It is their tangible joy of performing that keeps fans coming back for more - whether they're playing Pinball Wizard as a sea shanty or thrashing their ukes on Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit. "They are one of my favourite other orchestras, I'm sure they would admit they admire us." When told that the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra are in Christchurch the same week, he laughed.
The orchestra has played everywhere from Glastonbury0 to New York's Carnegie Hall, but Suich is looking forward to being here, particularly to catch up with extended family in Christchurch. We've sung that in Lichfield Cathedral and had people come up to us afterwards to say 'ooh, that's nice'." "We often sing the Sex Pistols song Anarchy in the UK which starts off with the lyrics 'I am the antichrist'. If you've got half an hour to spare, get Suich started on the long and potted history of the ukulele - he knows his wood - and while touring the world he has acquired some great anecdotes. "Not to single out Phil Collins but a lot of his songs are good productions, but they don't hold up." "A lot of good songs are not good songs, they're just well produced songs on a background of nothing. Suich believes ukuleles are great "bullshit song detectors". If we play a George Formby song we do so like a Russian ballad, it's all about the orchestration." "We are a ukulele orchestra but we don't play in a conventional ukulele style. That was surreal."Īlthough each member of the orchestra has a different musical background, they are united by one thing - an overwhelming desire to not be pigeon-holed. We even burnt one sacrificially to the ukulele gods of the Arctic.
We just played in Spitsbergen outside in minus 20 degrees. The group is touring New Zealand fresh from shows in Norway.
#UKULELE ORCHESTRA OF GREAT BRITAIN PINBALL WIZARD FULL#
"What has changed for us from the first 10 years when no-one in the audience knew what we would sound like, now the audience is full of players themselves, whether it's the Ukuladies of Adelaide or Bill's Ukulele Members - they've all got names like that, hundreds and hundreds of ukulele bands and orchestras, partly due to, I think, us." Yet the orchestra has not been a fad, but increased in popularity and inspired other ukulele lovers to come out of their teeny tiny cupboards, and embrace the guitar's less-cool relative. Now you go to any festival and there's a German oom pah pah band playing the hits of Queen." "Back then the idea of twisted covers was new, playing the wrong song with the wrong instrument was a new idea. In 1985 there was no repertoire, he says, aside from Hawaiian music, or numbers from George Formby. "If we were the Hammond Orchestra of Great Britain it just wouldn't be the same." "Because you can do a world tour with hand luggage. "A range from the Sex Pistols through to toe-tapping jazz, and all the songs you don't expect to hear on a ukulele." "We're doing a concert of popular music from the last 1000 years," Suich says. In their best dinner suits, the eight musicians play clever rearrangements of songs, from classical numbers to Teenage Dirtbag and the Sex Pistols' Anarchy in the UK, and they do so armed with their assortment of ukulele - soprano, baritone, bass, concert, and one that looks like something Goldilocks wouldn't touch. If there is someone who could be held accountable for the resurgence in popularity of the instrument referred to by some as the "yuckulele", it's Dave Suich - the long-haired "rocky" looking member of the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, who have been playing to sell-out audiences around the world since 1985.