Sunday, March 06, 2005
Great Weekend!
Well, the weekend is almost ending now. It was terrific though. It started out with a late night rehearsal on friday night, for the impending debut show on saturday afternoon. People were tense, but things were "under control". It was raining on friday and that was pretty irritating. I always need some help in moving my keyboard 'cause it weighs a few tons. Amit offered to help that day and he came with his wife at about 8:45pm and we reached the Q auditorium only past 9. I realised that I had forgotten my keyboard stand and my chair, without which I can't play effectively. I somehow managed that day with a table and some random chair that I found. We were making some mistakes, but we all got the feeling that we were tending more towards perfection. We did each song twice and concentrated more on the parts where each of them needed improvement. I had added several more pieces for one song from "yes boss" - they came out decently. We wound up rehearsing past midnight, but we had to vote for the name of the group. We kept voting, for about half hour or so and finally couldn't converge on one of these "sand tunes" and "aaroh". We called it a night. I left the auditorium at around 2 am or so. We were supposed to return to the place by 11am on saturday.
I figured I'll be better off filling gas in my car than to get stranded somewhere in the rain. I did that. Mira Mesa was flooded like crazy - I've never driven through such flooded roads in the U.S. I took the freeway and a really memorable thing happened - I lost control of the car 'cause of the freaking rain!!!!! The car was going all over the place on the freeway and beyond a point, I tried controlling it and left nature to take its own course. I somehow maintained my cool at that time and fortunately the car came back to the lane (in the right direction!) and I regained control. I kept it at 50mph after that. I was fortunate and so was the group, for the show was eagerly awaited for.
The night was peaceful. Poor wife was awake to receive me. We left for the auditorium at 10:45 am and reached there past 11am. People were almost set up and it didn't take me much time to set it up. Our show was at 3pm and we had just enough time to go through each song once. We did that and we did that better than before. Still some mistakes though. We agreed on not making those :)
After having lunch outside, we come back to the auditorium to find a lot of people from the audience having filled up the seats already. There was slight tension in the music group, but it was under control. Well, the show started precisely at 3pm and wallah! - we guys performed like we never did before - pretty much flawless rendition of all the songs. The audience started clapping, dancing and waving their hands for each song. We took only seconds between each song to make adjustments and get tuned - something that we had miserably failed on before. In the middle of the first song, the drummer boy dropped his stick! It simply didn't matter, the rest of us kept up our tempo and he was quick enough to pick it up. It was almost as though it added a nice effect to that song :) He apparently broke one of his sticks in the fourth song, but continued with the broken stick for the remainder of the show and it somehow seems to have worked greatly! We even thought of naming our group as "The Broken Sticks". Our song sequencing was great, the tempo slowly picked up from the first song and it ended on a high note.
We wind up immediately and removed our equipment. Everyone in the group was pleasantly surprised as to how it turned out. Apparently, some people even thought we were hired professionals :) We seemed to have generated a lot of interest from the public - some of them wanted to join our band. We were really cool by then, so we said "we would have to audition you first" :) The whole evening was pretty exciting for all of us. Well, that was only a part of the whole event. The rest of the evening was filled with Dance, Fashion parade, Skit, more Dance, etc. None of these shows were inferior to our own - they were all really great. I think Qualcomm Indians did a great job in organizing this event. It was very professional.
We celebrated our success by having dinner at a Thai restaurant. My wife and I had to receive my undergrad friend who was coming to visit me for a day, so we left the group after the dinner. They continued with their celebration for the night.
I figured I'll be better off filling gas in my car than to get stranded somewhere in the rain. I did that. Mira Mesa was flooded like crazy - I've never driven through such flooded roads in the U.S. I took the freeway and a really memorable thing happened - I lost control of the car 'cause of the freaking rain!!!!! The car was going all over the place on the freeway and beyond a point, I tried controlling it and left nature to take its own course. I somehow maintained my cool at that time and fortunately the car came back to the lane (in the right direction!) and I regained control. I kept it at 50mph after that. I was fortunate and so was the group, for the show was eagerly awaited for.
The night was peaceful. Poor wife was awake to receive me. We left for the auditorium at 10:45 am and reached there past 11am. People were almost set up and it didn't take me much time to set it up. Our show was at 3pm and we had just enough time to go through each song once. We did that and we did that better than before. Still some mistakes though. We agreed on not making those :)
After having lunch outside, we come back to the auditorium to find a lot of people from the audience having filled up the seats already. There was slight tension in the music group, but it was under control. Well, the show started precisely at 3pm and wallah! - we guys performed like we never did before - pretty much flawless rendition of all the songs. The audience started clapping, dancing and waving their hands for each song. We took only seconds between each song to make adjustments and get tuned - something that we had miserably failed on before. In the middle of the first song, the drummer boy dropped his stick! It simply didn't matter, the rest of us kept up our tempo and he was quick enough to pick it up. It was almost as though it added a nice effect to that song :) He apparently broke one of his sticks in the fourth song, but continued with the broken stick for the remainder of the show and it somehow seems to have worked greatly! We even thought of naming our group as "The Broken Sticks". Our song sequencing was great, the tempo slowly picked up from the first song and it ended on a high note.
We wind up immediately and removed our equipment. Everyone in the group was pleasantly surprised as to how it turned out. Apparently, some people even thought we were hired professionals :) We seemed to have generated a lot of interest from the public - some of them wanted to join our band. We were really cool by then, so we said "we would have to audition you first" :) The whole evening was pretty exciting for all of us. Well, that was only a part of the whole event. The rest of the evening was filled with Dance, Fashion parade, Skit, more Dance, etc. None of these shows were inferior to our own - they were all really great. I think Qualcomm Indians did a great job in organizing this event. It was very professional.
We celebrated our success by having dinner at a Thai restaurant. My wife and I had to receive my undergrad friend who was coming to visit me for a day, so we left the group after the dinner. They continued with their celebration for the night.
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