Wow, what a great audience we had for our second Christmas Concert at the Palace Theatre in Paignton on Friday the 2nd of December! The theatre was packed and the atmosphere was positively buzzing with so many happy concert goers, all of whom skied on down to the Palace for a snowy musical extravaganza.
Starting the show was the Christmas Fanfare, Hither Page which was swiftly followed by Sleigh Ride and our own Little Drummer Boy featuring Richard Budd. Then it was time for our lovely audience to exercise their vocal cords for We Three Kings and Hark The Herald Angels Sing. This was followed by The Name's Claus, Santa Claus which is a great piece stylised on a James Bond theme. Ben King then took the solo spot with Herbie Flowers Tuba solo, Tuba Smarties. Then it was the audience's turn again to see how well they could skate to the Skaters Waltz, finally ending the first half with Santa's Journey. This lead us nicely into the interval.
The second half opened with the theme tune from Ski Sunday, Pop Looks Bach with lots ups and downs in the music. This was followed by Jingle Bells Forever and then Maxine Davis who performed a beautiful solo, Gabriels Oboe. It was then Mick Jones who took the stage next with his Tenor Sax solo, Let It Snow and onto a vocal solo with Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas. The all too popular Troika followed this and then it was into a new arrangement for the band this year with a Winter Bonfire which depicts a train journey through the snow. Our Finale concluded the concert with Christmas Festival and of course, Hearts of Oak and the National Anthem.
Our Stage Production Manager, Bill Hunt set the snowy scenes with some stunning backdrops for each piece of music and the band were festively adorned with an interesting array of Christmas hats, and tinsel. Colin (our Conductor) shared his new jokes for the season having the audience in stitches throughout the evening. All in all, a lot of fun was had by all and we loved it!
