Day 2 was divided into two parts, really. The first was spent listening to Steve and Dave as they told stories from different periods of their careers, including more context surrounding Fish’s departure from the band. Out of respect for the band and for Fish, I will not include those details here, but they were fascinating to listen to and only gave me greater appreciation for Marillion’s story.
After our lunch break was when we finally picked up our instruments to learnt the first song of the course: Sugar Mice, from Marillion’s. Clutching at Straws. At the beginning of the day, we would always start by leaving our instruments on the main level of the bar on the tiny stage that I’m sure hosts live music regularly. Most of us were guitar players but we had a couple of drummers, bass players (more on that later!), and one keyboard player.
The group divided into two sections. The first group stayed on the first floor with Dave, and comprised those who were not completely comfortable with performing on stage. The second group stayed downstairs with Steve, and that’s where I ended up staying. I hadn’t played on a stage of any kind in maybe 14 years, so I didn’t know if this was a good idea or not, but as I’ve said before, I had traveled way too far to crack out on things. The voice in my head kept telling me that I may never get this opportunity again.
Steve went over the general chords to the song, which were simply G-C-D-Am7. The real challenge came in when he began demonstrating the picking pattern and chord change techniques with the left hand, but I was glad to find that I had been playing the song with far more difficulty than he was playing it, shaping the G chord with my ring finger on the low E, third fret, middle finger on the A string, second fret, and my pinky on the high E, third fret, a position that gets pretty uncomfortable after a few bars. But that’s the thing about us, musician prog fans. I think we tend to assume that things are being played in the most difficult manner possible, only to be hit with reality. Steve makes frequent use of a capo on many Marillion songs, which, in my view, drops the difficulty level considerably, since the farther up the capo sits on the guitar neck, the closer the frets are to each other.
Once we had more or less retained the chords and picking patterns, we moved on to the guitar solo, the part that I was most nervous about, since that is the area where I am the least confident. I was comforted to see that others were nervous about it, too, since I had walked into this camp expecting everyone to blow me out of the park with soloing skills. It’s a complex solo, but Steve reiterated that he did not expect us to nail it note for note, and instead encouraged us to experiment and improvise.
The last part of the day was performance time. We all congregated downstairs and took turns going up on stage and performing “Sugar Mice” with our respective instruments alongside Steve. What an experience that was! We must have played the song around 10 or so times, but it never got old. While I was feeling up to going on stage, I was not willing to go first, so after the first three groups went up, I finally joined in, I plugged in my Traveler Guitar which, admittedly, has its drawbacks in terms of being a practical guitar to use on stage. For one thing, the strings don’t bend very easily, and it also does not have a place for a whammy bar to be inserted, much to my disappointment. I took the rhythm guitar section and let others handle the lead parts. It was truly heartwarming being up there alongside so many others as we lovingly expressed our respect for a band we’ve grown to adore so strongly over the years. This is my tenth year as a Marillion fan, and this experience felt like a culmination of all the Marillion-related memories I’ve made over the last decade. The shows, the interactions with the band members, the creative writing pieces I wrote in college.
After a few more performances, I decided to do something to really come out of my comfort zone. I joined the stage for a few more performances of “Sugar Mice” while on bass guitar. I’m no Pete Trewavas, but I told Steve that I could live vicariously as Pete while handling the bass, a joke that got a laugh out of him. I didn’t know the technical bass line for “Sugar Mice,” so I just improvised a basic progression of bass chords.
We probably played the song a record number of times. I don’t know what the grand total was, but I’m going to guess it was over 10. Either way, I enjoyed providing both bass and guitar for that song, and was equally touched to receive compliments from Steve and Dave. I stayed after the camp got done for the day until my social battery was officially drained, just long enough for Steve to ask to have a photo with me.
The Girl in the Scarf 
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