BEER & CAROLS

I've played at a fair few carol services and events this year. In fact, more than any other year that I can remember. Oh I don't mind too much; I like a carol or two, as it goes. That is after all, why I agreed to do all these events in the first place! For work colleagues and drunkards (and the often indistinguishable boundary between the two); for shoppers, boppers and elderly methodists, for friends, family, singers and ringers, I've bashed out some Hark the Heralds and Once in Royals like nobody's business.

Yesterday, for event 7 out of 12, I went and helped out at something called Beer & Carols. It isn't the most natural pairing but it sounded fun. It was essentially an evening of carol singing... in a pub. Beer & Carols was arranged by a local church who've never really done this kind of thing before and were tentatively stepping into their community... without a confident (or available) pianist I assume. I'm all for seeing church do stuff in the community, so I was quite keen to help out when they asked.

"You're alright with taking requests, aren't you Matt?" said the Minister, thrusting a copy of the Bethlehem Carol Sheet at me. The pub was filling up and I was perched on a bar stool behind my keyboard. I flicked open the carol sheet and scanned through the finely printed words.

"Um, yes, I should think so."

There were carols on the sheet that I had never heard of. Anything outside of a Silent Night or an In the Bleak Midwinter and I was in trouble. Requests eh? At the last carol event I went to on Wednesday, the methodists had requested things like The Twelve Days of Christmas and the quicker version of The Holly and the Ivy. I'd had to think on my feet, but that was in a methodist church, with people who smiled sweetly if they didn't like me playing a jazzed up Jingle Bells. Here in the noisy atmosphere of a local pub, behind a piano and a solitary microphone, I could imagine things getting thrown at me.

It didn't come to that. Thankfully the requests stretched to the more familiar carols only. One guy just kept shouting "Number 18" at me. Number 18 turned out to be the delightfully worded Ding Dong Merrily on High, which, when we sang it, seemed a little more complicated than he'd realised. He very loudly sang:

"Ding dong merrily on 'igh... the holly bells are ringin..."

over and over.

-

I carried my bag of pedals and switches out to the car. Whether it was in contrast to the rowdy singing of the locals in the pub, I don't know, but I could hear what sounded like angels singing through the crisp night air.

Hail the heav'n born prince of peace, hail the son of righteousness...

The descant shimmered above the perfectly harmonised voices of the Thames Vale Singers. Across the road in a barn, these highly-trained voices were filling the rafters with precision-perfect carols. I shut the boot and wandered across for a closer listen. The tenors resounded, the basses boomed, and floating ethereally above the tune-carrying altos, those rippling sopranos added the pitch-perfect trills that only certain middle-aged ladies can.

Mild he lays his glory by, born that man no more may die...

I pushed an ear against the wooden door. It was all so... polished! It could not have been further away from the little pub I'd left on the other side of the road with its imperfections and beer-swilling regulars. I found myself wondering which of the two Jesus would have preferred - the stirring sounds of a practiced choir singing words they don't mean, or the rowdy ragtag bunch of revellers having a good time together at their local.

I crossed back over to the pub. Someone was carrying round a plate of sausage rolls and mince pies; someone else was leading a drunken chorus of Fa La La La La without knowing the words. I smiled. The Minister saw me and smiled back.

"Thank you so much Matt," he said, "That was really great."

"Any time," I replied, politely. "And please do let me know if you guys do this again; I'd love to be involved."

I meant it.