Working with Lee Griffiths could be described using so many words, but ‘uneventful’ certainly isn’t one of them.

This weekend found us at the Circle Club, an ‘exclusive’ members club just off St Annes Square in Manchester. The venue was initially quite welcoming, but the organisation behind the promoter who got us in there was rather shady to say the least. We ended up having to sort out the club’s sound system (which wasn’t our job) and this threw out the whole evening’s timings. We were the headlining act, but what we didn’t realise was that the promoter was the girlfriend of one of the support acts, and she had an agenda of her own: getting her fella noticed at any cost. If this meant trampling over the other acts, then this was acceptable.

But not to Lee….

Just a week ago, I had no idea I’d be doing this. I’m still shocked that this opportunity came my way and have learnt a lot from it.

Until a recent revelation, I hadn’t realised my DJ friend Martin, whom I’ve known for some time now, is also the pianist for Marc Almond. We chatted about it and he invited me to come along to one of their gigs in Birmingham. The musicians and engineers he worked with were willing to put up with me for a little bit and I could come along and help with the sound. Watch and learn, Pete. Watch and learn.

But watching and learning turned into getting hands on experience. I’ve spent a lot of time on the kit I was using but just not in a “live music” setting. In this situation, you have to get it right first time: you can’t go back and say “Can we try that again, please?” There’s a lot of pressure.