Oak Kitten
12-03-2008, 05:08 PM
Monday was the day of the third annual talent show at work to benefit the Combined Federal Campaign. I performed "Play Like A Girl." I even found a t-shirt on the Cafe Press website with "Play Like A Girl" and a pink electric guitar on it, which I wore. I dedicated the song "to all the ladies in the audience who have ever been told they couldn't do something because they were a girl." Which, let's face it, is pretty much all of us. I had the video folks post the lyrics to the chorus up on the screen so the audience (which happened to be mostly women) could sing along. They got into it. Even some of the guys sang along too - I dared them. The audience loved it.
I was also asked to sit in on the Djembe to back up someone else who was performing the "Girl from Ipanema" on the xylophone. There was also a bongo player. We ran through it once before the show, and it was okay. Then for the show, the xylophone player invited 2 random people from the audience to come up and play sticks and one of those wooden box thingies. Well they are standing on either side of me whacking away, and cannot keep a beat. The Girl from Ipanema walked straight off the pier somewhere in the middle of the song, much to the amusement of the audience. But hey, it's all in good fun.
I succeeded in convincing the other performers to participate in a finale number, which I introduced by talking about the tough times we all are facing these days, and telling the audience that we were going to sing an inspirational song and asked them to join in if they knew it. I finger picked a couple a chords and started slowly:
Everybody's doing a brand new dance now . . .
My fellow performers sang back-up:
C'mon baby, do the locomotion . . .
We did the first verse, choir-like, then we picked up the tempo, the bongos and the other guitar players joined in, and the other female singer, who is really good - she sang an Ella Fitzgerald song for her act - picked up the lead vocal and we launched in full blast. The audience was clapping and singing along, we even got a few folks to move around the floor in a locomotion.
And we raised over $400 for CFC, which was the whole point of the exercise. It was a blast. We also had a couple of new guitar players this year who are really good. One used to be in the Naval Academy band - playing guitar was his full time active duty job. Sweet.
Today someone saw me in the Ladies Room and said, "I can't get that song (PLAG) out of my head!" Mission accomplished.
Oak
I was also asked to sit in on the Djembe to back up someone else who was performing the "Girl from Ipanema" on the xylophone. There was also a bongo player. We ran through it once before the show, and it was okay. Then for the show, the xylophone player invited 2 random people from the audience to come up and play sticks and one of those wooden box thingies. Well they are standing on either side of me whacking away, and cannot keep a beat. The Girl from Ipanema walked straight off the pier somewhere in the middle of the song, much to the amusement of the audience. But hey, it's all in good fun.
I succeeded in convincing the other performers to participate in a finale number, which I introduced by talking about the tough times we all are facing these days, and telling the audience that we were going to sing an inspirational song and asked them to join in if they knew it. I finger picked a couple a chords and started slowly:
Everybody's doing a brand new dance now . . .
My fellow performers sang back-up:
C'mon baby, do the locomotion . . .
We did the first verse, choir-like, then we picked up the tempo, the bongos and the other guitar players joined in, and the other female singer, who is really good - she sang an Ella Fitzgerald song for her act - picked up the lead vocal and we launched in full blast. The audience was clapping and singing along, we even got a few folks to move around the floor in a locomotion.
And we raised over $400 for CFC, which was the whole point of the exercise. It was a blast. We also had a couple of new guitar players this year who are really good. One used to be in the Naval Academy band - playing guitar was his full time active duty job. Sweet.
Today someone saw me in the Ladies Room and said, "I can't get that song (PLAG) out of my head!" Mission accomplished.
Oak