Midas Theatrical production, Wokingham Theatre (UK), October/November 2024
This is a great, moody, small-scale show for four performers (2F, 2M) and four musicians (keys, guitar, bass and drums). The music is atmospheric and sung-through (i.e., no dialogue between songs), with a feel that flowed from Nick Cave through to mid-90s post-grunge rock. The guitar is a driving force through much of the music. Read more about the show on Wikipedia. There’s at least one production (not the one I was involved with!) available to watch on YouTube.
There is nothing hugely challenging in the guitar part, but the logistics of moving quickly from one number to the next can be tricky, especially when the new song has a different sound. I played the show from the printed book, but in retrospect I would have done better to find a PDF version and use ForScore on my iPad, with a Bluetooth pedal to turn pages.
Instruments
- Electric guitar – Gretsch 5420T Rat Rod
- Mandolin – I faked this on my Variax JTV59P, using my own custom tuning/model and a capo on the 7th fret
Other equipment
- eBow – Mentioned in two places in the part, for long, held single notes. But one of these was immediately before a page turn and a guitar lead into the next number. You could definitely manage without this!
“Amp & pedalboard” (Line6 Helix)
- Wah-wah – used for a single chord, could definitely be omitted
- Compressor
- Distortion (Dhayana drive, modelled on the Zendrive)
- Boost (Kinky boost, modelled on the EP boost)
- Fender Princeton amp model, with a 10 inch speaker cab
- Harmonic tremolo
- Slapback delay
- Transistor tape delay (modelled on an Echoplex)
- Room reverb