2012 and I’m excited!

Happy New Year one and all, and wishing you the very best for 2012 – a year destined to be significant for many, if you are open to the possibility of change.

I saw in the New Year in style this year, on a gig in Dubai at the Jumeirah Beach Hotel (despite having a terrible cough and cold and generally feeling very under the weather).  On 30th December I flew with 8 other musicians from a chilly London to the warm shores of the UAE where the 10th band member joined us from Manilla.  Even though the tour budget couldn’t stretch to putting us all up in the Jumeriah Beach Hotel (3000 UAE Dirhams / £530 per night) we were nonetheless well looked after by the hotel, who collected us from the airport (cold towels and bottled water at the ready) and dropped off at the Academy (appartments allocated to staff at the hotel).

After a late arrival and an early start for the most amazing breakfast buffet I’ve seen in a long time (since my last trip to Dubai in fact), we took the opportunity to stroll along the beach and dip our feet in the sea, before a meeting with the agent and a lengthy set-up and soundcheck on-stage.

The venue for the gig was a temporary, but enormous, open marquee on the hotel’s private beach, where the 1000 or so guests ate another lavish buffet meal before joining the dance floor outside to party the night away with us in the run up to midnight and beyond.

The countdown to midnight saw the band scrabbling for last-minute dinner and costume changes before the most spectacular fireworks display over the water.  Since the stage’s backdrop was the sea and the Burj al Arab hotel, we had the best (and completely unobstructed) view of the whole display.  We then played our fourth and final set to get 2010 off to a rocking start.

Champagne on the beach followed – the band were in high spirits by then since this was the first drink we’d been allowed to have all night.  I was the first to go to bed, since by this point the drugs (Sudafed & Cold + Flu pills) had worn off and I was feeling worse for wear.  Some of the band continued the celebrations way into the early hours of New Year’s Day and only made it up in time for the plane home.

Luckily myself and two of the girls in the band had extended our stay until 5th Jan, so for us we still had a few more days of sunshine and sand.

And as for the exciting year ahead, there’s been a lot of noise about 2012 and all the possible changes it may bring; from the end of the Mayan Calendar and the prophesised end of the world to shifts and changes on a much smaller scale, it seems to me that this is the year to really make of it what you will.  I for one have started as I mean to go on: working with fantastic people and having as much fun as possible along the way.