a last minute idol...

The other day i got invited to fill in for someone who bowed out at the last minute... to play at a fundraiser event for a sister who is dealing with the big "C"... cancer... so, without hesitation, i said yes...

So, this past Saturday evening, seven musicians and i gathered at the W.I.S.E. Club here in Vancouver at 5:30 pm to do our sound check and get ready for the evening's performance... the organizers of the event had planned this as a fund-raiser for their friend... to raise funds for her high medical bills and help her out... What a wonderful thing to do and i was honoured to be a part of it... even though i didn't even know this woman...

The evening was organized like the Canadian Idol TV show... hence the reason they needed 8 musicians... an even number... Four of us were picked to play the first round and then the audience would vote by paying a dollar-a-vote and the most-voted 2 would move on to a final round... the same would happen with the next four... pick two and they would move on to the last round as well for another final group of 4... from there they would vote for an overall winner... They also had a panel of 5 judges lined up as well... the ticket to get into the night's event was 20 bucks...

At the time i said yes.. i didn't think much of the "format" of the show... thinking it was an easy gig... to play one, maybe two tunes to a friendly audience, help out a sister, get an opportunity to play and go home... however... for the day and half i had to decide on what to play for this event... i agonized about what to play and couldn't decide what ... i certainly knew i didn't want to get into the "competition" so to speak cuz i'm not the competitive type... but i couldn't help but wonder that there could be that slight possibility that i could maybe... win... ???

Naaah... probably not... and so... what to play?... do i play something i wrote or do i do something campy or funny like a cover tune and wow them away... knowing full well that more than likely, the woman who would win will probably go all out and camp it out and get the audience on their feet cheering... and then after thinking all this... i started to get a little nervous about it all... cuz i really don't like competition at all... and so, why was i doing this, really?...

I was doing this because my friend had asked me to and the main focus of the event was to help out a sister in my community... great. ...got that clear... so, i decided pretty much at the last minute to do my own songs... i saw it as an opportunity to play my own stuff and see what kind of feedback i would get... also... i really like playing my own songs better anyway... i picked two of my own, just in case i got voted on to the last group... you never know... right?

Well.. that evening was certainly interesting... my friend who is a very talented, wonderful singer-songwriter (and guitar player) was up first in the first group.. and she played and sang really well.. got a great cheering applause and had many nice comments from the judges... next, was a woman who got up and sang to a cover song with an over-produced CD for backup... the crowd loved it...! i was right... the crowd is definitely going to go for this instead of the half of us who are singer-songwriter/instrumentalists... and sure enough that's how the evening went... only one of the singer-songwriters moved to the final round... i think because, at the last minute she chose a song about "being naked" that she wrote instead of the one she did at the sound-check earlier... and of course wowed the crowd and moved on...

I was up first in the second round and did my own composition on a little dulcitar guitar and sang "a mother's cry"... a moving, somewhat haunting song about the 3 mothers in my life... my birth mom, my adopted mom and our blessed earth mother...about half way through it, i could hear a lot women in the back talking loudly through it until someone finally "shhhh'ed" them and then it got real quiet as i sang the rest of my song... i got a pretty good applause and nice comments from the judges like my friend... got off stage and was quite glad that my part was over... i didn't move ahead.

However, during the breaks.. a few women came up to me and thanked me for the song i did and told me how much they enjoyed it... one asked if i had a CD and another asked if i was playing around town and hoped that she could hear me again... that felt good and it seemed i acomplished what i came to do... and had helped out my sister at the same time... and that sure felt real good.

The woman who won had dressed up in a long low-cut evening dress and gloves with high heels including lots of makeup and sang her guts out to "fever" (with CD backup) and had everyone, including me on their feet cheering for more... she was awesome and she was the nights winning idol... and we raised over $1200 for our dear sister... and had one heck of a lot of fun at the same time...

and me?... i guess in my own way, i was a last minute idol... for a few minutes anyway....

brightest blessings... weaver (((o)))

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