Making the best of a bad situation.

Isn't it funny how easily we can adapt and change when its needed. As most of you know, I'm a fulltime musician. Occasionally I do solo work that requires just me to show up on time. Most of the time I do a duo with another guy. Now being a fulltime musician is not the sort of job that you can just phone in sick for. Especially not on the day. However, I had this unfortunate event happen to me yestarday when my duo partner sent me an SMS to say he was incredibly sick and didn't think he would be able to do a very good job that night. We you can well imagine that from my perspective, missing one gig in a week can serverly effect my income by up to half.

Finding it totally unacceptable to cancel a gig at such short notice, I put my thinking cap on. I could do the gig solo, but if the venue wanted a solo artist, they would have booked one. I certainly had no problem singing the whole gig, so all I really needed was someone to be on the stage with me to sing along with me and perhaps tap away the tambourine. Well I'm happy to say that the solution was right in front of me. My wife is a classicly trained singer and should have no problem oicking out the harmonies, and she can certainly tap a tambourine. She was delighted to help out, and it also meant I didn't have to pay an outsider for the night so it was a win win situation.

So here I am, 24 hours later, job is done, crowd was happy and I have saved "Toybox" from a black mark againt its name once again. Its a cut throat industry this music business. Always someone who believes they can do it better and cheaper. Most of them are half right at the very least. But its that main reason that it is crucial to do your best on every occassion. As a cover act, you are only as good as your last performance. And believe me, if you pull out of a gig at short notice, it gets remembered a lot longer than you think.