I'll be completely honest; between the time of coming back into college and the actual winter warmer performance I didn't do much. The band, who remained unnamed for the time being, had began creating new songs but couldn't get anything concrete in time for the performance. A few days before the performance we decided we needed to work hard on our timing and learning things such as lyrics and chords so our performance would be as good as possible. As well as this, Rob had asked Angel and I to be the 'presenters' for the winter warmer. Being a presenter for this would mean that we would introduce the show as a whole and then introduce the different bands and singers between each other, before concluding the staging by thanking everyone for coming. Of course we accepted this offer but on the day I wish I hadn't.

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So, finally, it was the day of the winter warmer performance. Unfortunately I had woken up with a terrible headache and I also felt extremely lightheaded - just like the day before. I'll be completely honest; I thought about not coming into college, as I felt horrific, but not for long as I realised that I would be letting a lot of people, and myself, down. When I arrived at college I discovered many music students and teachers bringing equipment downstairs and setting up the room for the show. Of course, hoping it'd distract me from feeling ill, I offered to help. After bringing the piano and speakers downstairs; I, along with a few others, set up as many chairs as possible for the audience. Now, with nearly everything set up ready for the performance all that is left to do is a sound check, which is what Guy was doing. Ollie and Sonnet were also figuring out how to program the lights to give the show that extra bit of energy. 

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The day was starting to drag - I felt dreadful and the minutes felt like hours, but watching the different performers doing their practice runs entertained and fascinated me. The first ones, 'Sickbug', were extremely active and performative. They really set the standard just with their sound check. After helping set things up and watching multiple sound checks; Angel and I went upstairs to figure out what it actually is we had to say. Stupidly, although we had accepted the challenge quite a while ago, we hadn't prepared ourselves at all. Angel was a panicking a bit, and so was I to be honest. It felt like a lot of pressure was on us to introduce the bands correctly so we wrote down things we could say and tried to memorise them as best as we could. Between us we decided that we should take it in turns going on stage to introduce the next performer - Angel would be first, introducing the whole performance and first band, then I would introduce the second band, she introduces the third and so on.

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It was nearly time for our still unnamed band's sound check, and I still don't fully know the chords of the songs we're about to play in front of a respectively big audience - the only real audience I've ever performed in front of. That's terrible, I know. I said time and time again that I would practise the chords but for some reason I just didn't. Obviously I recognised this problem and quickly thought of a way to, very unprofessionally, fix the problem. Throughout all of the rehearsals we did I put stickers, indicating which note I need to play, on all the notes in the songs we're going to play. In the future I think that I need to learn all of the songs I'm performing at least 3 days before the performance, so I eliminate the possibility of running into this problem again. So I had now finished marking the piano keys and we were all ready to do the sound check. It went well and our sound levels were good, although there was still a bit of confusion between us regarding the ending of the song 'Paradise' - the problem was that we didn't know how we were actually going to end it as we had ended it in different ways beforehand. Luckily we managed to get it sorted before the real performance. 

 

The time of the performance, 1pm, was fast approaching. My nerves started to kick in, I started getting hotter and my head started to hurt even more. I had to get myself together quickly though and get ready to perform. Our band had now been named 'The Unknown' by other people in the course, however I'm not sure who, as we still hadn't come up with out own name.

 

So, finally, it was time to start the show. Angel prepared herself to introduce the show and the first act; 'Sickbug'. The lights went low, the band entered the room accompanied by dramatic, suspenseful music and the show was well and truly underway. I was relatively calm throughout all songs, it was only when I was about to go on stage to introduce the next band that I got a worried feeling in my stomach. The view from the front is daunting to say the least. By the time I was ready to go on stage; I felt a lot better than I had for most of the day, but as soon as I was in front of the mic it all started again - when I arrived on stage, the lights pointing onto the stage blinded me and the pain in my head really emphasised itself.  Although this did distract me, I somehow managed to execute my lines perfectly.

 

After Lauren Lawes performed her, in my opinion, best performance so far; Angel introduced the newly named band; 'The Unkown'. Sonnet walked towards the centre with his acoustic guitar, Kieran walked towards the drum kit and sat behind it, Aaron picked up the bass guitar and I sat behind the piano. The feeling of going up onstage was no where near as scary as it was when I was introducing bands - I think it was because I wasn't the centre of attention, on my own, in the middle of the stage. I felt fairly comfortable, the stickers on the piano really gave me a confidence boost. 

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Luckily we didn't get anything wrong in our performance. If I'm being completely honest; I didn't really enjoy it. I think this was because I had felt terrible all day and I was getting stressed out about speaking to the audience. On the other hand; I did like the feeling of performing for a crowd, and I appreciated the round of applause at the end - even if everyone thought we were bad and they were just clapping because that's what an audience does at the end of songs, but hopefully they didn't think that. For my first performance in front of an audience I don't think it went too bad, but would've been better if I wasn't ill.

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After this, I had to introduce the level 3 year 2 group, and I fumbled my lines terribly. I can't remember exactly what it was I said but I know it wasn't the exact thing I wanted to, and I stuttered - extremely frustrated was an understatement for how I was feeling after doing this. After a few more performances and a brilliant recital of 'Merry Christmas Everybody' by Slade, it was time for Angel and I to close the invisible curtain. Luckily, this time, I didn't mess up my lines. To finish off the day; I helped pack away as much as possible until I decided to fall on the floor and lay there for a bit - I was exhausted, but proud of what I had done.

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