The Legend of Classy Boner

It was all the Canadians fault really! After an epic Canada Day party in the crew bar the American crew were feeling a little competitive with the 4th July party coming up days later, and as a lot of the musicians and entertainment staff onboard were American it seemed only right they put on a gig in the crew which led to my first band night on ships!

At this point the only music we had in the crew bar was always a blend of Filipino soft rock karaoke nights or disco nights with terrible eastern european dance music, and whatever chessy pop the spa girls would get put on. If you were a fan of rock music (and if using this term widely to include many of the sub genres!) you were usually out of luck, that was until band night!

If think the first incarnaton of the band was Brennan (drums), Matt (bass) and Ari (keyboards) all from the states, we also had 'Stix' the drummer from the Caribbean function band joining in on drums and singing and also Lynsey from the cruise staff who was also a pretty shit hot singer!

As the Americans had something to prove they absolutely kicked it in the dick (thats a good thing!) walking on stage with american flag capes and launching into a raucous cover of 'America Fuck Yeah!' from Team America:World Police which set the scene for the evening! The gig didn't even start until around midnight as most of the lounge / show band guys don't get done until that time, and I think it was pushing 2a.m by the time they finished. It was an epic drunken messy night in the crew bar with a full on mosh pit and I had found my favourite night in the bar!

A few month or so later we had the 2nd band night and almost final one as Brennan, Matt & Lynsey were leaving so this would be their last hurrah, again another brilliant night followed that I can barely remember although at least pictures remind me there was an afterparty!

Within a month or so the new band guys were at home (and the bar) and everyone (mainly me) was pushing them to do another band night, the new recruits were Paolo from Brazil by way of LA on bass and Wieland on drums a seemingly laid back German jazz drummer and for vocals we had a new production manager from Chile called Alejandro who was a full on metalhead.

One big surprise to me was that throughout the myraid of musicans on the ship there was no guitarists currently and then I discovered the crew club had an old beat up Jackson stored away in a cupboard. I used to play almost everyday as a teenager and wanted to be a rockstar before life got in the way, and since ships I'd barely played in years, so I 'borrowed' the crew club guitar, took it upto the video room and got practicing!

I think we had one brief practice session in the corridor and that was it apparently and the guys were ready to keep alive the legend that was Classy Boner. I was fucking petrified because these guys were all amazing professional musicans and I used to be a decent amateur at best many years ago, but somehow I was the only guitarist around at that point!

Perhaps the single best thing about the first band night I played at was that it was probably as close as I'll come to being a proper musician, in that the mostly fillipino produciton crew had set the amps and mics etc up before we even got to the bar. As most of the band guys didn't get done until around midnight I has stupidly got to the bar early, become extremely nervous and started putting away the drinks to calm myself.

Once the guys arrived I thought they'd set the scene and I'd pop up for the few songs we were going to play intermittently, nope from the first song we started with Sublime' 'What I Got' which is simple enough with a nice riff, it was when Ari said 'Neil, take a solo' i almost whiffed it! Purely because as a non-professional musician I didn't really know much about the theory and keys etc, so when I learned a song I learned it as recorded. There was a main riff in 'What I Got' but no solo!!! Thankfully i just repeated the main riff a few times and then I was saved when the guys slowed it down into a breakdown and Marlon the drummer from the Caribbean band joined us and started free style rapping over the song!

After that it was into some more Subime with 'Santeria' and then I got to take a well earned break after two songs! What made the gig even better was being able to play a few songs here and there but then also be part of the crowd for the rest of the gig. One of the guys from the crew club came up with a few crates of beer and apologised that we wouldn't be paid but here was a few crates of beer instead! I was amazed seeing as I wasn't expecting anything for playing in the bar so free beer was a win in my book!

Next up we had Alejandro from Chile taking over on vocals for some classic Motorhead and AC/DC action, Paolo the bass player then took lead vocals for a cover of Journeys 'Don't Stop Believin' which was pre-Glee so it was still socially acceptable. Later we had some a great cover of The Doors 'Roadhouse Blues' with the whole bar singing along with the 'Woke up this morning and I got myself a beer' refrain.

The highlight (and biggest surprise of the night!) was the set closing cover of RATM's 'Killing In The Name Of' with our previously reserved German jazz drummer Wieland rapping the song while playing the drums and just generally losing his shit throughout the song!

Like any proper sweaty underground club gig that is finishing around 2am in the morning Wieland capped the night off by diving through the drumkit quite spectacularly!

We had another band night about a month later which again as is the problm with ships probably the last we all had together onboard before key people involved left, this time I think it was Ari leaving first and I didn't have long left on my contract either at this point. I'd go on to play a few band nights on other ships down the years but none stood up to the legend that was created on the Sun Princess in 2008 by Classy Boner!

On the next cruise diaries - Hawaii & The Dark Knight