Saturday, July 25, 2009

American Idol Auditions







A lot of you know that my daughter recently auditioned for AI. I thought I would share some of the images with you, so you could see a little more of the process and the day.
First off, we registered the day before. Pretty easy. Just show them a driver's license, and another form of ID, and receive a wristband. Mine is blue because I'm not auditioning. Her's orange, because she is. They were picky about wristbands and we couldn't take them home as a souvenir. They cut them off as we left.
The next day we got up early, early, to get in line. However, our promptness paid off! We got to be in the opening shots for the Denver auditions. Yes, we will be little pinheads in a sea of other people. But we will be one of only a few hundred heads that made the opening shots, instead of the many thousand that were there!
After saying, "I'm the next American idol" and "Welcome to Denver" a bunch of times, outside of Invesco we were ushered into the stadium where we found our preassigned seat. There's Steph above, waiting patiently in hers.
Then, came our next TV appearance. They taught 9000 people harmony to a Carrie Underwood song. When you get that many people, most of who have really good voices, singing parts they learned in 15 minutes, it sounded amazingly good! Afterward, we got to say "I'm the next American Idol" a bunch more times. Yes, even I was a part of all this. Every person is allowed to bring one supporter. The camera doesn't differentiate between auditioners and supporters, so all the supporters got to join in.
Finally, came the waiting. Waiting in the hot, hot sun, for a long, long time. But, because it is AI, there was lots of singing while waiting. I felt like we were in a scene from Fame. People singing in groups, in the stands, and in the walkways of the stadium. Individuals spontaneously bursting into song in the stands. You can see two guys with guitars in the middle of the sea of sunbrellas in the third photo above. And, they were good! Ryan Seacrest even made an appearance, interviewing throughout the crowd, but he was pretty far away from us.
Then Steph got her 20 second chance at fame (see the last shot). Nine producers lined up with 4 auditioners in front of each producer. Go, go, go, go. Thank you for playing American Idol. We saw very few people get to go through the magic doorway with a golden ticket. Once through that doorway, we heard they faced more producers, more auditions, and the possibility of coming back in six weeks to audition for the celebrity judges. The "supporters" couldn't go onto the field, so that is why the last photo is taken from so far away.
And now, the answer to the burning question. Did Steph make it? Well, no she didn't. But the girl on roller skates, and the guy with the awful voice, that was jumping around wildly, and flailing his arms did. lol. Steph said there was a guy in her group that was really good. He didn't make it either. Neither did the guy from Arkansas sitting next to us, or the kid and his mom from South Dakota in front of us, or the guy in a band playing around Denver, or the girls from Vail besides us, or the other nice family from Albuquerque in front of us......you get the picture.
All in all, it was only time we wasted for an experience we can talk about for years. Our chance to see what the process was all about, and maybe, just maybe, catch a glimpse of ourselves on one of the top rated show in the nation come January!




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