Picking up from last time –
I went up and sang “You Oughta Know” (another karaoke favorite). Both of my friends who were coming happened to sneak in during the song, which was great.
Yet again, I felt I pushed a little too hard. (Is that some kind of thing I do now? Eesh.) But, yet again, I just tried to sell it.
The crowd there is super supportive. There was lots of clapping and cheering as I got on the ground, leaned back, and all that jazz. As soon as I stepped off the stage, some stranger was clapping hardcore and said, “Yeah, good riddance to that man!” which I thought was hilarious.
Later on in the night, I sang a duet with one of the girls from Chase’s table. It was super fun to sing with a stranger – and great practice for, well, basically improv, I guess – going with the flow, working with new people.
I guess the main lesson I had from this one is to have less fear. (I think that’s gonna be a lesson often, so I might as well learn it quickly.) Also, I think I maybe need to focus on working harder to make other people comfortable onstage.
The girl I sang with said she was a little nervous about performing. Onstage, I definitely did think about how to make her comfortable. (For instance, I moved to the other side when I realized she couldn’t see lyrics where I was.)
But when we got to the end when the parts are overlapping so much, I was so nervous about singing her part that I think I looked a little too intently at the lyrics to try to sing my part (as our parts were in different colors on the screen), as opposed to just connecting with her!
Who cares even if I did accidentally step on her part a little? Are people in the audience intent on making sure we sing it correctly – or do they just want to be entertained? As my high school theater teacher always said, once you’re up there don’t worry about anything else anymore. The work you’ve done is in there. Just sell it.
(Btw, she said a lot of wonderful things and had us delve into characters. She’s not just some vaudeville manager or anything. (“Just sell it, ladies!”) But still, the lesson to sell if quite valid.)
At one point during the night, these guys got onstage and sang an O-town song! And then some guy on a saxophone accompanied them live. (What?!)
The whole place was so into it, and Trevor taped it, he seemed to love it so much!
As I sad at my table with my friends, and saw these people onstage having the time of their lives while a huge crowd watched on with gigantic smiles on their faces, I thought, “This is it right here. These are the fun little moments that really make up our lives.