I’ve never been in a calendar before… but here I was on Day 16 of the Windsor & Eton Living Advent Calendar. The hours of practice and agony I put my family and neighbours through was finally going to come to fruition and be unveiled to an unsuspecting public audience!
I doubted it would even be possible to perform our new Christmas song when we first received the sheet music and a link to the Herb Alpert & Tijuana Brass version of Winter Wonderland. I asked myself, “which bit of this fiendishly fast and difficult song was I meant to be playing?!” When we jumped into our first rehearsals in October, it honestly sounded like a complete and utter Sleigh crash…
However, Rudolph soon picked himself up and dusted himself off, and when the video playalongs were released it was significantly easier to understand the rhythms and motifs (I’ve been learning music since I was 7 and that’s the first time I’ve managed to use ‘motifs’ appropriately in a sentence, proving everything comes to those who wait!).
As we waited to perform, we gathered in the beautiful and grand surroundings of the Windsor Guildhall, we were glad to be inside in the warm and dry. Amongst the chatter of 90+ saxophonists, you could hear people tuning and many a Christmas motif being practiced for a final time – with fingers crossed, we hoped the sax gods would be kind to us on the night!
This gigantic band was a sight to behold against the majestic (literally) backdrop of Windsor Castle. It was clear that from far and wide across Oxon, Bucks, Berks, Surrey & Hants, that band members had raided tinsel boxes, unpacked twinkling lights, adorned christmas jumpers, and acquired novelty headwear – one person even embraced a full snowman-themed suit! Woweee, Sax Bandits knew how to rock Christmas!!!
As we walked to the performance area in front of the castle with our decorated music stands and positioned ourselves in front of the audience, the thought occurred… “it’s awfully dark out here, I can’t even see the band leader, how’s he going to conduct us?”. And then.. there they were, his dancing, illuminated fingertips leading us into the first song!
Our festive set consisted of six songs; Winter Wonderland, Wonderful Christmastime by Paul McCartney, the infamous Rockin’ SaXmas Medley (8 years and counting apparently), the Madness Medley (not festive, but very fun), Santa Claus is Comin’ To Town, and Merry Christmas Everyone by Shakin Stevens.
Then suddenly, there was a rapturous applause from the audience and it was over… Many of the band members around me commented about how quickly it went, but also how much fun it was to play a real life gig, and how Winter Wonderland had become our absolute favourite song in the set!
After the performance we had the opportunity to chat with fellow band members from all 6 band locations in The Prince Harry pub and make new friends too… all in all, it was an unforgettable night!
So, a big thank you to the Sax Bandits team who created this fabulous opportunity, but also to all those brave saxophonists who took part and made this a truly memorable night. It was so much fun… when can we do another one?!
You can see all the photos from the day on our facebook page here:
Excellent summary of the ‘royal’ gig, Gill. What a privilege it was to play there. I completely agree about Winter Wonderland, it somehow metamorphosed into a brilliant song!