What an amazing week of corporate Olympic related gigs in central London we’ve had. What a privilege to be chosen to play Olympic opening ceremony music concurrently with the Ceremony. Truly a once in a life-time experience, we played on the Olympic Opening Night on board the Dutch yacht Eendracht, which had moored up in Canary Wharf for the duration of the Olympics. It seemed everyone and their yacht wanted to be moored in Canary Wharf that night including Bill Gates – what an amazing place to be. Our timing couldn’t have been more perfect as we were playing “Come Fly With Me” as the Red Arrows passed by above us!
After the excitement of the Opening Ceremony we set off on Saturday to The House of Commons and battled our way through all the road closures for one of the first olympic events – the cycling. We performed for a corporate 40th anniversary celebration hosted by the Rt. Hon. Keith Vaz. It turns out Mr Vaz is a keen music fan – he told us that he took the Rev. Jesse Jackson to Ronnie Scotts when he was in London – and strangely enough, our bass player had been playing at Ronnie Scotts the night they walked in! Mr Vaz requested we play “Mack The Knife” for him which we were delighted to do.
On to another Olympic gig at Vinopolis, London Bridge, we played for the Olympic athletes and their mums at an event sponsored by Proctor and Gamble. Most of the guests were American but we did spot the Italian rowing team! Our band ensured the athletes had a jolly old time and mingled well.
