Rock & Roll Mashup

December 2014, the golf club members’ Christmas ball at Celtic Manor, filmed on a phone from the side of the stage. The picture is what it is. We have kept it up because of what it shows rather than how it looks.

This is a medley that stitches together three rock and roll standards into one continuous run, and it exists to solve a specific problem at Christmas parties. By that point in the night you have a room with a very wide age range in it, half of whom have been sitting at a dinner table for two hours. Three separate songs means three chances for the floor to empty between them. Welding them together means the energy never resets.

It only works if the joins are invisible, which is a matter of arrangement rather than playing - the keys have to line up, or you have to build a bridge that gets you there without anyone noticing. That is the actual craft in a function band set, and it is almost never the thing people ask about.

This is among the earliest footage we have from Celtic Manor, a resort we have since played more than anywhere else. More of it on the Celtic Manor series page.