If you look really closely you can see my gleaming head in the back row. :)
I am in the centre of the three trumpets and you can see the gold bell of my heavy medium red eclipse which I used for the concert.
I think the sound gets better as the concert progresses - which is normal because these dates are recorded and mixed live. We had one 3 hour rehearsal on the afternoon of the gig at which we had time to play each number once and look at a couple of corners - so it was quite a high pressure gig. Lionel did not attend the whole rehearsal - just sang a couple of songs right at the end. I think that is why he was so blown away by the sound of the orchestra - he had never heard us play most of the songs.
It also explains what happened over that last note on Dancing on the Ceiling. In the rehearsal the fermater lasted about 3 or 4 seconds. On the gig it was nearly 25 seconds long - so I was really taken by surprise!
Mr Richie made a point of apologisisng to me in person after the show - which was very decent of him and shows that he is a real musician with an understanding and apreciation of the efforts that the whole orchestra was making to bring the music to life.
It was a great gig, fantastic songs and a world class artist - a lot of fun!