Last Sunday was a bit of an odd day. I’d signed up months ago to do this Live and Unsigned competition, the ultimate goal being to get a record contract. About two weeks ago an email appeared reminding me of the event (I’d slept since then you see) and I thought you know what? I’m going to do it.
So I picked up my guitar, as dusty as she was and began to practice the song I was going to perform. My sister and I were going to compete together and I think we must have only played the song about 5 times in preparation for it. As organised as ever.
Saturday night came and instead on practicing like we had planned, we went to the cinema (We were singing when we came out of the screening if that counts as a vocal warm up?) I went to bed convinced that we weren’t going to take part but then found myself waking up the next morning and driving off at 10am with my guitar squashed in the boot (That is after driving out of our street and realising we had left it behind. See? Organised.)
We reached the Manchester venue and were confronted with a room filled with haircuts and instruments. It was pretty intimidating having what felt like every made up eye in the room staring at us as we attempted to find seats.
It wasn’t long before I started to see that the attention may not be such a bad thing. We were asked several times for photos, interviews and even at one point for a phone number (Which was rejected with a red face.) At that point we realised that maybe we should have taken this competition more seriously especially when Sky television was mentioned urging me to suddenly regret my hair style.
We were called in to audition in groups. Thankfully we were the last of ours and didn’t have to perform in front of anyone other than the six scary faces of the judging panel staring at us. It was all so quick, we only had two minutes to perform and had to go straight into it. I can’t even remember what it sounded like, I can just remember being cut off at the two minute mark and thinking ‘Oh god was it that awful?’
We were sent to a waiting room where our fate would be decided. Everyone around us seemed to look either nervous or sure of themselves. Leanne and I just didn’t seem to know what was going on so retired to playing on the Friends quiz game on my phone (No point in worrying ey?). We just sat there laughing about silly things with the same thought of ‘Well we tried and to be honest, clearly didn’t know enough about this competition’ running through our heads. I don’t know where she got it from but Leanne managed to come up with this little nugget of gold, ‘Ah well, the sun will still shine tomorrow’. So true, except I would like the sun to shine on a day where I can brag about my talents and one day be nice and famous.
As we waited we saw happy faces, disappointed faces, shocked faces ‘don’t know what’s going on’ faces and the room emptied and filled accordingly.
Finally a woman came in to reveal the results and went about it with an appreciated essence of discretion although the gutted expressions on those being spoken to were a big giveaway. The moment of truth was upon us, whether we were through or not, we would still go to Costa Coffee and laugh about it. I think I expected her to say no, she lowered her voice and despite my negativity said ‘Congratulations, you got through!’ We just looked at each other with a sense of ‘What?!’ and laughed.
So there you go, we’re through to boot camp! (Well, the regional finals.) We need as much support as we can, so get behind us. You never know, we might actually start taking it seriously. Nah, where’s the fun in that?
Love L x
