65 MEGABYTES - BIOGRAPHY {Page 4}

PONTINS / ROCK-IT MUSIC: TALENT CONTEST {Part 2}

Well, After I Got Over The Shock Of Winning The Semi Finals In Hemsby, I Now Had To Prepare For The Heats And The Grand Finals In The Most Dazzling Place In England..... BLACKPOOL .....


I Was Informed, That A Total Of 53 Contestants Had Advanced At Pontins All Over England..... And I Was One Of Them..... They Told Me That There Would Be 4 Heats All In One Day, Each Containing 12 Contestants (Naturally, One Of Them Had An Extra Candidate), And Three From Each Heat Would Advance Through To The GRAND FINAL To Be Held The Next Day, So There Would Be A Total Of Twelve On The Final Night.....


The Judges Were Normal People Who Were Staying On Holiday Anyway, But They Volunteered To Judge The Contest Fairly.....


I Was Placed In The 1st Heat, But Was Randomly Drawn To Be The Very LAST Person In This Specific Heat..... Yep, It Looked Like I Would Be Closing Off This Heat.....


After All Four Heats, The Judges All Picked Three Competitors From Each Heat To Advance Through To The Semi Finals..... The Fourth Heat Had Ended At 5:30, And We All Had To Wait Until Midnight That Same Day To Hear Who Would Be Performing On The Final Night..... To Ease The Tension, We All Gathered In The Local Bar To Have Some Drinks To Calm Our Nerves (I Don't Drink Alcohol, But If You Could Get Drunk On Coca Cola, I Would Have Been Rat-Arsed)..... Also To Help Take Our Minds Off The Upcoming Announcement, The Entertainments Manager Of The Resort Organised Some Games For Us All To Play, I Wont Go Into Details.....


So Anyway, After What Seemed Like An Eternity, Midnight Finally Came, And The Guy In Charge Of The Show Itself, Came Up To The Front And Explained What Would Happen, I Quote His Words Exactly (Well, As Best As I Can Remember Anyway):

"Right, Well, Before We Announce Who Will Be Taking Part In The Starquest Talent Contest Grand Final, I Think We Should Give All The Competitors A Huge Round Of Applause {Applause}, They All Worked Very Hard To Get This Far, And Now, Unfortunately, Only 12 Can Go Through.....


Right, Now, Here's What Will Happen..... Earlier Today, Our Judges Chose The Twelve Lucky Finalists That Will Be Performing Again Tomorrow Night, And All Twelve Names Were Written Down Onto 12 Small Pieces Of Paper..... All Those Names Have Been Placed Inside This Drum {"Do You See Where This Is Going?"}, And When We Draw Out A Name, It Will Also Correspond To Your Performance Number Tomorrow Night.....


For Example, If Your Name Is Drawn Out On The 7th Drawing, You Will Be The 7th Competitor To Get Up There To Perform On The Night Itself..... Simple Really? But Now, I Know You Are All Dying To Know Who Is Going Through, So Let's Begin..........

Well, To Cut A Long Story A Little Bit Shorter, My Name Was Drawn Out 6th..... Which Meant I Would Have To Perform As The Sixth Act Of Twelve Contestants..... Well, It's REALLY Stressful To Be The Opening Act, And REALLY Stressful Having To Wait If You're The Last Act, So This Way, I Was Half Way In The Middle Which Wasn't So Bad..... But More Importantly, It Meant I Actually Advanced To The Grand Finals To Be Held The Very Next Night.....


And So, I Had Made It Through To The Final Twelve..... I Was Quite Shocked To Actually Be There Amongst The Original 53 Contestants, But To Actually Have Made It Through To The Final 12, Was Even More Shocking.....


Anyway, Once I'd Got The Word That I Had Advanced To The Finals, I Immediately Went Back To The Room I Was Staying In And I Performed Some Additional Vocal Exercises.....


The Next Day, We Were All Given The Oppurtunity To Have One Final Rehearsal With Our Backing Tapes, And Naturally, We All Turned Up..... At The End Of The Rehearsal, We Were All Informed That There Would Be A Celebrity Hosting The Show That Evening, But We Wouldn't Be Informed Until Later That Night As To Who It Would Be.....


Well, The Evening Finally Arrived And Before The Performance, We Were All Invited To A Large Banquet DInner For The Performers And Their Guests..... It Was Alright, Except EVERY Single Meal Had Something In It Which I Simply Couldn't Eat..... So I Had To Sit Through All The Meals And Wait For Desert..... But Ohh, That Desert Was WELL Worth The Wait.....


Once The Meal Was Over, We Were All Taken Backstage To Prepare For Our Final Performances..... There, We Were Informed That The Man Who Would Be Presenting The Show, Introducing Us, And Having A Few Short Words Wth Us After Each Of Our Performances, Would Be None Other, Than.......... SHANE RITCHIE!


So, With Shane RItchie As Our Guest Host, And With 11 Other Great Acts To Compete, My Throat Was Officially As Dry As A Sahara Desert.....


But Nevertheless, I Knew I Couldn't Give Up Now, So I Sat Backstage Sipping On Some Water To Help My Voice, While Good Ol' Shane Ritchie Announced For Each Individual To Make Their Way To The Stage..... And Finally, It Came To My Turn.....


It Truly Was An Awesome Feeling To Actually Be Introduced Onto The Stage By A Celebrity Like Shane Ritchie, And It Felt Like I Was Performing In Front Of The Entire List Of People Who Were Booked Into The Resort, There Were So Many People There, The Hall We Were Performing In Was Huge, But It Was Completely Full.....


After The Performance, I Had A Few Words On Stage With Shane, Then I Went To The Backstage Area, To Continue Drinking Water To Calm My Nerves.....


Eventually, It Was Announced That I Had Not Won The Contest, That Distinct Honor Was Placed Upon A Duet Act Consisting Of Two Girls.....


The Night Wasn't A Total Loss However, After It Was All Said And Done, I Still Received An Invitation To Record A One Track CD In The Rock-It Music Studios.....


Although I DIdn't Win This Contest, I Know There Will Be Plenty More For Me To Enter At Later Dates, But At This Current Moment In Time, I Am Keeping My Options Open.....

WESTON-SUPER-MARE


Not Much To Write About This Event, But In Mid December 2001, At A Little Bar In Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset, I Performed A 15 Minute Set Including Two Of My Own Original Songs, "The Bad Touch (Eiffel 65 Mix)" By The Bloodhound Gang, And "The Real Slim Shady" By Eminem..... Now, I Didn't Win That Contest, But The Fact That I Actually Got To Debut Two Of My Own Original Songs, And That They Received A Great Crowd Reaction, Was A Fabulous Feeling.....




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