2017 has been quite the year in many ways! I'm so thankful for all the amazing places I've been able to visit on my travels as an electric violinist, and so grateful for the wonderful people who have been a part of it and made it such a special year. It started off with a bang and some of my favourite people, bringing in the New Year at Goat, Chelsea with Entourage.
It's been so great getting to perform with André Saxman Brown so much this year. With him and many of the other Entourage team, I've got to play at some epic weddings and parties all around the world. 2017 took us to weddings in Thailand twice, Bangalore, Majorca, Dublin, Barcelona, Monaco, and other parties in Portugal, Venice and Sicily. Here we are in Thailand in August mid-pool-party-performance:
In March, André and I also got a special surprise booking in Cairo to perform sax and electric violin for the opening of the Mall of Egypt. Completely unrelated, my dad had been living out there working on construction of this very mall (!) so we got to spend a bit of time out in Egypt with him and see some pretty epic sights too:
It was absolutely amazing to visit one of the seven wonders of the ancient world! I was particularly lucky this year as I got to visit one of the seven wonders of the natural world too - the Grand Canyon. February saw me travel to Las Vegas to perform at a corporate conference as Lumina the Laser Violinist. This was probably my favourite work trip this year, as I was one of three electric violinists and two sound technicians who got to spend five days in Vegas, fly first class, and see all the sights...all for a five-minute performance! Very jammy, I know. Here is a picture of us just before a helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon working really hard:
Above you can see my other stage wife (besides André); the lovely Emma. We've also had a ball working together this year, not only as laser violinists, but also in other acts, such as Elektra Violin Duo. With Elektra we've performed on four cruises throughout the year together, visiting lots of lovely ports in the Mediterranean and Europe. One particular highlight was our cruise that ended in Bermuda at the beginning of the year. We extended our work trip with a few days staying in Hamilton with my friend Hayley who lives there. We got to see some beautiful caves, take a private boat trip to a secluded castle island, and go to a Christmas tree bonfire party on the beach! Most of our pictures from this trip look like we’re on honeymoon:
I also managed to film a music video on a beautiful cliff top down the road from Hayley's house. Check out some of the stunning Bermuda scenery in my cover of Rockabye by Clean Bandit:
Hilariously, this led to me being featured on the front page of Bermuda’s ‘Royal Gazette’ newspaper as an ‘electric lady’. It also got picked up by Radio One Lebanon which was pretty cool!
A big part of 2017 was making some new videos for my YouTube channel. My dad moved back to Dubai once his project in Egypt was completed, and I decided this would make a great setting for another music video. Dad learnt to use the camera in approx. 10 mins and we travelled into the desert at 7am to find a good spot to shoot, then waited until about 5pm to shoot some more on The Palm. It. Was. Hot. Big thank you to Daddy Potterton for coping with me, technology, and the heat! If you're interested in seeing the end result, check out my cover of Ed Sheeran's Galway Girl here: https://youtu.be/gIqqKzWvQ78
If you're just tuning in for the bloopers, check out me falling off a rail here:
This year I also got to perform with some of my favourite artists on TV, radio and music festivals. I had the privilege of performing backing violin with John Legend on The Voice, as well as on Britain's Got More Talent playing electric violin with Betsy. I had so much fun with Betsy and the girls from the band over the course of the year, with highlights that included a short UK tour, doing a BBC Introducing session on the radio, opening V Festival, performing on 'Inas Nacht' on German TV and Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg. My personal tour highlight was our very rock & roll party after one gig in Wrexham, which consisted of pyjamas, pizza, and Eurovision. Imperative.
It’s been really great being able to perform some public gigs this year, from playing outside Neill Strain flower shop during Chelsea Flower Show to performing for club nights at Kingdom Liverpool and Pryzm Portsmouth:
It was great to round up this year with six dates performing as electric violinist over DJ at Winter Wonderland Nottingham as well. Although freezing, I had an obnoxious fur hat to wear and was playing above a fried potato stall, so... I win.
It was lovely to end 2017 last night performing at a NYE party in my home county at Sopwell House. After all the travelling this year it’s nice to be back at home with friends and family. I’m so excited for all that 2018 has in store, and I’ll keep you posted. Thanks for following my amblings. Here’s to the future! 🎻