ON THE ROAD WITH BEATLES, BLUES & BLUE VIOLIN

Midlands based vocalist, Tina McBain talks about

The Beatles, Blues & Blue Violin Project.

This all started as a germ of an idea in Phil Bates head. Phil who is the lead guitarist and vocalist with The Orchestra (formerly ELOll) is a huge Beatles fan and we had previously toured with a band called The Eleanor Rigby Experience, which also featured ex members of Fairport Convention, Jethro Tull and Manfred Mann's Earthband. We undertook 4 tours of the UK which all went well. Phil left the ERE to take a few years out to do a history degree, but always seemed keen to return to the format we had successfully developed of re-arranging and messing about with some of the greatest Beatles material.Phil decided that the new project should be more acoustic based than a full band format, mainly because it's financially more viable to tour smaller and more intimate theatres and arts centres with just three mouths to feed instead of the rigours of touring a full band. It was an obvious choice for Phil to recruit his colleague and friend, original ELO violin virtuoso Mik Kaminski to be part of the project; hence the name Beatles, Blues & Blue Violin.Phil wanted to the project the heavily concentrate on Beatles songs, particularly where the Beatles and the blues can be fused. Although of course there are some great blues covers, some of Phil's compositions and a smattering of ELO songs obviously get an airing too. Phil and Mik had previously worked together on an acoustic project 10 years earlier when Phil undertook his first solo project, entitled `Naked'. Two tours of the UK had been organised and Phil and Mik had a ball, although as I recall it seemed a bit of a learning curve for Mik playing in the smaller, toilet seat venues. Phil of course was well familiar with this.Phil first spoke to me about the BBBV project and asked if I would be interested in doing a bit of guesting. I had at the time almost retired from live performance. The reason the Eleanor Rigby Experience came to an end was due to a major health scare I had, and it took more than 18 months for me to regain full working status. So I had become a little rusty and the thought of getting my backside into gear again and trawling the motorways of the UK was a little daunting. One must remember that with this sort of project, it's very low on budget, you don't have posh hotels, and you have to make do with basic B & B's and travelling about. Many times we driven hundreds of miles back from a gig. It's not the sort of thing, when you get to our age, that's easy to take on. But Phil was insistent that we give it a go.Our first ever gig with BBBV was a quite impressive setting, albeit we were somewhat exploited as we didn't get paid a bean, but it was good to do, as it trialled the project. We needed to confirm that it would work, and it certainly did! This gig was the Acoustic Festival of Britain at Catton Hall in Derbyshire and boasted a line-up of some quality; Donovan, Jethro Tull, Fairport Convention, Midge Ure, Hazel O'Connor, Glenn Tilbrook to name but a few. We played the smaller stage at the festival at 11am on a Sunday – not the best time of the day for vocalists – but being first on, before the `big boys' rolled out meant that we played to a very large and healthy crowd who were intrigued, but the set was very well received and it gave us the information we needed to carry it through to tour the project.The interesting thing about Beatles, Blues & Blue Violin is that it was all put together by the creative head of Phil Bates. This guy is a dream to work with and as a vocalist I always feel safe in the knowledge that Phil knows exactly what will work and what wont for my vocal range and style. I had never worked with Mik before, but again like Phil, he is easy to work with and in a very short time we were gelling as a trio. But rehearsals are a nightmare, very hap hazard, mainly due to the fact that Phil and Mik are constantly touring with The Orchestra and although they get a little time to work together on the BBBV material whilst on the road, I just have to slip in and rehearse at the last minute, quite literally sometimes. I can't think of anyone I could do this with other than Phil and Mik.Our first full tour took place in November 2008. How would it be received? Would people turn up and if they did, would they like it? Again this was all done with no real marketing budget other than the usual posters, flyers and local newspaper editorial. Eight shows were scheduled and it was `suck it and see' time. It is always a source of great annoyance for me and although it is understandable that the general punter/fan has no knowledge of how touring works, that they often come out with pearls of wisdom, albeit well meant, of how we should advertise on the radio, how you should take out ads in the monthly music mags like Q, Mojo, etc. Of course this is not economically viable to do when you are running a much smaller outfit than the bigger touring projects. The only thing we had going for us was that The Orchestra were touring the UK a month before our first tour with BBBV, so we were able to piggyback The Orchestra fan base which helped a great deal.Those first few gigs meant a lot to all of us, but particularly to Phil. He was nervous watching his new baby taking its first steps. Phil can appear sometimes to be quite moody, but it's because he cares about his work and does everything possible to ensure it's all going well. Mik and I are the first to admit that the pressure always lands firmly on Phil's shoulders; we have no roadies, so it's all down to Phil to get everything that is vaguely technical running right. In fact he banished me and Mik from the stage sometimes when we are setting up, as we do try to plug things in and move things about and I have to admit that its quite funny sometimes when I get told to f*** off and go and do shopping or something (or go to the pub in Mik's case). The first run of gigs were on the whole very successful, with the one exception – London – which was as per usual so poorly promoted that we had to pull the gig. Sorry to the handful that bought tickets. We averaged around ¾ full on most shows, with one wonderful exception, a jam packed Cavern in Liverpool on a cold Saturday night. It was s sight for sore eyes seeing all those scousers singing along to every single word of our Beatles re-arrangements.I and Phil had experienced the delights of the backstage of the Cavern on previous occasions, but I think it was a bit of a culture shock to Mik, but if my memory serves me right, he handled it with aplomb and performed a sizzling set on the old violin. Without a shadow of a doubt, it has been fantastic to have the support of Phil and Mik's ELO/ELOll/Orchestra fan base with fans turning up to venues travelling sometimes huge distances.We came together again for a one off show at Christmas at the splendid Middleton Hall – another sell out. We were all feeling that the year had been kind to us. We were buzzing. Beatles, Blues & Blue Violin had legs. Then disaster struck. In February I received a phone call with the sad news that Kelly Groucutt, of The Orchestra had died. I cannot tell you the sadness I felt and I could only imagine what Phil and Mik and the rest of the band were going through, not to mention Kelly's family and friends. I had to jump into organisational mode, the discussion took place – should we cancel the forthcoming BBBV tour that was scheduled for March? Phil and Mik would hear none of it, they knew that this would be the very last thing that Kelly would have wanted, so the ten date tour went ahead, and was in many ways considered a tribute to Kelly. The ELO classic `I Can't Get It Out Of My Head' became a feature of the set and many tears were shed on and off stage for Kelly. During this time Phil and Mik again proved their professionalism, although I knew they were suffering real sadness and a great sense of loss. The one time this became most evident was on a Sunday night in Lichfield. The Garrick Theatre, which is a very impressive venue, was well attended for our show, but on that night there were a few unexpected faces in the audience, namely Parthenon Huxley, Gordon Townsend and Kelly's two sons. Because you see, the following week was dear Kelly's funeral. We were all under pressure somewhat to turn in a good performance. Phil and Mik did the business and it was an honour for me to be on stage with them during such a difficult time.We finished the second tour at mine and Phil's `home' town of Tamworth, at the Assembly Rooms and I remember well that Phil and Mik gave me a big hug and said `well we got through it, didn't we?' The project is growing all the time, the interest is growing too. We are about to set out on the third tour in November and then again in March 2010. All the Beatles albums have just been re-mastered and re-released, so there is lots of interest in the Beatles material at the moment, I am sure this will have some good impact on our gigs too, and we have almost established the project as financially viable. It looks like we might even get a roadie lol.We look forward to seeing friends old and new in the future. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!