My band, Arbelos (http://www NULL.arbelos NULL.eu/), has had an interesting few months as we dipped our toes into the world of live touring. We played in Dumfries, Edinburgh and Glasgow and had a lot of fun doing as well as learning about the process of bringing our recorded music to a real-time performance. Now we are taking stock, planning the next CD and a very special show for December.
The live experience has me thinking in new ways about song writing and I am trying to create my music with performance in mind from the start. Once the band can really play a song, then we’ll start to put down the album track rather than growing it in a computer layer by layer. The clever recording stuff can still go in there but on the back of a stronger core performance.
For December I’ve hired my favourite theatre, the Brigend (http://www NULL.dumfriesmos NULL.co NULL.uk/The_theatre NULL.htm) in Dumfries. This is the home theatre of the Dumfries Musical Theatre Company, which was called the Dumfries Musical and Operatic Society when I was a member many years ago. It was in that very theatre that I met my wife.
The new show is tentatively entitled Christmas with Arbelos and Friends and is the first in our new-format live performances which will be more strongly themed, possibly telling a story. This time we have gathered some musical and theatrical friends to help us along and hope to make a memorable piece of seasonal entertainment.
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