Jazz Orient/Re-Orient at Hampton Court Palace.

We were to play as a trio at a big birthday party at Hampton Court - a  party rumoured to cost £300,000. Wew were supposed to play in a "Raj Tent" in the garden, however on arrival the Raj Tent turned out to be 2 small gazebo sized tents 20 ft apart, neither of which could fit the trio. They also found it was impossible to get electricity there. The get in window was impossibly short - about 45 to get in set up, soundcheck. It was usggested we play without cover but just as the time to set up came a big black cloud came over, so we went inside. It turned out the PA desk was always going to be outside even if we had been playing outside so monitoring requests wouldve had to be telepathic. We started to set up to find the bar setting up just in front of us on trestle tables. We shunted down - they shunted up. Soundcrew were great and we set up in 15mins.
Sadly the cloud went and it was a nice clear evening with all the guests outside with our sound just being relayed by speakers... We played for an hour (finding our own drinks) and a troup of Indian dhol drummers outside signalled dinner. The sound crew broke down their kit, so did we. Organiser lass came in in a flap asking us to play something as guests were going to pass by to dinner. No problem - I grabbed a flute, Baluji his tablas, Linda some shkers and she sang. We played for a few minutes... nothing - the guests had all gone the other way...
Ah well - we packed up to go and organiser lass's parting shot (having loved us all set) "The client was very disappointed you didn'[t play outside, and one said that you may as well have been a CD - I just had to say that - goodbye"  - Like it was our fault. That kinda ruined a fun if chaotic day. It was quite surreal walking back through the palace carrying sitars, tablas etc - However it was good to do a London gig there and back in a day for the first time in years...
Photos are here...http://www.flickr.com/photos/unclechristo/sets/72157635447870249/