“ Hey Esther, sorry but I can't make it for your church event on saturday night cos I've got a gig on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, paying $200 a night. I'll find a replacement for you, so sorry about that!” Jayden Williamson, the original drummer of Jive Box spoke on the phone hastily.
My heart sank when I heard the news. It was the Monday before Search For A Star and Saturday was the real event. We had rehearsed everything and we had to rehearse it again with new people! Honestly speaking, with 5 days to spare to the actual event, 2 rehearsals would suffice. However on Tuesday, Nathan, the drummer Jayden got for replacement, rang me up and said he could not make it because Saturday was his friend's 21st birthday. 'Great!' my mind was racing and these letters 'gracefully' paraded acrossed my mind: D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R!!!
Now we only have 4 days left and we still got to FIND A DRUMMER, rehearse the jazz fusion song, Cantalope Island, and arrange a medley of Michael Jackson songs. That day, my bassist, Jesse Bryom-Carter, immediately approached Josh Hopkins to be the drummer for the event and he kindly agreed. “Thank God!” I heaved a sigh of relief. I have not met Josh before but he seemed like a nice guy to work with. I made it clear to all my band members that SFAS is an unpaid performance so as to diminish any of their hopes for monetary returns and emphasized that the performance is voluntary. Fortunately, none of the members pulled out after knowing its voluntary. “Thank God!” once again!
The race for time began and we got to settle for a time for rehearsal. I was planning to have 2 rehearsals before SFAS but very unfortunately, everyone can only rehearse on Thursday and ONLY FOR 1 HOUR!!! The letters: D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R, once again, very 'gracefully' paraded acrossed my mind, but this time bringing along its best friend, “ R-E-A-L-L-Y”. So together, “ REALLY DISASTER” appeared big and dauntingly in my mind. That tuesday night, I seriously could not sleep well because the judges of SFAS had good impressions of the original Jive Box during the audition and thus they requested for a pop tune.
I prayed to God that on Thursday rehearsal, everything would be okay and we would finish learning all the arrangement in that ONE HOUR. Thank God for giving wisdom to all the members as we actually managed to learn and arrange all the tunes in that one hour! The band was not sounding very solid yet but at least we managed to go through all the songs for SFAS! PHEW!!!! I was really relieved. I suggested to have another rehearsal on saturday morning before SFAS but the other members were unwilling due to the need for their own personal practice on core tunes for class. Since SFAS is an unpaid gig, I have no valid reason to request for their devotion to the event. “Okay, let God take charge, and I shall not worry.” I told myself.
Saturday arrived and it was time for full-dress rehearsals on stage at PCLC. As my band members were absent during the dry run, we did not have the chance for sound check. Full-dress rehearsal started and my band was called on stage. This was only the 2nd rehearsal for our band for the show. During that rehearsal, I was at the wrong section of the song and apparently, my bassist, drummer and I myself could not hear each other clearly. This got me worried about our performance once again and this time we had no chance to see if everything works, and so I just did what I could … pray to do well for the show! Thankfully, the actual performance was a lot better than the full-dress rehearsal. My saxophonist finally got the ending right and the band sounded good with energy. I was satisfied with it personally and was glad to receive lots of positive feedback as well!
Written by blog writer,
~Esther~
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