As usual, I am posting yesterday's blog here, since I wrote it last night on the ship where internet is expensive. Today's been a relaxed day so far, and I am posting this from Newport, Rhode Island, which is a relatively charming but mostly boring place compared to the other stops - like Bar Harbor with less character. Still, they have free wi-fi and the weather is phenomenal so I can't complain too much. read on....

September 24th

It feels like it's about time to fill people in on what's been happening in the last few days.

I went to Saint Johns on wednesday, which was pleasant enough, though I mostly used it for Internet purposes and don't feel like I got much of a feel for the place - I will hopefully get a chance to better explore it next week. Wednesday was also the first night playing the South Beach Rave production show, which went relatively well - it is now simply a matter of memorizing my part so that I can get a choreographed part that lets me move around the stage a bit while I play without interfering with the dancers. Yesterday (thursday) we were in Bar Harbo(u)r, Maine, which is a really cool little coastal town which specializes in lobster and just about anything with blueberries. There were a lot of really cool looking inns, pubs, shops and restaurants everywhere, and even for someone like myself who's grown up around quaint coastal towns it seemed idyllic and peaceful. It reminded me a little bit of a slightly busier Snug Cove (Boewen Island) with older and cooler buildings.

Last night we played two sets, the first being a Neil Diamond tribute set, supporting the ship's classic rock duo. The set went extremely well - so well in fact that the lounge that we played in which has a capacity of 300 to 400 was overflowing, and apparently people complained about the fact that they were not able to fit in to see it. As a result, we are going to play a repeat of the same set tomorrow (saturday) to accommodate those people, and apparently next week the plan is to play two Neil Diamond sets in a row on thursday. After that, we played a jazz set to support the ship's comedian. He's a really nice older guy from New York who has a tendency to to off on endless tangents during our set, but in an endearing sort of way. 

Today, we arrived in Boston, the city from which I first embarked upon this ship one week ago, a realization that seems a little crazy to me. When you spend every day with the same people, eating, working and hanging out, you get close quite quickly and I already feel like I know the people that I work with well , and to think that eight days ago I didn't know any of them at all seems weird. Making any kind of relationship with people on ships is a bittersweet process, since you know from the get-go that it will only last until one of your contracts expires. Even so, I am thankful to have met so many wonderful people here.

This morning we had a crew drill followed by a meeting for everyone in the entertainment department, and then after that I went into Boston itself. Based on my all-too-brief visit, Boston seems like an amazing place, definitely helped by the glorious weather. I spent most of my time in the North End, which is a short walk from Quincy Market, the tourist trap where the ship's shuttle bus dropped me off. The North End is extremely Italian, with a pervasive smell of pizza coupled with beautiful old European architecture that dresses winding narrow streets in a way similar to Vancouver's Gastown, only on a much larger scale. I visited several resplendent old Catholic churches of the kind I only thought existed in Europe. 

On a sidenote, the people of Boston are extremely good-looking. Having grown up in Vancouver (which is a good-looking city), I recently visited Chicago, and I was somewhat disappointed on the superficial front and from that drew an unfair conclusion that all American cities were similar . I was happily disproved in Boston. I look forward to revisiting Boston to see more of the wonderful architecture, to visit the Berkeley School of Music, and also to visit Harvard.

After hanging out in Boston, we had essentially a repeat of the sets that I played on my first night on the ship, last friday: two short variety show sets separated by a Frank Sinatra tribute set in the Atrium. The variety show sets went really well, and they felt just as good and surreal as they did last week, what with the setting of the spectacular Stardust Theatre, lighting effects, a rising platform, and smoke machines (which I would like to implement at all of my gigs from now on). The Sinatra set was fun too, and while it started to feel a little familiar, I do enjoy the process of repeating the same material so as to slowly bring it closer and closer to perfection.

After those sets, I got a quick bite to eat, and then went down to Gatsby's Lounge and sat in with one of the lounge piano players, Ariel Jacobbe, who is a spectacular singer and pianist, and was also the singer for our Frank Sinatra set. I had a blast not only from playing with him, but also from getting a chance to chat with the saxophonist form the showband, and also with the ship's comedian. It is moments like that which really make me glad to be on this ship . The amount of quality talented yet humble people on this ship is astounding. 

After that, I went to the crew bar and spent some time hanging out with the Ship's  Filipino cover band, Next Stage, who are great people who have been playing on ships for the past five years and in a band together for 15 years. They invited me to sit in with them whenever I get a chance, and the bass player wants me to teach him how to better read music, so I look forward to both of those things.

Tomorrow we will be in Newport and I will hopefully get a chance to head into town and post this blog, and possibly some pictures. 

This is yesterday's blog, that I wrote last night at the end of the day  Nothing particularly notable has really happened since then, so I will leave you to it.

September 21st

    Time for another blog. Yesterday night (sunday) we played in the welcome aboard show for the new passengers coming aboard the ship from New York. It's basically an introduction to all the major acts on the ship, including our 70s tribute duo, a 70s soul/motown cover duo, the ship's comedian, the dance company, and a couple others. It was my first show with the dancers which was fun. I was pretty focused on the music due to my unfamiliarity with it, but the little bit that I had time to watch was excellent. It will be nice once I've done it a few more times and know my part well enough to watch the entire show.

    Monday was a crazy but excellent day. I started with some more training in orientation and safety on the ship, and we played a big band brunch in the beautiful Vinetian restaurant which is at the very back with windows with an excellent view. Later, we had a brief sound check, and then at seven o'clock and then again at nine o'click we played our first production show, "Band on the Run". It was my first time playing the show and also my first time playing to a click track, which is basically a metronome that changes tempos according to the music and includes lot of pre-recorded stuff that the band plays along with, so that what the audience hears is a mix of live and pre-recorded material. 

    The first show for me was a little rough, not helped by the fact that the boat was rocking a lot and I was feeling a little queezy - I don't know how the dancers and gymnasts manage to do all the crazy stuff they do with the ship lurching so. The second show was a blast as I grew more comfortable with it, and the sea calmed down. Band on the run is basically a huge disco/70s/funk musical revue dance production, with songs by The Village People, Queen, Abba, Donna Summers, and several other. The audience was very into it and singing along to everything which lent a lot of energy - I look forward to memorizing the show and being able to play up the rock star role a bit more.

    After that we played a Viva Las Vegas show at the ship's casino. We played songs mostly popularized by Tom Jones and Elvis as well as some pop-rock hits like "We Are Family" and a few others. We had several of the singers from the production show lend their voices, as well as two of our lounge piano players and our saxophonist. Generally the crew are not allowed to hang out in the casino, but when you play a show there it's an exception, so it was cool to see what it was like, to eat the free appetizers and to capitalize on the free drinks. I went to the crew bar afterwards to hang out a little more and then called it a night.

    Today was very exciting for me as it was my first day off the ship since I got on last friday. We were in Halifax, so my first stop was the closest coffee shop with free wireless (which was directly across the street, and already crowded with other crew and passengers). I skyped home, did some emailing and facebooking, and reveled in the internet. I then spent an hour or two walking around downtown Halifax, and did touristy things. Despite my disappointment of not finding any lobster burgers at their Macdonalds (which I was told that they have), Halifax was fun and relaxing - it had a coastal Canadian feeling of familiarity, and it was nice to blend into the anonymity. 

    This evening we played a big band swing set, this time in the Spinacker Lounge with is a lounge at the very front of the ship almost at the very top, with a nice view and a huge amount of seating. We had a very large crowd which was good, and it was nice to see so many people dancing. Afterwards I had a late dinner, a very brief recovery nap and then headed to a crew party at the crew bar, celebrating central american independance (basically  an excuse for free wine and beer for the crew).

    Tomorrow is when I will actually post this onto my blog most likely, as we will be in Saint. John (New Brunswick), and I will hopefully get a chance to post the rest of the photos I've taken so far - most notably some shots of the ship itself which I had lacked until today. Tomorrow will also be my first time playing our second production show, called South Beach Rave, which is exactly what it sounds like - dance music, with a latin-funk-pop flavour a la Miami beach. it will be most appropriate when we get onto the Miami-Carribean leg of our cruise. We will also be playing a Tina Turner Tribute afterwards which I look forward to.

Alive and well on the Norwegian Dawn

Internet is very expensive on the ship and so I am only using it when absolutely necessary, but I thought I ought to let people know what's going on with me and so I decided to pay the few dollars to log on briefly, email, and upload my first couple blog posts. Read on....

September 17th

Today was my first day on the cruise ship, and I have to say that all of my expectations were exceeded. I know I had high hopes to begin with, and fantasized about how good it could be, but to be honest I didn't think it could live up. I have so far happily been proven wrong.

This morning I breakfasted at the Four Points Sheraton hotel where ncl put me up for the night, and was shuttled to the ship around nine.

 In case it wasn't clear already, these ships are huge. this one has something like 14 decks,  and can accommodate over 3000 people (that is, allow 3000 people to live full lives in luxury, not just ferry them). It unsurprisingly is taking a good long time to get full grasp of the ship but I am nonetheless impressed with how much of it I feel like I know already.

Upon arrival, I filled out some necessary paperwork, was given an id card that serves pretty much any function you could think of needing for a magnetic card. I dropped my stuff off in my cabin shortly after. Cruise ship crew cabins are complained about a great deal for their small size. To be sure, this room is perhaps better described as a glorified closet than cabin. That being said, it is a comfortable closet, which is cozy when it could have been claustrophobic. It has a mini fridge and cable tv too, which are nice little luxuries. 

Soon after I met my musical director, a native of Montana who plays trumpet and is in charge of all of the music on the boat but spends most of his time being the leader of the showband for which I play. After giving me a brief tour of the ship he gave me the music for what we'd be playing for the night - a few tunes for a variety show, and a big band Frank Sinatra tribute set. There was no time to rehearse so it was definitely a sink or swim situation.

My roommate is a great Filipino guy named Santie. He seems to know just about everyone and kindly showed me around a lot. He is in charge of crew bikes (yes, there are bikes on board for the crew that we can borrow, which means I will not need to buy a bike here like I had originally planned for my shore excursions). He, like many people here, has been on ships for 10 or so years, which sounds crazy but is starting to seem understandable.

As a musician on a ship, you are allowed to go just about everywhere. You are allowed in almost all passengers areas (with the exception of the casino, the pool and spa for most of the time) of course deferring to passengers for spots at restaurants and such if there is a shortage of seats. You are also allowed in all of the crew areas. So, I can eat in the crew mess, the officer mess (reserved for only certain positions), and most of the passengers restaurants. In the passenger areas we have to wear nice-ish clothing (aka no jeans/shorts, no t-shirts), but since the only identification we're required to wear is a small silver name tag, most passengers mistake you for other passengers anyway and so don't bother you with anything and are generally quite friendly.

As for ways to kill time, there are a number of things. There is a good deal of sporting facilities including a basketball court, table tennis, a jogging track, two gyms (a passenger gym and a crew gym, of which I can use both) and more. In the officer mess there is a good collection of movies and tv series that you can borrow, as well as a fair selection of books. There are tvs scattered around all the crew mess areas which often have movies running. There is a crew bar which serves 1$ beers, a crew store for cheap staple products, and various other things that I can't remember or haven't yet discovered.The obvious activity is that most of the time we are in port and can go around exploring the different cities. I have to wait to get a certain visa that allows me to go on shore in the US, but we are heading to Canada on tuesday and so I will be allowed to go off there already and will have my visa together by the time we reach the US again.

I spent most of the day exploring, eating, running over music, sleeping, and meeting lots of other crew. The people here are super friendly and there is a great vibe around the crew. In addition to north americans and europeans, I think 70% of the crew are Filipino which is quite nice because they are great, talented, kind and funny people. 

Down to the playing. The variety show was in the Stardust Theatre, which is an incredibly beautiful theatre that seats about 1000 people, with excellent sound, lights, etc. We just played three songs for the variety show, but I have to say those three songs were probably the most glamorous show I have ever been  part of. The singer was on a raised platform, there was smoke, lights, and fantastic sound. After that we rushed to a beautiful atrium in the middle of the ship which three levels of passengers overlooking. The atrium itself however rises even further up to at least four or five levels before reaching the ceiling. A Filipino singer named Ariel was the Frank Sinatra impersonator, and I have to say I have never heard anyone do a better job than him (aside from Frank).

The showband itself is also quite likely the tightest band I have played in. The drummer named Jay is one of Stan Kenton's past drummers (for those who don't know, Stan was one of the big band jazz leader greats) and is exceptional. The rest of the band is comprised of myself on electric bass, a pianist, guitarist, saxophone, trumpet and trombone. Every show in the theatre is recorded and aired immediately and recurringly on all of the cable tvs, and I was quite impressed with the sound and visuals of our performance.

Afterwards some of the band and myself went for food on deck 12 at a place called the Garden Cafe which features three different rooms of buffet food ranging from high end to low. All free for us of course. We then went to the Stardust theatre for a crew party featuring free beer and a very talented comedy troupe called Second City who performed a number of sketches based on the themes of cruise ship crew life.

All in all, it seems like I probably have the easiest and most pampered job that I knew could exist while at the same time I have an incredible opportunity to play a wide variety of at times challenging but very fun music. We will have to see if I still feel this positively about the experience four months from now, but based on my first day review, I understand why so many people here have made this job into their lives.

September 18th

I know that I just blogged yesterday, but I just wanted to mention a few more things. 

I just saw a big cast show at the Stardust Theatre called "Bollywood" tonight, which was basically a combination of Moulin Rouge, Cirque De Soleil, the 80s, and of course bollywood. And I mean all of that in the best possible way. The dancers/singers/gymnasts were all astonishingly talented, and I am really looking forward to working with them when we play our two production shows: "Band on the Run", and "South Beach Rave".  Apparently our ship is rated the best in the entire Norwegian fleet (that includes best showband) and iI feel extremely priviliged to be a part of it.

Today we were moored in the water outside of Newport, Rhode Island, which on paper sounds pretty dull (to me at least) but in fact had a fantastic view, with hundreds of sailboats surrounding us and moored outside the harbour. Because I am technically working on this ship, I am not allowed on the shores of the US until thursday when I get an I-95 visa, which is a shame because we arrive at New York early tomorrow morning. However, When we arrive in Halifax on tuesday I will be able to get off and I will then promptly find myself some cheap wi-fi and satiate my internet appetite.

I had the entire day off until 8pm today, and so I spent my time working on the two production shows, sleeping, and exploring the ship further. I chatted with the guitarist at a place called the Havana Room which is basically designed for people to smoke cigars and drink whisky, which I did not do just yet but no doubt will on more celebratory occasions. I don't think I will ever get tired of finding new lounges to lounge in on this ship. 

 Just after 8pm we opened up the crew talent show with two big band charts, and that was my work for the day. It was at that point that I went to see the bollywood show in the theatre, after which I checked out the ship's Filipino cover band. These guys were amazingly good and played good fun disco and rock. I was told before going on this ship that Filipino people are the best singers and I can now confirm it - they sing in these big voices that sound like anything from Frank Sinatra to Michael Jackson while not looking anything of the part - I love it. I then checked out the guy who sang at the Frank Sinatra set yesterday, who was playing piano in a lounge, backing up a comedian from New york who took breaks from comedy to sing jazz standards extremely well.  

One of interesting quirks of being on a ship all the time which I want to mention before I stop noticing is the constant swaying. It's not overpowering, but is more of a gentle rock which at times makes you feel slightly innebriated but most of the time is very extremely calming.

Tomorrow will be my last really easy day for a little while, with my only obligations being some safety training for about an hour and then to play a few tunes for a Welcome Aboard show at night for the new passengers who embark in New York. Monday, our first complete day at sea, however, will be crazy: a two hour brunch set, a rehearsal for Band on the Run, then two runs of the show at 8 and 10 o'clock. Following that, we will play a show called Viva Las Vegas after 10 in the ship casino. Needless to say there will be cocktails to follow that. The rest of the week I am expecting to be full of various safety training courses, from which I was kindly spared for the first two days while we waited for the rest of the new crew to arrive from New York.

I will upload a few photos onto this blog but it takes forever to upload even one so I will put most of them on facebook itself as soon as possible, so check there for more. I apologize for the general lack of photos so far but I keep forgetting to take pictures, and when I do the lighting tends to be bad. I still don't have a good picture of the ship itself from offboard, but I will hopefully get a good one on tuesday.

I will probably not post anything else until at least tuesday, so that all until then!

My cruise ship extravaganza has begun.

For those that don't know, I have just embarked upon a four month contract to play music with Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) on a ship called the Norwegian Dawn. I will be playing electric bass with the showband, which is essential the house band for the ship, and we will be playing material ranging from Vegas shows to cocktail music, dance sets and supporting other artists.

 The idea behind this blog is to help keep everyone back home up to date with what I am up to, in addition to helping me remember it all once I'm done. 

Having last flown with Delta airlines which was in hindsight pretty ratty,  My flight from Vancouver this morning with Air Canada was extremely nice. Everyone had their own personal screens with movies, tv shows, music and map functions to choose from. In addition, the seats were very comfortable, the staff were competent and everything happened either on time or early. Of course I was too exhausted to fully appreciate these things, having been up most of the night seeing friends before I had to go, but I was left with a very positive impression.

Having transfered planes in Toronto, I arrived in Boston at 6:30pm, and then took a shuttle to the Four Points by Sheraton Hotel which NCL has a contract with.  I am sharing a room there with an Italian fellow named Fabrizio who is a solo piano player who will be joining the ship with me tomorrow. He's been explaining what my schedule on the ship will probably look like, and it  sounds like it will be even less work than I was anticipating (which wasn't much). I will have a ton of time to kill but that's the kind of problem that I live for. I anticipate that I will spend lots of time eating, sleeping, reading and ideally practicing and maybe exercising, but only time will tell.

Tomorrow we take a shuttle to the ship at 8:30 in the morning, and then it all begins. I will take lots of pictures and hopefully get a chance to upload them and post again sometime in the next few days with an update about what ship life is really like.