Band burning the midnight oil

Kirsty Macnicol
The Southland Times
May 14, 2001

THE City of Invercargill Caledonian Pipe Band has been burning the midnight oil in the countdown to Pipin ' Hot this week and its tour to Canada
three weeks later.
Rehearsals for the show, which opens on Wednesday night, have been running close to midnight in the past few weeks but at the weekend some members worked right through the night.
Pipe major David Pickett said the Nova Scotia International Tattoo
organisers had requested a high-quality recording of the music the band will play in Canada. However, every spare moment was taken up with rehearsals for Pipin ' Hot . The Tattoo organisers could not wait until after the show season finished because they wanted the material for a CD to be on sale by the time the tattoo began at the end of next month, Mr Pickett said.
The compromise was to work through the night. On Friday the backing band started recording at midnight, finishing at 3.30am. On Saturday, following a mini Pipin ' Hot performance at the New Zealand Community Boards conference at Ascot Park Hotel, pipers and drummers were recorded, finishing at 2.45am yesterday.
"While that was going on there was another whole crew of people working all night to get the Civic (Theatre) set up," Mr Pickett said.
That team moved into the theatre at midnight on Saturday, following the close of Verdon College's production of The Sound of Music, to build scaffolding for the set and install the sound and lighting systems. That work was still being finished as the cast arrived for a rehearsal at 1pm.
"We've got an amazing team of people around us," Mr Pickett said. "It's really gratifying and humbling to see the sacrifices people are prepared to make for the show and tour to be a success." Pipin ' Hot runs from Wednesday until Sunday. The band leaves for a four and a-half week tour of Canada on June 9, comprising the same Pipin ' Hot show and an nternational bandfest in Victoria followed by the Nova Scotia International Tattoo in Halifax.