9:07 am. Being drawn 13th means that there is a lot of time to fill waiting around. Last on the bill. The band can either blow the adjudicators away or annoy them with mistakes.
All I know is that I need to stay calm over the next few hours.
9:37 am. Ordered a coffee and an orange juice from the hotel’s reception. Thoroughly bored.
11:19 am. By now I’ve updated my profile picture on Facebook to one of my family at my graduation for Mother’s Day, listened to some music and decided that being bored is probably the worst thing in the world. Following some comments on Twitter about other band’s performances, it seems that the first four or five of them are quite scrappy and inconsistent.
I stopped making little logs after this – mostly because I ended up in conversation with other people.
We were due at the venue for 12:55 at the latest. In between my last log and this time we had a brief rehearsal. Confidence was high.
The performance came and went. I missed a vital bar where only I was playing – but I can honestly say that is the only mistake I recall making. As the performance went on, the band made a few mistakes. St. George’s Hall has an odd stage, where it is hard to hear the band as a percussionist so a few things I will have missed entirely.
There was a rush to leave the dressing room and get to the hall for the results, being the last band to play.
No one really seemed happy with things. And it proved to be that we were ranked 7th out of 13. Not particularly wonderful and the adjudicators noted that no band really got a decent execution of Edward Gregson’s Essay today.
I do feel that, given another week of rehearsals, I could have gotten on top of the things that I was less confident about. But that time just wasn’t there for me – mainly because I was asked to help them out at a very late stage. It also meant that, to be honest, I didn’t really mind not doing well. I don’t have an affection for the piece or the band. It meant something to me that Knottingley Silver, who I have worked with in the past, did quite well – I smiled when their name was announced in the top 6.
Still, there is always next year, if someone asks me to play for them.
In short: the day consisted of a lot of sitting around, having no lunch, being thoroughly bored and ultimately being a little disappointed.
