I still remember it crystal clear when I first decided to put my cello skills into an unconventional quasi-soft-rock band. To be honest, I had no idea what I was getting myself into and I didn't care simply because I wanted to have some fun playing music. For once in a big blue moon, do what I like doing - making music with my cello. No ridiculous deadlines to meet, no corporate politics, no KPIs to meet and all the other blasphemies of today's hectic world.
In fact, the entire were made of part time musicians having full time jobs as accountants, lawyers, engineers and engineers-to-be so much so that scheduling for a band practise was real task. But when we finally got together to jam it out, we had good fun just jamming our instruments to high heavens trying to make good music, or at least that was the goal!
Band practise didn't really take off until maybe 5 weeks before the performance date and I think we probably only had 1 practise session per week leading up to the performance. So it was very much a race against time. It's strange that the 2 hour sessions we had were really fun despite the fact that we were always trying to coordinate better as a band working our communications, timing, rhythm, adding on to the song to add some zest to it. We did covers of the songs but at the same time we wanted to add our feel, our emotions into it. It was a tiring process, stressing our imaginative brain juice.
Came the performance date, most of us in the band got nervous. Out of the six of us only two of us had real on-stage experiences in the past. Me having played with an orchestra and the lead guitarist who has done a couple of gigs over the last few years. It was the first time for the rest of them.
We played five songs of which I really cannot say we played them well having fumbled as a band with the beats and timing after having just viewed the footage of our performance this evening at my mate's house over dinner. The drummer really struggled with the nerves and made syncing the band tough on stage, the vocalist took a while to get cracking, and all the other bloopers you would expect from first timers. Eventually we did get the cheers from the crowd but whether they were giving us sympathy cheers or not, is something I would probably never know. It was really the first and the funniest performance I have ever done in my entire music 'career'.
As I type this post whilst on my bed just before I go on to catch a shut eye, and think about it, it really isn't about the glamour of being on stage rocking it out like how you see big bands at concert. Hardly the Bon Jovi or Linkin Park rock tour. It's about the fellowship of friends sharing a common interest - to make music and to have heaps load of fun!
When I first joined the band (albeit a very ad-hoc), all the band members hardly knew each other except for the one founding member. Thinking back about it, the practise sessions weren't just about merging the musical minds, it was also a place where people became friends, and those who were already friends became buddies, and those who were already buddies became like family, and those who were family formed even stronger bonds.
Up till today, we have kept in touch with each other, laughing about the blooper-full performance we did that night. From it all, the first and the funniest performance became the epitome of friendship and bonding that is probably going to last for a long time......
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