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New Orleans Trip, American Idol: The Audition

This post was written Thu, Jul 29 2010 at 7:46 pm.

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If you have missed any of my New Orleans Weekend blog posts up to this point, you’re totally out of the loop on ALL the Bloggers on Bourbon excitement! Get caught up by clicking here and reading the posts listed on the page: New Orleans Weekend :)

The original plan was to be at the audition venue (the New Orleans Arena) at 5am, which was the earliest listed time we were allowed to line up. After reading several blogs by people who had auditioned in the past, I decided it wasn’t really worth it. I already had my ticket so my section was determined before I even arrived on audition day; plus, the general consensus was that we wouldn’t actually get into the venue for 2-4 hours after arriving if we went at 5am. Those of you who know me well are fully aware of how much I dislike heat. I dislike sweat even more and anyone who has ever been to south Louisiana knows that the humidity PULLS sweat out of you within minutes of being outside. Considering all of this, I figured we’d sleep til about 7, get up and have some breakfast from the hotel, get dressed, and drive down to the Arena.

We got up the next morning just as planned. I went down and had some yogurt, fruit, and a banana nut muffin as well as some juice, got ready for the audition, and we drove over to the Arena. We got awesome parking – right out front – for $1.50 per hour and then walked around the SuperDome to the Arena. Since Barry hadn’t registered with me on Saturday (even though he was WITH me, no one mentioned he needed to register also…) we thought we would try to fight our way through the crowd to get up to the front because we had about 10 minutes before they would stop registration.

I wasn’t sure if he would be able to register at this point but it was worth a shot. Needless to say, no one was really thrilled about us pushing past people to get closer to the doors. I overheard, “Where do they think they are going?” and “Why are these people just skipping everybody like that?” as people expressed their disapproval of our actions. Oh well. They’d get over it. I’ll never see any of those people again in my life so I didn’t really care how they felt about it. All I knew is I wanted my husband inside with me… not to mention, hotel checkout was at 11am and we were already tight on funds when we GOT to New Orleans so it was a given than there was pretty much nothing for him to do for the HOURS I would be inside the Arena unless he could get in also.

We finally saw a guy with a camera and an American Idol shirt on so we stopped and asked him if Barry would still be able to register. He directed us to a chick and she said it was no rush; he would still be able to register once we got inside. YAY! But it turns out that pushing our way up to THAT point totally paid off because by this time, they were opening the doors and letting people in. Oh, but wait. They were only letting people in from the front of the line down to the very point where we were standing LOL! We were outside less than 20 minutes. Can you say I didn’t even break a sweat?! SWEEEEET! This is a photo I took of the folks who got left behind to suffer the heat a while longer as we entered the building. :) Sorry, people. You should be more pushy next time hehe <— That is a joke for those who are too slow to “get it” :) That kind of worked out purely by accident.

We got inside and sure enough, there was a table right there ready to register those who hadn’t registered before. The sucky thing was that he was seated in like section 124 and I was in 114 which is clear on the other side of the stadium, but at least he was inside which meant we could eat together and walk around together while we waited on them to process all the sections before mine.

We had Dominoes from the top level and I practiced with several different groups of people which calmed my nerves significantly. Most of the people I heard had rather strong voices… which made it especially encouraging that so many of these people seemed blown away when I sang, but yet had amazing voices themselves. One of the guys I practiced with shocked me when he started singing — and he came up later and asked me to let him record me singing Etta James, “At last,’ which was really sweet. I was told that if I didn’t make it, the whole thing was rigged. I felt sure I would get accepted… everyone seemed so confident and so supportive of me! There were awesome people there… super cool.

Ryan Seacrest talking to all the American Idol hopefuls…

They played a minute-long clip of all the American Idol winners
and some finalists on this thingie which was inspiring; everyone loved it!

When they started lining people up after they set up all the judging booths, it instantly became obvious how many freaks were in the crowd. LOL Here is Dorothy and Toto… you know, from the Wizard of Oz? Oh, and by the way – YES, she got a golden ticket and skipped off to follow the yellow brick road to the next set of judges. *jaw drop* Seriously? Hmmm… I wonder if Toto got his own ticket?

Reptar… from the Rugrats cartoon. Sadly, Reptar didn’t make it.

To all you future American Idol auditionees, here’s a bit of advice from this guy… If you don’t make it, don’t take no for an answer. No, really… Instead, drop down and start crying and begging and guess what!? They will give you a ticket. Yep. They will. I saw it with my own two eyes. Then be sure to point up to the heavens and thank God above for making all of this possible… you know, for giving you the gall to beg.

See Tinkerbell there? She made it. Yep, she earned her wings. LOL

I don’t know if this chick made it or not, but I couldn’t NOT photograph this hair.

Barry and I met back up in the food court area and grabbed a table where I could exercise my vocals and mingle with some other Idol hopefuls as they continued to process the sections. By this point, they were on 109 and moving pretty quickly toward mine – 114. I was nervous, especially since every time I started singing, people stopped to listen and then gave me feedback and told me how natural I was at this. I’m one of those people who are uncomfortable when people compliment me. I always feel undeserving and I don’t know how to respond, but I appreciate it greatly because it does boost my confidence and make me feel more “ready” to take on the world… or an American Idol judge, either one. :)

Finally, my section was up. This was it. My time to shine. I had busted up my nerves for the bloggers Friday night. I had busted up my nerves belting it out walking down the street. I had busted up my nerves singing in front of everyone on the upper level of the Arena. Now, my nervousness had turned to anxiousness. I was just ready to hum for the judges and get my yellow ticket. Completely strangers had told me if I didn’t make it through, they would lose all faith in the audition process for American Idol. Surely the judges would see what everyone else saw, right? The thing I hated about this part of the audition was that no one interviewed you. No one asked you for a synopsis of your story; no one knew who you were or what you could bring to the table. No one knew how they could — or couldn’t — market you for the show. You didn’t even have a name yet — only a number.

I waved to Barry as the first guy in my line started singing. The judge seemed super cool and very receptive, which made me feel better about the fact that THIS booth only had ONE judge. He finished his first selection and she smiled and asked him if he had another. He did. He sang it. She asked for another. Yes, a third selection. He was okay. I mean, he could carry a tune, but he wasn’t anything you’d really get excited about. Unless you were her I suppose… She thanked him, then prompted the second guy to step up. He was 16, sang a super old tune. She asked for something else. He sang something else. She asked for something more contemporary. He couldn’t think of anything. Anything. At. All. She smiled, told him to step back in line and think of something else – she would come back to him. Seriously? Wow. She’s really cool. Or so I thought. I stepped up, started singing and KILLED Alicia Keys as I sung Fallin’ at the top of my lungs with everything I had. She waved after a few seconds (seriously, like 10 seconds…) and I stepped back in line.

The chick to my left sung her selection with a strong, steady voice and stepped back. The judge asked the second dude to step up and he sang some chick song which had me laughing on the inside. He had a nice voice, but you could hear the nervousness just about as much as you could hear mine Friday night when I sang for Bloggers on Bourbon. You had to kind of listen for his voice because it wasn’t really apparent. You could tell he would blow it out of the park if he were in a more comfortable environment, but here… he just wasn’t spectacular. He stepped back. Then came the judgement: “All of you did great; unfortunately for both of my ladies, this is the end of the line.” I was in disbelief. My first thought was, “You’re letting US go and keeping THEM?!” but all I could get out of my mouth was, “Can’t WE sing another selection like you just let THEM do… TWICE?!” She nodded. “No, I’m sorry.” And that was that. The end of the line.

My husband jumped over the barriers the staff had in place and threw his water in the trash can, walked over to me, put his arm around me, and told me I did my thing and that they are stupid. As we walked out, a cameraman came up and asked me how it went. Well I’m walking out of the non-winners door so how do you think it went, idiot? Before I could say anything, my husband saw the tears forming in my eyes and got in front of the camera and simply said, “This contest is rigged. Period.” I tweeted to let all of you guys know I didn’t make it… we got to the car and I cried to myself for a few minutes while Barry tried to cheer me up. Then we headed to Hattiesburg to get our kiddos. I don’t really have a reaction at this point. I’m disappointed, obviously. I was SO concerned that I wouldn’t be able to fight my nerves; that I would screw it up… but now I see it really didn’t matter. I had nothing to be scared about because it’s not about how talented you are or how well you do.

I almost wish I would have frozen up or my voice would have cracked — at least then, I would be dealing with the frustration of me having stagefright and them having a reason to dismiss me rather than dealing with the frustration of performing perfectly and being sent home along with all of the other outstanding talent they passed on that day. Then, I got home and started reading through the comments for the New Orleans auditions on the American Idol website and the only judge I read anything negatively about was judge #10. Mine. The chick that decided I couldn’t cut it… that I wasn’t going to have a shot at being the next American Idol. The only yellow tickets she was handing out that day was to either mediocre talent or horrible trainwrecks. Here are a few of the comments from that day (taken from the American Idol website):

See, I told you someone begged for a ticket and got one LOL (below)

Complaint about judge #10 (below)

Another complaint about judge #10 –
response to the first commenter (below)

Complaint about judge #10 — again lol (below)

Plea for God’s mercy on judge #10 LOL! (below)

Yet another complaint about judge #10 (below)

… and another complaint about judge #10 (below)

You guessed it. Again, judge #10 (below)

I actually mentioned the section 117 chick on Twitter.

She sang “I’ve Got Nothing” and EVERYONE cheered her! (below)

Still cranking out those complaints about judge #10 (below)

That’s pretty much it. I gave it my all, which is all I could do. I’m certainly not giving up as I don’t have “give up” in my blood… but I have to admit I’m disappointed and downright disgusted at the way things went once I got in the American Idol audition process. I am one of those naive people that believe things are fair and that talent searches actually are searches for talent. Call me crazy, but it made sense to me before :)