Sunday 22nd November,2015

I am in a band at school. There are four of us and all though we do love to play and we all love  music we have varying tastes and limited time to practice. We have done a few performances in our time but it has only ever been the one song. We always have to find a song that everyone accepts, one that has enough complicated guitar for John and enough outlandish drumming for Rob whilst having vocals that i can just about get away with! Two weeks ago Rob told us all that in three weeks time (but only two school weeks) we had been asked to play in a charity concert and to fill a 25 minute slot! There was great excitement and discussion as to whether we could do it but the overwhelming opinion was to accept the challenge. Fortunately as we were able to play six songs each member could chose their own song and then we would mutually agree on the last two. We had great diversity with the range being between Song 2 by blur and Pretty green by the jam! Practice started almost immediately and the progress over the next week or so was immense but still with just a few days before the concert we were not where we should have been. I also realised that although we nearly had it, i had been reading the lyrics on my phone the whole time and had not yet learnt them. I replayed the songs over and over with every opportunity and could just about get through one from start to finish in practice but I was sure that with the nerves on the actual night all lyrics would be chased out of my head. The Saturday came and we all went out for supper beforehand and had a few drinks to help steady our nerves. Eventually it was our slot and as we walked onto the stage the crowd erupted in cheers and shouted our names. This was an incredible lift for our confidence and we grew more and more comfortable, our opening song was view of an afternoon by The Arctic Monkeys and the lyrics flowed out of my mouth as if they had always been there. For all of the songs to come it was the same, occasionally I would repeat a verse by accident but no one noticed and it was a great success! I had a great time and as did the rest of the band, now we are just waiting for a next invitation…!