1. For fun. I like being a part of certain cultural phenomenon (i.e. iPhone 4 overnight line, certain movie opening nights, etc.). If nothing else, it thought it would be cool to someday tell my grandkids "When I was younger, we had this ridiculous TV phenomenon called American Idol and, yeah, I auditioned once."
2. To prove something. I have been doing music and band related stuff for my entire life, but I've never really done much as a singer. Up until 2 years ago, I considered myself a guitar player exclusively; in the last few years, I have begun to work on improving my singing as its own craft. I am no vocal virtuoso, but I wanted to see how I stood up under the pressure and the scrutiny.
3. For the possibility. Going into this experience, I had no delusions that I would walk away as the "Next...American Idol" (insert Ryan Seacrest voice here), but it couldn't hurt to give it a shot. In all honesty, I don't know that I would have wanted to participate in the TV competition part, but I would have liked to go to the Hollywood week. That section of the show always seems like a crash course in reality for a working musician.
I told myself that if I was going to do this, all the pieces would have to fall into place easily. My wife and I ended up having one extra free airline ticket that got me to San Fran for free. My bass player, Kristal, has a good friend in the Bay area who had an extra room for me to stay, again for free. Super big thanks to Lily and her roommates, Chris, Katie, and Emily for letting me crash these last 3 nights!! I had a few extra dollars of spending cash from doing some recording work last month. After 4 days of meals and transportation, I have enough money to the penny to get back to the airport this afternoon...hooray frugality!
Here is a timeline of my experiences this week. I have included some pictures and videos.
Tuesday, August 17th
5:00a - My plane landed in beautiful San Francisco. I spent a few hours finding coffee and figuring out the public transportation system. I decided to go straight to AT&T Park to get in line for the registration.
7:00a - I arrived at the park. I never expected to be freezing in California, but being right on the bay is dang cold! When I arrived, there were already several thousand people in line ahead of me. The auditions were to occur in the order of registration, so it was good that I got there as early as I did. I got to meet and hang out with a bunch of cool people in the line, which helped pass the time more quickly.
10:30a - I finished the registration process, received my ticket and wristband, and started figuring out how to get to the house I was staying at. All in all, the process went pretty quickly. I found a nearby Borders, where I borrowed the wifi and plotted out my bus route.
12:30p - By now, I am starting to get pretty tired; I only slept for 3 hours on the plane the night before. When I was a little younger, I could deal with that much better. By this time, the sun had come out and I could feel the need to nap in the sun. I walked across the street to a lovely little park by the lake, and promptly fell asleep on a park bench.
6:00p - I napped on and off all afternoon. Around this time, some of the roommates had arrived at the house. After exchanging some conversation, they invited me to eat some tacos with them. After dinner, I turned my attention to se rmon prep and various other tasks that I needed to accomplish.
Wednesday, August 18th
10:00a - I was glad to get to sleep in a bit after my short night of sleep the day before. I decided to go exploring in the immediate vicinity of the house. I found a little coffee shop where I enjoyed a decent, if a bit mild, americano. I also explored quite a bit of the park across the street; there's a golf course, an archery range, a soccer field, several lakes with ducks and miniature boats, and a giant Dutch windmill. I also made my way down to the beach, which was less than a half mile away from the house.
1:00p - Lily had some meetings to go to downtown, and she invited me to tag along and do some sightseeing. I wandered through Chinatown, which is apparently the most population dense neighborhood in the entire United States. I spent a good amount of time inside two incredibly large and incredibly ornate Catholic Churches.
6:00p - We arrived back at the house and made dinner. After dinner, I typed out my answers to the American Idol "Biography" questionnaire. They ask things like "What famous singers do you get compared to?" or "What is interesting or unique about you?" I worked pretty hard on the bio, because I thought it would be something that could help me stand out from the crowd.
8:00p - I hit the hay early, because the instructions said to arrive at the venue by at least 5:00am. Lordy!
Thursday, August 19th
3:30a - Curiously, I woke up before my alarm actually went off. I caught a cab, and arrived at AT&T park at 4:00. I shuffled in, near the front of the crowd, and found myself a piece of pavement where I tried (in vain) to get a little extra sleep.
7:00a - After waiting much longer than anticipated, the producers arrived and began giving instructions to all us Idol hopefuls. The purpose for having everybody show up so early is to get those crowd shots that they use throughout the early episodes of the show. We did a few practice takes of cheers and chants, then...the one, the only...Ryan Seacrest appeared on the scene. He did his classic "We're here in beautiful San Franblahblahblahblah and this...is A-MER-ican Idol" - quick cut to crowd - crowd shouts like a bunch of crazy people - signs are waved - exciting TV is made...or something.
8:30a - At long last, we were finally let into the park, so that we could....wait some more. We did a bunch more "excited crowd" shots, then Bo Bice came out and sang "We Will Rock You" to us. That was pretty much the highlight of my entire life (insert sarcasm emoticon here).
9:30a - By about this time, the producers had made their way to their tents to begin screening applicants. In case you were wondering, the TV judges do NOT see all 6,000 applicants. There is a team of 20 or so TV producers, A&R reps, music producers, and the like who do the initial screening for the contestants. If you make it past them, you are sent inside to audition again for the show's executive producers. It is at this stage, not the first, where they read your bio and see if you have an interesting story. If you make it through the second stage, then and only then do you get the opportunity to appear before the show's TV judges. Incidentally, as of the time of my writing this, they don't even know who those judges are going to be! The peo ple who make it through will get a call back, probably in a few months from now.
2:00p - It was getting very close to being my section. I had eaten some food, drank plenty of water, and warmed up my voice pretty well. Speaking of warming up, there were SO MANY incredibly good singers in the crowd. Here's my estimated breakdown of the crowd assembled:
- 60%: good to very good singers. Lots of people warming up their voices, playing guitar, etc. I imagine that most of these people could make it on the radio if given the chance.
- 20%: VERY good singers. Lots of R&B divas (both male and female) doing incredible vocal runs, rock singers doing powerhouse vocal performances, etc. These people could all be "legends" if given the right opportunities.
- 19%: Terrible singers without a clue. Most of the people warming made me want to stop and listen for a while, but every now and then I heard something that sounded like the restringing of a violin. These people should not be singing, but apparently nobody had ever told them that.
- 1%: The weirdos. The people who are just trying to be freaks and get on TV. A guy in a devil costume. Another guy in a "castaway" outfit. A dude in a full-body spandex suit on those moon-jumping-pogo-stilts.
What's amazing is how the show will do the editing to focus on the prominence of the weirdos and the bad singers. I was literally blown away by the all the talent I found around me. From my seat in the crowd, I could hear people with incredible voices being sent home after a 10 second audition without so much as a second chance. I started to get nervous...
2:40p - MY TIME HAD FINALLY ARRIVED. After being at the park fo r almost 11 hours, my section was instructed to stand up, and make our way onto the field. We were lined up in groups of 4, and my group was told to go stand in front of booth number 6. There were 2 groups of 4 in front of us. 7 of the 8 in front of us were sent home. Only one girl, and oddly dressed high school junior with a soft and soothing voice, was sent through. Upon invitation, our group stepped forward and began to sing one by one. I sang the chorus of The All American Rejects' "Move Along" in the key of C#. I felt pretty good about it. I was cut off after about 13 seconds. (Everybody was). After a few quick glances and murmured words between the two British judges, they said (and I quote): "Great job, you guys. You all have very nice voices, thanks for singing. But, it's a no for today. Thanks again."
And that...was...it.
An idol worker came up to me, snipped off my wristband and pointed me toward the exit. On my way out, I bumped into Nigel Lythgoe, one of the show's creators and producers. He also is a producer/judge of So You Think You Can Dance. I said hello and thanked him for the opportunity. He was very friendly and approachable. When I asked him if the show would ever make another trip to Alaska, he laughed and said "probably not. Do you know how much of a pain in the ass is is to bring the whole TV show to Alaska?" I responded with "Well, how do you think I feel?!" We exchanged a laugh and a few other pleasantries, and I walked out of the stadium to call my wife and let her know how it went.
3:00p - I ended up walking around downtown for a long time. I walked probably 6 miles in Converse in hilly San Francisco just decompressing from a long and slightly disappointing day. I found a place called "King of Falafel" where I was served the national food of Israel by two Latino women who were watching Hannah Montana. Also, an Asian guy wearing a kilt came in after a few minutes. It was a surreal experience.
6:30p - I made it home, and fell asleep almost instantly. I woke up once in the night to use the bathroom, but slept until 9:30 the next morning.
Friday, August 20th
10:30 - I had the BEST cup of coffee ever at a little hole in the wall called Simple Pleasures. I haven't felt sad, or defeated, or even like the trip was a waste at all. I reflected on the previous day's events with a certain fondness as I will never forget the experience. My plane leaves San Fran at 7:00p this evening, so I came home to pack, shower, and work on this blog.
This is a little bit more like a journal entry for me. I have all sorts of cultural, theological, sociological thoughts on the American Idol show and the process, but I will save those for another post. This one is for all my friends and family who wanted to hear about the experience. Hopefully, the pictures and videos can help it come to life a little bit more for you.
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