Members Blogs
Ben Collins' Gwen Stefani Tour Weblog
Ben is a member of the Senators Percussion Staff, he is a native of Chicago and marched 4 years with the DCI World Champion Cavaliers on Quads, he aged out in 2004 as Drum Sergeant. He has been in the UK since January studying at Manchester University and has been a welcome addition to the Senators family; Ben will be flying back to the USA in July and joining the Staff of the Cavaliers.
Thursday 5th May 2005
7.00am We meet at the Nightingale Centre to embark on the “Senators meet Gwen Stefani Tour” and load up the equipment – for the event we have been told to take 1 snare, 1 set of quads, 1 bass drum, 1 pair of cymbals, 1 contra bass and a trombone! The instrument I will be playing - luckily I am a music major and have studied trombone in the US so it shouldn’t be an issue.
10:00am We arrive at “Husky Studios” in central London, we have met Alan Waddington who will be our mentor for the next few days – Alan arranged the music for “Hollaback Girl” and supplied the marching band for the video and for Gwen’s appearances in the USA.
The Studio is a labyrinth of rooms, ours is the very last one at the back of the building and features a long dance floor with mirrors down one wall, we have been told that we are the only one’s rehearsing here as Gwen’s party doesn’t arrive in the UK till this afternoon.
12:20pm We have now been rehearsing for nearly 2 hours with Alan, he is choreographing the moves we have to do and the playing for the performances – it is weird for the guys because they want us hardcore at the beginning but getting’ our dance on once Gwen gets on. You know I was all about the dance-a-thon.
4.00pm The room is so hot!! We have been at it now for nearly 6 hours, because we are unsure whether we will be playing “live” or unplugged we have to cover every angle and every eventuality.
7:30pm We have just arrived at our accommodation – Man this is awesome, we are at “Collingham Gardens” in Kensington and we are in the penthouse apartment. It has 3 bedrooms a kitchen, living room, bathroom and balcony and is sweeeeeet!
8:30pm Charles Bozon from Yamaha UK has arrived with all our new Percussion equipment, we are having fun unloading the van and bringing what seems like 50 boxes up to the apartment.
Christmas time in May! The guys are having fun unpacking the equipment and checking out the gear, John (McNamara) is one very happy man at the moment.
10.30pm We are just chilling having eaten Chinese and done all we need to with the new equipment, it’s been a long but enjoyable day and everyone is looking forward to actually meeting Gwen tomorrow and doing the gigs.
Friday May 6th 2005
9:30am We have just arrived at Channel 4 studios in London, Alan has met us and is really happy with the new equipment and has suggested we change the line up to 2 snares instead of 1 snare, 1 quad – so pressure on Tom Shepherd but hey this is rock and roll !!!
11.00am We have just finished the “T4” performance, they had us get into half uniform and then go into the studio which is a small room with a stage and a multitude of cameras and mixing desks etc. We get on stage and organise our part first which is basically in an arc around the back of the stage, we rehearsed it for about 20 minutes and then they added the dancers and the band to make sure everything was ok before finally adding Gwen.
Gwen is hot! – we did 3 full takes of the song, which leaves us all physically drained as the room is so warm with the lights, everyone seems pleased by the shoot and by our contribution. We have to now make our way across London to Wood Lane and the BBC Studios to film “Top of the Pops”
7:00pm We are now in our dressing room waiting to go on, as we left Channel 4 we were mobbed by autograph hunters which was really cool. We arrived at the BBC safe and well and then we got told we would be playing live at 7.46pm we didn’t realise that – the assumption was it was pre-recorded, so that has added a new and exciting twist to events.
Having unloaded the vehicles we went straight to the famous BBC Canteen where food was provided for us, we then went in to rehearsals which was cool, as it was a totally different stage set up to “T4” and the producers wanted Tom and Ian the snare drummers, to flank Gwen on a walkway through the audience and up onto the stage.
Once we had finished we got chance to see the Black Eyed Peas rehearse, man they are awesome and we got a chance to speak with them afterwards and they were so friendly.
9:00pm We are back at the apartment – Top of the Pops was great and it went perfect, we were fitted with “In ears” for the performance, they headphones attached to a wireless unit which plays a click track for you to listen to but with the audience so loud you really need them to keep in time.
We had great feedback when we finished from everyone, Alan was really pleased with how it all went and the other bands kept telling us we were cool which was nice.
We have just had a call from Ivan the contact from Polydor telling us we have VIP tickets to see the Black Eyed Peas at Brixton Academy so I better go and get ready – how sweet is this!!!
11.59pm Back at the apartment, Black Eyed Peas were awesome and the venue was packed and rocking!! We only got to see the last hour of the set as we were late arriving but man they tore the house down, we stopped off for a kebab on the way home and some much need sleep. John pulled the scheme of the century tonight to get us into the gig because our contact had already gone by the time we reached the venue.
Saturday 7th May 2005
9.00am We have now packed up and left the apartment as we are “On Tour” from now on, one interesting fact from the apartment was that Sharon Stone the movie actress stayed in our penthouse rooms last week whilst filming Basic Instinct 2 – we are really living the proverbial dream now J
2.00pm We are on Gwen’s Tour Bus waiting to travel up to Newcastle for the Radio One “Big Gig” in Sunderland tomorrow. We have finished recording “CD:UK” for ITV at Riverside Studios which is round the corner from the Hammersmith Apollo where “Blast!” ran so successfully.
We had dressing rooms next to Gwen’s dancers and Kelly Osbourne, once again the stage set up was different an we spent 30 minutes re jigging the moves so we knew what we were doing. We met up with the Black Eyed Peas once more and also Steve Brookstein who won Pop Idol in the UK.
The show went really well and the energy Gwen creates on stage is superb, it makes everyone get in to the tune so much more. Its weird but we are getting used to performing in front of the cameras now and everyone seems so much more relaxed.
Before we left Alan wanted to run through a new beginning to the tune which we would be doing for the Radio One Show, so we practised it on a small park opposite the CD:UK studios
9.00pm We have finally arrived in Newcastle – it was a long journey but cool nonetheless, the tour bus is really nice with leather seats and tables, there is a kitchen area in it with fridge (stocked with Beer), Gwen has travelled up separately but the band and dancers are on the bus together with the road crew.
We are staying at the Grey Street hotel in the centre if Newcastle and Gwen’s party has taken over the whole hotel!!! The rooms are really nice and I am looking forward to a shower some food and an early night as we have a big day tomorrow.
Sunday 8th May 2005
9.45am We have just arrived at Sunderland for the Big Gig, the journey was cool from the hotel as Gwen was on the coach also, the place is massive with 2 huge tents and loads of coaches dotted about.
We are going to go through the new beginning with Alan before rehearsal which starts in 15mins.
11.00am Rehearsals done – the beginning is totally different and a bit of a concern for Alan, he is going to speak with the sound engineers and figure it all out for us, the stage is wicked and the floor for the audience is massive, it’s so different than the TV studios.
5.00pm We have spent the day chilling at the venue, Gwen and the crew went back to the hotel but we decided to stay on here. We saw “The Bravery” perform and they got the crowd fired up, we spent a good majority of the day in the Radio One “Live lounge” where they were broadcasting from which was cool as there was loads of celebrities in and out of there all day.
Although I don’t know most of them John asked me to mention we met Chris Moyle’s, Sara Cox, Zane Lowe, Vernon Kay, Ricky from the Kaiser Chiefs and Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas.
The weather has been awful but because we had “Access All Areas” passes we kept going back stage to check everyone out or over to the VIP tent for warm drinks.
6.20pm We are backstage and waiting to go on, we have sorted the beginning out, the Gwen set now starts with the Senators being the only ones on stage and we do a 45 second intro by ourselves. The weather is atrocious but the atmosphere is electric and there is so much going on, the Black Eyed Peas have just come off stage and they sounded like they brought the house down.
7.30pm We are sat on the tour bus totally buzzing, what a performance and what a crowd, what a show!! Edith Bowman and Colin Murray warmed the crowd up for us and then we went on stage, the noise was deafening. We started our routine and the noise got louder and louder till Gwen hit the stage and then they erupted, the performance was by far the best of the trip and the crowd were rocking.
Once “Hollaback Girl” was finished we exited stage left and watched Gwen wow the audience with her set. What was nice was that as we got off stage we were mobbed by celebrities watching from the sideline, including Pete Tong, Vernon Kay, Chris Moyle’s and members of the Black Eyed Peas.
We then moved down to the back stage area where we got some photos of us in uniform with Gwen, the dancers, the band and Alan. Everyone was really happy with the Gwen set and our performance also which was great for us to hear.
We are now heading back to the hotel to go out and have a few beers and a well earned rest.
To sum up
This has been a fantastic trip from start to finish, I would like to thank Joe Fitzpatrick and John McNamara from making it happen and looking after us, the guys in the Band – Tom, Ian, Nelly, Simon and Nick, to Alan Waddington who was our mentor for the trip and finally to Gwen and all her team, it was a privilege to be able to perform on stage with such a talented bunch of people.
Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine stepping off of the plane in January into the situations and circumstances that have blessed me here. Everyone in the Senators has been incredible and really allowed me to have the time of my life. I hope that the relationship continues even after I return back to Chi-town (Chicago). I look forward to working on the current show and the up-coming WGI show!!!
Ben Collins
