resolve a couple of clashing notes in the harmony, and I am told where not to play the banjo. We change the beginning, and then change it back again. We use a phone to record a version to send to the drummer – the fourth member of the quartet – but make so many mistakes it takes us six attempts.
There’s something I occasionally tell audiences when things go wrong on stage. “This is all part of it,” I say, trying to convince them that this bum note, or that broken string, or my decision to play the first four bars of a song in a different key to everyone else – all of that is intentional. We do it this way in every show. But what I’m really saying is: these mistakes, that’s part of what makes it live. In a way, the mistakes are what we’re all here for.
I do not think this will work on the radio.
“Should we try the next song?” says the fiddle player. Once again, we argue about how it should start. I make a particular fuss about the guitar intro.
“No,” I say. “It’s three climbing notes on the A-string, then the chord.”
“Like this?” said the guitarist, playing.
“Not quite,” I say. “It’s more like …”
“I have an idea,” says the guitar player, holding out his instrument. “You play the guitar.”
“Wait,” I say, “I don’t …”
“That way I can concentrate on singing,” he says.
I look at the guitar, thinking: this is even more of a high-wire act now, and it’s all your fault.
On Saturday morning we meet in the reception of Broadcasting House to have our instruments X-rayed. A few minutes later we’re escorted to a green room, and then to a studio: four stools before four microphones. The presenter of the programme, Patrick Kielty, is in Belfast, but we can hear him in our headphones, interviewing his previous guests. My heart is pounding, as it has been for the past 72 hours.
A light in the studio comes on. My mouth goes dry, and my vision becomes tunnel-like. As I hear the drummer count off the first number, I look down at my fingers on the strings, wondering if I can reasonably expect them to act when the time comes.
When I next look up at the big clock, 10 minutes have passed. Someone in my headphones is reading the news.
“How was that for you?” says the guitarist.
“I think it was all right,” I say. “Did I say anything?”
“Yeah, you talked,” he says.
“I already don’t remember most of it,” I say.
“You can listen back to the whole thing when you get home,” he says.
“No I can’t,” I say. A door opens, and a producer steps in.
“That was great, guys!” he says. “I’ll email you a link to the video when we put it up.”
“There’s a video?” I say.
