Wicked Diaries: Saudi Arabia

I've been thinking about potential ways to revive my blog writing. I'm starting to accrue a healthy drafts folder, ranging from the usual end-of-year roundups, to more esoteric writing such as diatribes on albums I like, more of my brand of tech commentary, and even an entire folder of vegan breakfast reviews from restaurants and cafes all up and down the UK. These are all fun pieces of writing, and I hope they see the light of day when I can finally get them all properly finished, but they all give off the impression of an author being stuck in a bit of a holding pattern. I may end up doing a bit of a review of where my career has taken me over the last couple of years, as it's been filled with all sorts of whimsy and excitement. However, it's all been, for want of a better word, bitty. Lots of small things just about linking together to just about make a career out of, but it felt like I was trying to manufacture something to give my effort to, while I waited for the next big chapter of my life to start.

Luckily, I think that chapter has well and truly started.

At time of writing, I'm in my hotel room overlooking Riyadh, a week into the international tour of Wicked. I was offered this gig less than three weeks ago, and now I'm seeing parts of the world I never thought I'd have the opportunity to see, playing a show that I didn't think I'd get the opportunity to play. The day before I got the call, I was talking with a friend about how I felt that if I was able to play this show before the age of 40, I'd feel like I'd done what I came here to do. 24hrs later, I was cancelling gigs to make space for a four month tour.

The group of musicians on this show are excellent, and it's a privilege to be asked to contribute, but it's also a nice feeling to feel like the least experienced musician in the room, which is very practically the case here. It's cool, it gives me something to work towards, and plenty to learn. One thing that my newness on this level gives me is a real vril for the job. This is my first international tour in 6 years, with all that entails, but it's also my favourite musical, and I think those two novelties have meant that I've done an insane amount of preparation for this. I was running the show every day at home, and even went to sit in with the show in town. I know the score pretty well, and it's just an exciting place to be, surrounded by people at the top of their game, while also feeling on top of mine. However, at time of writing, we're still a bit of time out from the show actually opening, and I'm sure there will be plenty of unforeseen tests. That's what I want to keep this log for, documenting the experience, maybe showing a bit of what goes into a production like this (at least as much as is appropriate), and ultimately talking about the experience of this, because it really is a new thing.

The first week here has mainly been getting bearings. With the country, with the material, and with the actual day-to-day living of it all. This is going to be the longest single stretch I've been away from home (6 weeks), and that's going to require some readjustment.

Band Calls and Rehearsals

It's strange how quickly this band has to get to know each-other. I mean this in two ways. Firstly, socially; the first time we met was at the airport prior to a 6.5hr flight, and from that moment on we'd be consistently sharing some pretty close quarters, be it the bus, the pit, or even the hotel sauna. One overlooked responsibility of being a band fixer is putting together bands with personalities you know will gel. We're all about to be a long way from home for a decent stretch of time, under some fairly high stress conditions, it helps that we are able to get along and support one another when required. The other way we have to very quickly synergise is musically. Right off the bat, we were loading into a band room in the theatre and had multiple 6-hour days of rehearsal. This process isn't just a matter of learning the score itself, but it's also learning to respond to input and stimulus from other musicians. For example, there's a bit of underscore in the first act where myself and the bass player were playing the same line, except I was accenting the first beat in the bar much more heavily than him. When I was running the show at home, I quite liked how this gave the phrase some contour, but in the band situation, it meant that it was putting too much emphasis on a bit of melody that's supposed to be set dressing while dialogue happens on stage. Similarly, there was also a matter of how ahead or behind the beat we both were. Part of the phrase includes isolated semiquavers, and we were placing them (and holding them) ever so slightly differently, so that scene in the show is now proving to be a very interesting listening and responding exercise.

This was also our chance to see how our gear had held up in transit, and boy did I have a nasty surprise in that regard. One of my guitars (irritatingly, the one guitar I had bought for this show specifically) had taken a knock on the way over, and a piece of metal hardware had become ever-so-slightly loose inside the body. This was likely a loose nut or something similar, but the result of such a small change was that the whole instrument had a godawful rattle to it. Tapping the body would produce a sound like a snare drum or a cajon, and it would make that noise constantly if I was playing anything low on the neck. The solution was to go at the innards of the instrument with an entire tube of superglue, which seems to have done the trick, even if it's inhibited any future work being done on the instrument. It's a shame to have to glue it within an inch of its life, as it was bought new for this gig, but it wasn't the most expensive guitar in the world, and it sounds miles better than it did. This is where another difference between myself and more experienced touring musicians was instantly apparent - I came to this show with a few extra tools in my suitcase, and these guys came with Peli cases loaded with screwdrivers, Allen keys, everything you could possibly imagine for every foreseeable situation. This isn't to say I'm unprepared by any stretch, I'm certainly still able to maintain and use all the gear I've brought, but it's still informative to see the kinds of situations people have previously encountered, and the kind of preparation they now do to avoid repeat scenarios.

Another gear-related learning experience I had was having to re-examine the sounds I was dialing in. Professionally, I've used a Helix LT since summer 2024 as my effects unit. It's a versatile and sturdy piece of kit with plenty of options and malleability. However, I don't think I've ever been getting the best out of this piece of gear, and there were points in this show where the way I had utilised particularly the amp-sim module wasn't cutting it. Without getting too technical, you can either emulate a combo amp (amp head and cabinet rolled into one) or emulate both of those things separately. For the longest time, I'd been using one of the Fender Deluxe combo amp modules, and it had been doing the job for the most part, but for some of the bigger drive cues, it started to sound constricted and muddy. What's been exceptionally useful about this job is having another guitarist in the pit. Said guitarist isn't just an excellent player, but tone creation is totally his bag. Where I've just made one big patch for the whole show and called it a day, he's designed sounds for every single song of the whole show, with an astonishing level of attention to detail. When it came time to start figuring out how I could resurrect my tone, he was the first person to chat to, naturally. His simple (but perfect) solution was to split the amp and the cab into separate modules, giving more control over each component in the signal chain. The result is night-and-day, and that's only wth the most general, top-level change. Next time I have to make patches for a show, it's clear that I need to spend much more prep time in the weeds of sound design than I've previously allocated.

While we're on the subject of gear, here's a list of the instruments I'm playing on this show:

- Strandberg NX Boden Classic

- Larrivee OM

- Cort CEC7 (the one that needed emergency surgery)

- Faith 12 string (courtesy of my brother)

- Windsor Ambassador Supremus 5-string banjo

- Ashbury A-style mandolin.

Related to the state of preparation, adapting to new circumstances and the overall level of professionalism required, it's probably worth touching on the music itself here. Something I've been asked by people back home is how I deal with making mistakes in the show itself; does this happen often? What happens when you make a very audible mistake in the show? Does this present an issue higher up in the food chain?

The most general answer is that on a three hour show, you're never going to play the whole thing perfectly. It's totally understandable to want to aim for this, but it's not reasonable to expect that of yourself. Because of that, there's a margin for error that's baked into the expectation of us as players. We're humans, and the occasional mechanical error is inevitable. However, it's taken me a long time to get to that point personally. I've always been quite hard on myself when it comes to these things, and even the occasional bum note can have me feeling like the whole show was a write-off. I remember back on a panto in 2021, I had a kind of points system for myself, where I'd start with a perfect score, and then deduct numbers of points for different kinds of mistakes, like some kind of inverse game of Guitar Hero. Obviously, this is unsustainable and bad behaviour, but even more so when you consider how long this contract is. If I was pulling myself up on every tiny mistake I made on every single show, the list would be endless and pointless. There's something to be said for being a bit more thorough when you're learning a show initially, but once you're in the swing of it, you have to accept that there will always be minor variables that will change how you play. Roger Federer made the point that being a top level tennis player meant you still only win 54% of your points, and I think the same principle applies to live music. To be the top of your game doesn't mean you prevent mistakes, it just means that when they occur, you have the toolkit to understand what happened and what you'll change going forward.

There is an exception to this, which is that there's a difference between inevitable one-off mechanical errors and consistent misinterpretations of the music. If the musical director notices that there's something that isn't sitting right over the course of multiple shows, that's when you'll get noted on certain sections, just to make sure everything is locking in properly. Being noted isn't a kind of reprimanding either, there's no implication that by being noted, you're doing a bad job, it's it's simply a way of ensuring that we're all listening and self-correcting in a way that is actually constructive and sustainable, as opposed to being overly self-critical over the occasional wrong note.

Goalkeeping

Ten years ago now, I wrote a blog on a long defunct Blogspot site called Playing Support. What I was trying to get at, in my own student-y kind of way, is that I've always naturally opted for supportive roles in team environments. If we're playing football, I'm a goalkeeper. Back in my League of Legends days, I was usually playing support. If there's a Michael Jordan on the team, I'm always opting to be Scotty Pippin. I'm not sure what has compelled me to take these kinds of supportive roles, but I feel like I do a good job in them. On this show, I'm playing Guitar 2, which could be considered rhythm guitar for the most part. This isn't always the case, as there are still lead/melodic moments in the show, but my main concern in this chair is rhythmic foundation, or adding colour on instruments like mandolin and banjo. I've done Guitar 1 work before as well on other shows, and that's just as much fun, but I think it's telling and fascinating that my first job on "this level", however you might interpret that, is one that speaks to the exact kind of responsibility I take in other places. This also isn't to make a value judgment on either role, they're both essential to this orchestration of the show. What I'm finding is that the parts I'm enjoying getting right the most are acoustic rhythm parts where I feel like I'm properly articulating myself, as well as what the orchestrator had in mind. Namely, tunes like I'm Not That Girl and For Good. There's something deeply satisfying about giving a proper clean and defined performance of these tunes, especially when the rhythm guitar is responsible for so much foundation at those points.

Riyadh

Saudi Arabia is not somewhere I expected to go in my lifetime. I still doubt I'd return in any capacity other than professional, but the six weeks there meant there was time to see and experience some very unique and interesting stuff. On our first day off, there was serendipitously an Al Nassr game, which a few of us knew we had to attend. Seeing Cristiano Ronaldo score a bicycle kick in the 95th minute in person was something I felt genuinely privileged to witness.

A couple of days later, in what was a personal highlight for the trip, I played at a local Super Smash Bros. Ultimate tournament in central Riyadh. This is something I usually do on tour, if I'm in a new place or any stretch of time, I'll see if there's a local scene. I'd previously gone to locals while touring in Scotland and the Netherlands, both of which were really wonderful experiences, and Riyadh was no different. There's something extremely refreshing and reassuring to know that whenever you find a place like this, it's going to be full of the kind of nerds you know from home, without exception. Everyone speaks English, everyone has a strong common interest, and it's just a great way to plug into a global scene wherever you go.

I came 9th overall, which was playing exactly to my seed. I'd not played the game in a while, so I was pleased with the result. Everything stays open insanely late in Riyadh, so after leaving the tournament at midnight, I went to a packed food court and ordered an amazing falafel wrap for 10SAR (about £2).

If Riyadh is anything, it's big. Everything relies on a sense of scale to bring you in, when it works it really works. Take the King Fahad Cultural Centre, our venue. It's a cavernous, 2.5K seat venue that stands on its own in a rather unpopulated area of the city. Upon walking in, you're immediately hit with super high ceilings, a wide open lobby with two cafes, a gift shop and an artisinal craft store (as I write this, I realise I forgot to buy a mug from there).

The scale doesn't need to be manmade either; on one of our last weekends there, we visited the edge of the world, a cliff edge at the end of the Tuwaik Mountain range, overlooking what looks like an endless ocean of sand. It was a sweaty-palmed experience for sure - as this was an unsupervised area, there was no kind of safety measures, leaving nothing between you and a 1000ft drop. Coincidentally, the day we took that trip was also the final day of my 20s, so the whole thing had a bit of a punctual, cinematic feel to it.

Riyadh was a place I'd heard a lot about prior to going out there, and I think it was nice to experience a lot of it on the ground level. I like being a pedestrian in new places, and the upshot of that is you see a lot of people who are just trying to live their lives. The people we spoke to after shows every night were delightful, whether they were expats here for work or locals who were enjoying the novelty of seeing this show make its middle east debut. Especially for the kids, it was the spellbinding experience we all wanted to put on. This is a place that isn't without its political and social complexity, and I wouldn't want to pretend that wasn't present as part of our trip, but there's something special about being part of what feels like an act of cultural cross-communication using the arts. It's often (and maybe too-often) said that music is a universal language, but these are the times where you get to see that effect first hand, and that's a beautiful thing, and that's really what it's all about.

Next up, Bahrain!