"These vagabond shoes, are longing to stray, right through the very heart of it...." The strains of Frank Sinatra were echoing through my head as I walked through Times Square today on my way to my first-ever Broadway performance. It impressed me as a particularly New York, New York experience upon which I was about to embark. And if I can make it here, I can make it anywhere; or so the legend goes....
The great bassist, Winston Roye, very kindly asked me if I would be interested in subbing for him on his Broadway show. His bass chair is in the 80s rock musical called "Rock of Ages," starring Constantine Maroulis of American Idol fame. It's a love story set in Los Angeles on the Sunset Strip in the mid 1980s using existing hard rock Top 40 radio hits from that era by: Journey, Whitesnake, Twisted Sister, Poison, REO Speedwagon, Joan Jett, Pat Benatar, Styx, and folks like that.
The main difference from playing on a typical Broadway show is that the band in "Rock of Ages" is in costume and makeup, rocking full-tilt on stage the entire show. As such the entire 2-1/2 hour musical score must be completely memorized. In service of the show's story, the music is a bit complex with copious medleys, surprising modulations, intricate connecting passages, rubato sections, short expository musical bursts, and the like. The memorization process took me 3 weeks to the day from when I received the materials and first saw the show until my matinee debut.
I arrived at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre 1-1/2 hours before curtain to check out my costume, makeup, and stage rig. Guitarist Tommy Kessler very kindly snapped the attached photo of me in costume and in position on stage. Note the "rock" stance and requisite "devil horns" hand signal so integral to the genre. The band is very much a part of the action in this show.
With the great conducting talent of Henry Aronson on keyboards, burning guitar playing of Tommy Kessler, and rock solid drumming of Jon Weber, the band did everything to make me feel immediately at home. Keep in mind that there is no rehearsal for a sub on The Great White Way. One just shows up, assures the conductor that the music is memorized...and curtain!
As much as I practiced the material at home, actually being on stage with in-ear monitors, lighting cues, 1,000 sold-out seats, and actors running back and forth just inches from the bass guitar took a minute to get used to. I had been warned that the doorway to my immediate left was used constantly, often at high velocity whilst carrying large props. The bandstand was just barely big enough for me to orient at just a certain angle to not catch one of the actors in the head with the neck of my bass as they run on stage.
There was one other slight distraction. Most of the women in the ensemble cast play strippers, excuse me, exotic dancers. Suffice to say that there is a great deal happening right in front of the bandstand to potentially distract from the musical task at hand.
Past the initial orientation process in the heat of battle, I thought the show went very well. And by the finale I was truly having a blast. We well and truly did ROCK....
I'm very grateful to the band, cast, and crew for running a tight ship, being at the very top of their craft, and making me immediately feel a part of the team. I can only hope that I'll get the opportunity to share their stage again, each time growing more comfortable in the bass chair and freeing up my right hand even more often for appropriate rock gestures....
Ivan Bodley
Brooklyn, NY
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Ivan “Funkboy” Bodley uses Warrior Basses, Hartke Amplification, DR Strings, and Digitech and Line 6 signal processors. Ivan eats only Little Debbie snack cakes.
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