It's a duck's life for a pop star

Wolverhampton Civic Hall's Jonn Penney says it may be all quiet on the music scene at the moment - bar the festival season - but our beloved rock and pop stars are busy at work on their next magnum opus.

Shhhh! Keep still, don't move. Don't disturb that coot. Is that a Mallard or a Mandarin? Don't the swans look majestic this year? Ahh, peace and tranquility eh? What a perfect antidote to the raucous, rampant, rumbling world of rock and pop. Summer has certainly arrived and that's the cue for concert halls to empty.

No-one in their right mind books a tour through the summer holidays while everyone is soaking up the rays in foreign parts or British seaside towns, so you won't find me raving about the merits of megastars coming to the region this week, because they're simply not here.

That's not to say that they're sat watching the ducks like me, though: Oh no, absolutely not. They will more likely be emulating our aquatic feathered friends.

You see the big names of rock have much in common with your common or garden duck: All we get to see is the plumage above the surface tension, nicely coiffeured – but underneath that watertight upper their little webbed feet are going sixty-to-the-dozen.

Traditionally autumn is the time when most artists release new material and set out on the road to promote it, but songs don't record themselves nor can an artist 'just turn up and play' at that first show of their sell-out tour.

Much has to be done to get an album delivered on time and many hours of rehearsal are needed to get the live show shipshape. Artists need to know their show inside out if they're going to be worthy of the expectation that builds through the summer among faithful fans who are already clutching their precious ticket in anticipation of the truly unique musical experience that is a live gig.

So how do you prepare in private for something as thoroughly 'public' as releasing a new collection of your own songs, or performing just metres away from thousands of your adoring fans?

Well I can tell you it's not easily done. When you are in the studio, recording the chorus of your new single for the sixth time, having been in the vocal booth for the last three hours – your audience will have no idea of just how desperate you can be to know what they will make of the finished thing.

Is this new song too different? Too similar to what you've already released? Too slow? Too fast? Are these more mature lyrics too mature? How will the song fit with all of the other songs that have been knocking around the charts while you've been working on your new album?

When you're stood in the rehearsal room playing that new song and trying to wrestle with those new bits of technology you thought would make for a great new sound, you are a million miles from the polished aplomb of the opening night. Will your voice hold out for the whole show? If you've screamed too much in the previous song, will your throat be too sore to hit those high notes you decided to challenge yourself with on your new record?

Oh, the mind games, the mental torture those poor artistes put themselves through! It's enough to drive them quackers!