Frankie Goes to Hollywood

American Idol

So...duh, of course I didn't get through to the next round. I never planned on getting past the mass call today, but I tell you, it was fun. Well, all of the waiting around wasn't fun, since I was there for 11 hours starting at 6 AM until I finally sang at 5 PM, but it was a good experience. There was your usual parade of weirdos, like the girl dressed up as Annie (complete with red curly wig) and the she-male who was wearing tin foil as an accessory, and there were more 'showbiz moms' than I'd ever like to see again in one place.

There were over 10,000 people in the Georgia Dome this morning. To audition, they pulled people down onto the green in the order they were seated and then divided the masses into groups of four. Each group of four singers presents themselves at one of twelve tables. Behind each table sit two producers, who act as judges. Each individual gets about 30 seconds to sing, and when those four are finished, another four approach the table. I figured that probably about one in every 200 people gets through to the next round, so the odds are stacked pretty high against each individual person. I saw a lot of dreams crushed today, it's really quite sad how much people invest in competitions such as American Idol.

Since I don't sing pop music, I assumed that my chances of advancing were slim to none and I decided to just have fun with it. I figured that the judges were bored to tears with pop ballads, the likes of which were once sang by Celine Dion and Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston, so I decided to go a completely different route. I ended up singing 'Come on Eileen' by Dexy's Midnight Runners. The judges looked on the verge of tears when I went up to sing, and were thoroughly not into the song until I broke into chorus. Their faces lit up and at the end, one of the judges, who happened to be a British lady, told me that my song was 'brilliant.' I think I threw them for a loop and they really enjoyed the change of pace. In fact, the other judge thanked me for my song choice as I walked away from the table after my audition. She said it was 'refreshing'. Now, you may ask, why didn't you advance if they liked you so much? It's pretty simple - my singing didn't sound so hot. I know I wasn't in top form, and as I said earlier, I'm not a pop singer. But I had a huge grin on my face as I did the walk of shame to the exit. At least they liked me - and I totally had fun singing for them. Isn't that what it's really all about? *warm fuzzies*

Here's a photo that a professional company took of me as I was walking down to the field for my audition, hence the watermark. I tried to get the kid behind me to take a photo, but he didn't quite get how to work my camera...and this is the best I can do. It serves as proof that I was there.