Clovis

[skajerk]

I wasn't there but AWESOME! If I read you correctly, you did the N.A. and that is an honor!

Yes I did, it was, and I've never been so nervous in my life!

I was at the show with a friend of mine who is the new band director at Buchanan (the school that hosted the show). He's also the lead trumpet and founder of Los Hooligans. So... we're sitting up in the press box about 30 minutes before the show was to start when someone comes up with a CD and says it's for the NA. As they start working on it, I tell Tony that I'm heading down to go to the bathromm and I'll be back in a minute. I get back upsatirs and Tony has this little grin on his face and says "You need to sing the Anthem. They can't get the CD to work." I give a little nervous laugh realizing he's serious and that one of biggest nightmares was about to come true. I walk over to one of the judges and ask for a paper and a pen, grab a phone and proceed to write down the words because the last thing I want to do is screw up the lyrics. Oh yeah, this is all happening while Dave Gibbs is right next to me. No Stress.

Now I'm thinking, OK, just relax. Go downstairs and breath. Nope. I tell Tony what I'm going to do and he says "No! You're on right now!" I didn't even have time to down to the field. I had to sing it right there from the press box. That was a HUGE blessing, though.

Got a decent repsonse from the crowd so I guess I was pretty close to being on pitch and the judges were just having a ball laughing at me. Heard one say, "So that's how it goes. I hadn't heard it sung like that in a while" which made me laugh. I sang it straight. No runs or any of that crap that turns it into a 5 minute song. I hate it when it's sung that way.

The cool part was, Troopers were the first corps on so they were waiting on the field to perform. Thought it was rather fitting. The funny thing is, some friends of mine that recognized my voice (there was no announcement of who was doing the anthem. There wasn't time) came up to me and said that it sounded good. Nice vibrato etc. Well, that wasn't a vibrato. That was my knees shaking!

The next step? Sing it in FRONT of a crowd. B)