The Worst Christmas Concert Ever.
Dec. 16th, 2008 05:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaceyPeople are posting their favourite Christmas songs and this has to be - if not my least favourite - at least the most embarrassing song sung in the wrong place at the wrong time. Don't misunderstand, it's a good song (in the right place) and we used to sing it with lovely 3 part harmonies.
So...
They said there's be snow at Christmas
They said there'd be peace on earth
But instead it just kept on raining
A veil of tears for the virgin birth...
OK, with me so far?
When the Artisan Christmas Show was only a few years old (maybe 1993 ish) we got booked to do a Christmas Show concert at Armley Jail - that's the top security prison in Leeds. (This all came about because we'd done exactly the same show the year before and it had been seen by the chap who booked us - the prison's chief education officer - so he knew what he was getting.) Never having performed in a prison before we were a bit nervous, but were told that it was OK,the prisoners loved Christmas - had a tree and everything and on Christmas Day the warders served them their Christmas dinner and everything was as good as it could be under the circumstances.
Riiight,, OK.
Anyhow they were happy to pay the going rate so who were we to argue?
When you play in a prison you always have to play in the chapel because it's the only place licensed for music. You can't have an interval because there's nowhere for the prisoners to go, so it's the whole show, straight through without a break. (i.e. no chance to talk to anyone at half time and assess how everything is going, have a confab and adjust accordingly...)
So we arrived and were let in to the place. Believe me, it's just like you see on the telly. Victorian blackened stone monolith that looks and feels like a dungeon. Huge clanking iron gates outside and inside and one gate locked behind you before the next opens in front (like an airlock). The chapel is about as cheerless as a public toilet (and about as pretty).
So we started to do the show.
We had a full audience and apart from them being all men (except for a couple of women teachers up in the balcony) and apart from them all wearing prison uniform, they were pretty much like any audience except... we realised that nearly every song was extolling the virtues of home and family and cosy Christmas to a bunch of people isolated from all their loved ones. Bummer. But we'd been booked to do the Christmas Show and this was literally all the Christmas songs we had. So we gritted our teeth and ploughed on, feeling really bad about it.
And then we got to:
They said there's be snow at Christmas
They said there's be peace on earth...
Once you''ve started a song you can't really stop, but do you remember the last line of that song? No? Well, unfortunately we'd kinda forgotten until it was too late. The last line is:
The Christmas we get, we deserve.
Oh fuck!!! You can see the line coming towards you like an express train and you can't dodge it. And the ground does not open up and swallow you on command.
Anyhow the evening wore on.... so slowly... and gradually they audience started getting up and leaving one by one and going back to their cells, mostly the younger ones. Eventually I cracked and asked: 'Is it something we said?' One of the older men - probably a lifer, but I'm guessing - said. 'It's the younger ones. Christmas gets to them." So much for our misinformation of 'Oh the prisoners love Christmas...'
So I said, "We don't have to do Christmas songs," and suddenly the whole room bucked up. We sang every pop song we knew (and a lot we didn't) and after that no one else left - they even sang along - and I felt by the time we got to the closing song that we'd semi-redeemed ourselves.
On the way out one of the women teachers asked, 'Why did you do all those Christmas songs?" We just looked at her gobsmacked. "Because your boss booked us to do the Christmas show and told us how much the prisoners like Christmas..." She was dumbstruck. "The hate Christmas," she said. "Yes they so have a tree but they hang dead mice on it."
So much for the Chief Education Officer being in touch with what's going on... either that or it was a deliberate set-up but if that was the case, it was a cruel on to both the prisoners and us.
Bur it was probably the most embarrassing moment of my performing career.
So...
They said there's be snow at Christmas
They said there'd be peace on earth
But instead it just kept on raining
A veil of tears for the virgin birth...
OK, with me so far?
When the Artisan Christmas Show was only a few years old (maybe 1993 ish) we got booked to do a Christmas Show concert at Armley Jail - that's the top security prison in Leeds. (This all came about because we'd done exactly the same show the year before and it had been seen by the chap who booked us - the prison's chief education officer - so he knew what he was getting.) Never having performed in a prison before we were a bit nervous, but were told that it was OK,the prisoners loved Christmas - had a tree and everything and on Christmas Day the warders served them their Christmas dinner and everything was as good as it could be under the circumstances.
Riiight,, OK.
Anyhow they were happy to pay the going rate so who were we to argue?
When you play in a prison you always have to play in the chapel because it's the only place licensed for music. You can't have an interval because there's nowhere for the prisoners to go, so it's the whole show, straight through without a break. (i.e. no chance to talk to anyone at half time and assess how everything is going, have a confab and adjust accordingly...)
So we arrived and were let in to the place. Believe me, it's just like you see on the telly. Victorian blackened stone monolith that looks and feels like a dungeon. Huge clanking iron gates outside and inside and one gate locked behind you before the next opens in front (like an airlock). The chapel is about as cheerless as a public toilet (and about as pretty).
So we started to do the show.
We had a full audience and apart from them being all men (except for a couple of women teachers up in the balcony) and apart from them all wearing prison uniform, they were pretty much like any audience except... we realised that nearly every song was extolling the virtues of home and family and cosy Christmas to a bunch of people isolated from all their loved ones. Bummer. But we'd been booked to do the Christmas Show and this was literally all the Christmas songs we had. So we gritted our teeth and ploughed on, feeling really bad about it.
And then we got to:
They said there's be snow at Christmas
They said there's be peace on earth...
Once you''ve started a song you can't really stop, but do you remember the last line of that song? No? Well, unfortunately we'd kinda forgotten until it was too late. The last line is:
The Christmas we get, we deserve.
Oh fuck!!! You can see the line coming towards you like an express train and you can't dodge it. And the ground does not open up and swallow you on command.
Anyhow the evening wore on.... so slowly... and gradually they audience started getting up and leaving one by one and going back to their cells, mostly the younger ones. Eventually I cracked and asked: 'Is it something we said?' One of the older men - probably a lifer, but I'm guessing - said. 'It's the younger ones. Christmas gets to them." So much for our misinformation of 'Oh the prisoners love Christmas...'
So I said, "We don't have to do Christmas songs," and suddenly the whole room bucked up. We sang every pop song we knew (and a lot we didn't) and after that no one else left - they even sang along - and I felt by the time we got to the closing song that we'd semi-redeemed ourselves.
On the way out one of the women teachers asked, 'Why did you do all those Christmas songs?" We just looked at her gobsmacked. "Because your boss booked us to do the Christmas show and told us how much the prisoners like Christmas..." She was dumbstruck. "The hate Christmas," she said. "Yes they so have a tree but they hang dead mice on it."
So much for the Chief Education Officer being in touch with what's going on... either that or it was a deliberate set-up but if that was the case, it was a cruel on to both the prisoners and us.
Bur it was probably the most embarrassing moment of my performing career.
