Session Shenanigans

The studio guitarist’s guide to happiness and personal fulfilment, as related to us by Mitch Dalton. This month we find our hero pleading, art for art’s sake...

- Mitch Dalton

It has occurred to me that in recent articles I may have given the misleading impression that the self-employed professional guitarist’s life is composed mainly of a series of highly remunerated cameos in which little work but much indolent loafing is done. Before initiating the main thread of this month’s bulletin, I must dispel this (possibly self-perpetuating) illusion with the Trump-esque retort “Fake News!” Having just returned from a 10-day arena tour featuring the cinematic image of a deceased vocalist who intones the catch phrase “Uh-Huh” with considerably more insight than his current president’s Twitter feed, I can vouch for the brutal nature of that itinerary.

A kaleidoscopic daily sequence of dawn departures, trains, planes, hotel check-ins and outs, sound checks and three-hour concerts resulted in my returning home on the last night from the aesthetic delight that is The O2 Arena in a state of near collapse. Napoleon’s mishap during the away leg in Moscow may have been more challenging back in the day, but as far as I’m aware none of that bedraggled bunch of defeatists left their violin, their suitcase or their music behind through sheer fatigue during that frosty foul-up.