Today was the big day…
She finally got to audition for American Idol with at least 10,000 other people at Invesco Field!
The day started early. We were up at 3:45 A.M., in line by 5:00, in our seats by 8:00, finished recording Carrie Underwood’s “Last Night” along with the whole stadium by 9:00. Auditions slowly began about 1/2 hour later.
Because of our registration time, we were seated in the middle. Thus, we baked in the sun for 8 hours while she waited for her turn.
All day long, I heard people either warming up or performing for each other. The more people I heard, the more confident I became. I didn’t hear anyone that came close to Cake’s voice. Maybe all of the really good singers were keeping quiet.
We were seated on the west side of the stadium. The 13 auditioning booths were on the opposite side down on the field. When people sang for the judges, they were singing away from the crowd.
Every so often, you would hear a voice bouncing off the empty seats on the east side of the stadium and rising above all of the noise on the west side. A few were shrieking, trying to make up in volume what they lacked in tone. However, it was obvious that the others had beautiful, strong voices!
Although she sang at 4:30 in the afternoon, Cakes was one of them! When she walked away from the booth without the yellow ticket, I couldn’t believe it!
I know that I wrote about wanting to encourage her to act on the dreams in her heart a few days ago. However, I would not have taken two days of vacation time, volunteered to drive 18 hours and paid for two nights in a hotel if I didn’t think she had a legitimate shot at making it. If my kids aren’t very good, I tell them. Better me than someone else. I am not able to build a real relationship by playing “let’s pretend”.
When I rejoined her outside of the stadium, I asked what happened…
“Something that has never happened. All three times that I went to belt out the high note, my voice didn’t crack but it was thin…I was kind of ‘pitchy’. I was excited but I wasn’t nervous.”
Shoot! Even though I made her drink water all day, she must have been a little dehydrated.
Since it was already 5:00 P.M., we threw our stuff in the truck and went to get gas. As I was filling the truck, I realized that I was already pretty tired. There was no chance that I would last the whole 9 hour drive home.
We headed to the Starbucks drive through and told the attendant that I needed a bunch of caffeine because I had to drive my daughter back to KC because she was just eliminated from American Idol.
A girl joined the young man on the mike. They were so excited! They asked if she would sing for them. When we pulled forward, Cakes got out of the truck, walked up to the ‘Pick Up’ window and sang for them. Naturally, they went ga-ga.
When she got into the truck, she said, “If I had sang that good, I would have made it.”
Huh??? I thought it was good but it wasn’t her best. “You didn’t even sing that good?”
“No.”
It must not have been dehydration! We had a bunch of time on hour hands, so we started analyzing.
Here is what we uncovered…
She was the first to go in her group, so she rushed a little bit and started a half note higher than she planned to. But, that shouldn’t have been a problem.
The real problem was that she never warmed up at full volume. After her performance at Starbucks, it became obvious that she should have. She would have known that her voice was little thin and could have made adjustments.
There was a reason that she didn’t…
All day long, we would see and hear people singing aloud. Some were really singing. However, most of the others were desperately trying to get someone to pay attention to them. Cakes didn’t want to be like that so she just warmed up softly.
To me, it feels like tripping on an untied shoelace! Next year, she’ll blow the hair off everyone around her and then go audition!
