Monday Steve and I had to get up earlier than ever. I think combined, we might have slept for about three hours total. I was nervous, he was nervous for me, and both of us were excited about the day ahead. We had planned on leaving at exactly 2:00 am, because the lady at registration told us that everyone was going to have to be back there by 5:00 am Monday morning because of some "activities" before the auditions. We didn't end up leaving that early, but we were still down in Brimingham and in line just before 4:00 am.
Since I didn't have any idea how it was going to work, I was worried because we seemed to be much further back in line than I thought we would be. We were once again jammed among throngs of people, all sharing the same space and air. Luckily, I had remembered to bring my little hand held fan this time, so when I started getting hot, I just turned on the little sucker and cooled off. Unfortunately, once we got in line, the lack of sleep began to sneak up on me, and I would kind of fade out while fanning myself. My head started to loll, and the fan ended up getting twisted up in my hair! Twice! The second time it was so wrapped around the blades that I ended up having to break my hair on one side to get it out. Ouch, much! Steve, plus the two guys in front of us from Louisiana, found this to be great entertainment! Me, not so much. The sun wasn't even up yet, but it was already hot and humid outside. Everyone was sweaty and uncomfortable, plus we had been standing in one spot for several hours. Had I not been so excited, I might have lost my sense of humor about the whole situation. :)
I could already tell that my throat was getting dry, and my allergies were just on the verge of clogging me up! I should have known something like that would happen with me standing outside for so long, but I didn't think about it before hand. We were told not to bring anything to eat or drink on the sheet of directions that we had been given that Saturday. I thought it was because they would be using video from before the auditions on the show and didn't want food and drinks that weren't supplied by their sponsers on camera. This meant that I hadn't had anything to eat or had anything to drink except for some water before we left the house earlier that day! Needless to say, I was getting dehydrated just standing there, and that didn't do any good to my throat. At some point around 8:00 am or so, the line up ahead of us suddenly emptied. The huge line was seperated by three sets of barracades. Steve and I were in the second section. We kept waiting for them to let us follow the first half of the line, but we never moved. We all started getting kind of antsy until we realized that the producers in charge were opening up the barracades behind us and filing everyone in our section to the set of stairs at the front of the BJCC. The first part of the line that we had seen empty out earlier was already sanding on the stairs. It was as if they were positioning us up for the biggest class photo in the world! Actually, that wasn't too far off of the mark.
They were taking as many people as would fit on the stairs and in front of the stairs, so that they could film some footage of all of us screaming and acting crazy for the Birmingham segment of the show in the fall. There were literally thousands of people around us. Steve and I were about 6 steps from the bottom of the staircase, stuck behind these two slightly annoying teenage girls who kept fluffing their giant blonde hair and squeeling about everything. By this point, the sun had risen over the building, making the temp shoot up and the body heat around us oppressive. We really just stood there for a long time while everyone who would fit was crammed into the space. The producer, who's name I can't remember (but he was kind of an ass) had a megaphone and kept talking to all of us like we were third graders on a class outing. We had to keep our eyes on him as he told us what his hand signals would mean, and what we were supposed to do when the camaera was rolling. He also introduced the "Sniper" cameras on the roof of the hotel next to the civic center, and told us what they were there for. Finally, we got down to business. I'm assuming that I now know what it's like to be an extra on a movie set from what we did that day. Mr. Producer-man kept us very quiet until he needed us to scream our heads off, or yell something like "Welcome to Birmingham!" or "I'm the next American Idol!" or even "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!" A lot of us weren't really screaming because, come on, we were about to go in and sing fer cryin' out loud! You can't scream for an hour and then go inside and sing! So, I did a lot of pretending to scream and waved my arms around like crazy. Even Steve got into it and he jumped around and screamed like crazy. It was a lot of fun. I guess we had been out there on the stairs for about an hour when the crowd parted and Ryan Seacrest came strolling through the crowd of screaming, adoring (koff koff) fans to do his bit in front of the camera. He's kind of orange in person from what I could see. The lady behind us was almost wetting her pants when she saw him. It was kind of embarrassing! Well, we screamed and waved to the camera for another 1/2 hour and they finally let us go inside. By this point, I was exhausted, nervous, dehydrated and had gotten a tickle in my throat, but we pressed on. I found out as we were going in that we could have had drinks or food outside of the arena, but they didn't want us bringing in outside stuff when we went in! Wow, thanks for making that clear, American Idol Folks! I was afraid that we would only get to audition in the order we got inside the arena, but fortunately we got to take the seats on the tickets that we had been given. They had "Sweet Home Alabama" blaring on the loud speakers, over and over. Steve and I finally got settled and I tried to repair the damage being outside and sweaty had caused my face!
Once everyone got settled, Mr. Producer came back in and told us we still had a few things to do before audition time. They were going to use something called a "Jib Camera" (see, camera on some kind of crane-looking thing) to film the crowd in the arena screaming and cheering some more. This was done. The whole bottom section of the arena was filled and some of the seats in the upper mezzanine were as well. We all screamed and waved our arms and jumped up and down like lunatics. It was so much fun! Amazingly, I wasn't nervous, just excited! Normally, I'd be about to throw up by this point, but I was having too much fun. Then Mr. Producer told us that he needed us to sing "Sweet Home Alabama", in harmony, accapella for the camera. The camera pretty much stayed on the section that Steve and I were in the whole time we sang, and we sang for what seemed like hours. It was not that long, of course, but geez. I never thought I'd get tired of that song, but I came pretty darned close that day! You'll have to watch the Birmingham segment of American Idol this next season and see if you can spot Steve and I. Even he was singing and clapping! I couldn't believe it! : )
Finally....finally, finally, we got to start the auditions! They gave us the ground rules and the procedure. They would call us down by section (fortunately, Steve and I were sitting in one of the first 5 sections that would be auditioning). We would give our release forms to the production assistants and form a line. Then we would be seperated into groups of 4 and then sent to one of the 13 judges tables lined up on the arena floor. Each table had 4 lines of 4 people in front of them. ***I'll stop here for a second to go ahead and tell you that Simon, Paula and Randy were not there. You have to get through at least two rounds of auditions, possibly more, to get to see them. What we got were some rather tired and bored looking producers and assistants who did the first rounds.*** The producers then went on to tell us that there was a song that they heard A LOT. Not just often, but A LOT. He warned us that if we were going to sing it, we'd better know how to sing it better than Etta James, becaus they were so tired of hearing it that they would have to be really blown away by our performance of it to let anyone though. It was the song "At Last", which is a beautiful song, but you DO have to be able to sing well to pull that song off! As soon as this came out of Mr. Producer's mouth, some girl in the front row burst into tears! Apparently that was the song she had picked to sing! Mr. Producer had to go and apologize to her...and surprisingly he was much less of an ass for the rest of the time. I bet he felt like crap! I hope he did, anyway! We were also told that if we did NOT make it past the first round of auditions, we had to leave immediately. We were not allowed back into the arena and we had to surrender our gray arm bands to the trash so that we couldn't somehow get back in line. We had to leave quickly and quietly and meet our party outside and leave. We FINALLY got to start.
Section after section was taken to the tables and only 2 or three people were given passes onto the next round. One chick, whom I named "Half-Naked Girl" tried to beat the system and get back into line to audition again. Fortunatly someone recognized her and she was escorted out of the building. Steve made a good point. If you are going to dress (or not dress, as the case was) like a Hawaiian hooker, you are going to be conspicuous, so don't try to do anything stupid! She was wearing a skin tight tank top and a hot pink sarong skirt that was only, and I mean only, tied at the hip. A strong wind could have come along, and the whole world would have been her gynocologist! Yuck! We saw people dressed in freaky clothes, doing freaky dances, and all other manner of craziness. Some of them were passed on to the next round, but presumably to be put on the blooper show everyone likes so much.
Then it was time for our section. We were led down to the arena floor and lined up. We slowly walked towards the guy who seperated us into our groups and we walked across the floor in front of thousands of people to the table we were directed to. I was given table number 7! Lucky number and I wasn't even nervous! Go me! So me and my three other group mates got in line and slowly made our way to the table. Not one person in front of us was passed on to the next round! Finally, there we were, standing in front of the judges. I still felt excited, and really not that nervous. Maybe a little, but not the kind of nervous I probably should have felt. The people in my line were (left to right) Harry Potter Kid, Me, Dark Haired Girl, and Black Guy. We only had about 10 seconds to wow the judges, and we were more than ready! Black Guy went first and did a great job! Dark Haired Girl went next and sounded okay, but not great. Then it was my turn!
I took my step forward and they asked me what I was going to sing! I had picked the Dixie Chick's song "Tonight, The Heartaches On Me" because I love the way it starts out and is suitable for my vocal range. I took a deep breath and started my song. When the first note came out of my mouth, my nerves exploded! I was out of tune! I couldn't sing! I completely bombed! It was like my brain was saying: "Where am I? Who am I? What am I doing here? Sing? What does that mean?!" However, my mouth kept on trying to sing the song. He probably let me sing longer than he meant to before holding up his hand and saying, "Thank you." and moving on to Harry Potter Kid. I was both appalled and trying so hard not to laugh. It was so funny! I couldn't believe myself. I know I can sing! I can sing really, very well! How could I get to this point and screw up so badly?! After Harry Potter Kid got done, the producer motioned us all forward and informed us that he would not be recommending any of us for the next round. We all got our things, had our bracelets removed, and went outside. Steve finally came out with my stuff and we got into the car and went on our way.
You know, for about 30 minutes, I was disappointed. Not just because I didn't make it past the first round, but because I wasn't able to use my talent the way I knew I could. Plus, the people I had told about the audition, (there weren't that many, so if I didn't tell you, don't feel hurt), the ones who truly gave a crap anyway (and there were some who didn't, believe it or not), had all sent me off with good luck wishes and telling me that they knew I could do it! I felt like I had let them all down horribly. But then I stopped feeling bad. I never really believed that I would get very far. I may be able to sing, but I'm certainly not the best one out of 7 or 8 thousand people! I had hoped I'd at least get to the second round, but I didn't, and that was okay. I've come to learn that smashed hopes are a lot easier to get over than beliefs that are proven wrong. Besides, I had finally done something! I have always been so afraid to take a chance on anything, barring a few exceptions of course, but I have never put myself out there to be judged. It's easier to stick with the people who will always tell you you're doing a great job, no matter how things are really going. But I finally did something that took actual bravery. I failed miserably, but it didn't really matter in the long run! I had a great time! I did things I'd never done, and possibly will never get to do again! I'm proud of myself, and I wouldn't change anything (except for possibly the numbing fear that over took me at the last second) for anything! Go me! : )
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