Christmas performances

Christmas means office parties. Which also means programs with musical performances. So yeah, you guessed it. I got to sing again. A couple of times.

The Christmas party of our department was on December 2, Thursday. I initially signed up to sing 'Magasin'. It's my favorite Eraserheads songs by a mile and I was so psyched to perform it (would've been the first time I got to perform an OPM song in an office event too). However, we were asked to perform Taio Cruz's 'Dynamite' to officially open the evening proceedings. The band assigned that song to me since they felt that it was a song I could pull that off well and since both songs would be performed one after the other (Magasin was the last song of the lead-up to the event proper), it made sense to have someone else sing the Eraserheads song. Too bad! Thankfully, I love Dynamite too so I was at least trading one song I love for another. The fact that it was current and very lively helped set the mood for the party, too.

'Dynamite' by Taio Cruz:


video uploaded in youtube by user stirYzer

I sang one more party song that night - 'Club can't handle me' by Flo Rida - at the end of our final set which came after the program was officially closed, but by that time, most of the folks were outside getting drinks so we were left with a fairly small crowd partying with us inside. Didn't matter, this was practice since we needed a dry run for 'Club can't handle me'. Why? Coz we were performing it the next night live while the dance group performed along with us. We needed to get it down pat to make sure our timing and all our cues were perfect to make sure the dancers wouldn't miss a beat.

The Christmas party for the entire office was held the next night, on December 3, Friday. I was initially supposed to sing a lot of songs, including a Beatles medley a Jay Sean medley. But the lack of preparation time led us to drop several of these medleys. I also begged off a couple of other songs, like singing back-up in 21 Guns and joining the A Cappella performance of Teenage Dream, since my workload was the most intense is has ever been in years.

Nevertheless, I still got to perform two songs apart from our reprise of "Club can't handle me" (which turned out to be a great performance, what with our collaboration with the dancers). The first was the original version of "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey. It was someone else's idea to put this song in our play list but I was asked if I could sing the male part in what was supposed to be the Glee version of the song. However, as the band spent time learning the song, they felt it was better to do it in the original Journey key, which for most males is very hard to sing with all its high Bs and even the C#s. I was doing well with it during practice but my unbelievable work load left me with an average of 4-5 hours of sleep leading up to the event so I had tonsillitis that night. Some extra rest the night before and a lot of Kamillosan (and most likely adrenaline as well) helped me get by. It wasn't the cleanest performance but I think it was generally acceptable.

Don't Stop Believing by Journey:


video uploaded in youtube by blobb54

My last performance that night was the Queen medley with the rest of the vocalists. I sang back-up in 'We are the champions' and 'We will rock you' and had solo parts in 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. But what made my day was performing 'Somebody to Love'. Finally! I told my bandmates that I had been wanting to sing that song for years but never had the opportunity 'til now. My voice was a bit hoarse and it wasn't my best performance, but the important thing was that I got to finally do it. Who knows, maybe there will be another opportunity for me to sing that song with a clear voice in the future. :)