Holland

I was trolling one of the professional online message boards I belong to and found a dueling gig in Holland. I had spoken to the guy who was booking it back before I had even began dueling pianos, but nothing had come of it then. I got in touch with him, and he told me that he was indeed looking for players that would like to go to Holland for a minimum of 3 weeks to work. Apparently there's a club there that does a lot of private gigs, based upon the dueling concept, however depending upon the client they will ad anything and everything on top of the dueling show from smoke machines and a laser show to a full show band including horns. I would be expected to play left hand electric bass with an additional keyboard on top of the piano. For most nights that there was not a horn section present, I would also be expected to do the horn hits with my right hand on the keyboard on the songs I was backing my partner up on. There are only two players (dueling pianist/singers), including the Dutch player who I guess owns the whole operation. The Dutch guy would take care of all the Dutch requests, and I was expected to do what I do, except that it was a music driven concept, almost more like a dance band rather than a traditional dueling concept with call downs and humor. I was told that the production was so elaborate that I would feel like a rock star.

I loved the idea in theory, especially where I can work overseas for only 3 weeks at a time. But I was afraid I wouldn't be able to give these people everything they needed. I'm just a humble piano bar performer. My left hand isn't strong enough to be playing electric bass, I don't think, and especially when I'm backing up my partner on Dutch songs that I have never even heard before. I am also not used to playing in a show band like that. Add to that, the requests a European audience would make would be different that those I'm used to, so I'd probably have to get up another 20 or 30 songs before I go over there. I'm sure it would be great fun, and yeah, I probably could fake my way through it, but it would be substandard.