Bat Boy: The Musical

04/05/2007 by Andrew Smith.

This week I’m playing lead guitar for a student production of Bat Boy: The Musical. It’s one of the hardest guitar parts I’ve ever played, switching from heavy rock to country to showtune to gospel in mere moments. The first half is mostly songs, while much of the second half is underscoring and more fragmented stuff. We’re getting through it, but given that we only had a couple of hours’ rehearsal before we started running the show with the cast, I’d consider that a major achievement!
It’s also rather nice playing in a virtually “silent” pit - only the drums are making “real” noise, while guitar, bass and 2 x keyboards are all DI’d into the sound system and all get our own monitors and mixes. Luxury. My Variax/GNX3 combination sounds really nice routed this way.

We’re rather distant from the action. In fact, our “pit” is on the stage, behind the set and covered with a black felt curtain, so we’re totally enclosed. Shame, really, because I would have liked to see the show. It sounds neat: love, marriage, rape, murder, incest, blood, bats and dead cows!

Next stop: a blind, deaf and dumb kid who sure plays mean pinball… I’m playing for a production of Tommy in a few weeks.

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