HOW IT CAME TO BE....
One day, my friend Nicole said to me, "I just found out that they're casting for Canada Sings Season 2 and it closes in 2 days, and I want to put a WestJet Team together" She contacted our Business Advisor Colleen, who by the way has always performed and runs the Calgary Stampede Talent Show, and she was like "Yeah, lets do it!". Well, I am sure it was more professional than YEAH, but you get the gist.
2 days. That was not a lot of time to gather a group, learn our harmonies, pick a song, learn that song, pick a charity, pick a team name, make an audition tape, and mail it in. 2 days, or pass up the opportunity and hope there was a Season 3 of Canada Sings. Colleen and Nicole decided to go for it. How many? They didn't know. The strategy was to gather as many people as they could and see if they could make magic happen.
Magic happened folks.
Who did Colleen know that loves to sing? Well, she knew of a few professional singers from her inflight and Stampede days. She contacted Monica, Stephanie, Lianne, Dan and Suzanne from inflight. In the back office, she knew Liz, Laura, Dean and Jennie.
Who did Nicole know that loves to sing? Well, she knew that Yolanda and Pam were professional singers. That was it. She knew a year ago I tried to start a glee club with Michelle called Cabin Pressure, so she asked us. We were excited! We were happy to see Cabin Pressure alive again, Michelle had come with that fantastic name. She needed some guys, so she asked Dwayne, Brian and Shane to join us. Jesse heard about it from me, and asked to join. She emailed Nicole, and was told yes.
19 people.
Sadly, Michelle couldn't leave her post in the Command Center, and never got to join the new and improved Cabin Pressure.
18 people. We went into one of the training rooms and did introductions. Jesse and I kept looking at each other as we learned how amazing and talented most of our members were, and wondering "do we belong?"
From there we discussed the possible charities and agreed that we would choose the Alberta Children's Hospital, after hearing an emotional story from Jesse. Next, we tried to agree on a song. It was tough. We had limited choices to pick from and none of them felt right. We would like it, but then someone talented like Yolanda would point out that acapella style wouldn't sound good. We needed to sound good. Jennie and Dean pointed out a country version of "Born this way" by Lady Gaga. We agreed that would be better.
So we set out to sing "Born this way". I was blown away by the talent I heard. WOW! They asked me if I was an alto or soprano. I had no clue. I didn't know what an alto was! They asked me what note or key I was in. I was like "what?". Again, Jesse and I kept looking at each other with wide eyes.
In a matter of 3 hours, we had met, picked a song, picked a charity, learned the song, harmonized, and recorded the audition. It was mailed in to Canada Sings on time.
Then we waited.
The production team from Insight Productions who produces Canada Sings, came out to meet us in November. They liked what they saw, but wanted to know more before they made their decision. We did interviews, performed our song, had a dance off, and then solo's. It was stressful and exciting.
WE MADE IT!
Just before Christmas, we learned we had been chosen to perform on Season 2 of Canada Sings!! Holy crap.
Our producer Maureen came out to meet us and get a feel for who she would want featured for story lines. We had a fun time with her, and we got our measurements taken for costumes.
In January, we were told that we would have our bootcamp week on Feb 20th. Bootcamp was when we would meet our mentors. We would either have vocalist and choreographer team Sharron and Christian or the team of Scott and Kelly. They would come to us with a performance planned out and teach it to us in 5 days.
Bootcamp was awesome. Scott taught me I was an alto, but not just an alto, a high alto. It was a week of doubts, no confidence and tears. Then slowly came the triumphs. But then more frustrations. The best part of it all tho? The bonds. The friendships formed. I have a whole bunch of new friends, and our mentors too.
We saw the competition, the OPP. They were a smaller group and doing a performance that tied directly into their charity. I was freaked out. We moved on and got more motivated. We had our struggles and we had our triumphs. In the end, it was a big tear fest as we said goodbye to our mentors and promised them we would practice.
Practice we did! We did rehearsal's 2 to 3 times a week for 3 hours at a time at the end of our work days. We would record our rehearsal's and send them to Kelly and Scott, and they would email back praise and criticism. Then we would fix what they asked us to fix. We did this for 3 weeks. We were lucky to have Colleen, she has performed for years and managed performances as well. She knew exactly how to keep us focused, help us, direct us and praise us. By our last rehearsal, we were just nitpicking at our performance. Clap bigger, move those arms, smile! We had our performance and vocals down. That last rehearsal was on a Thursday, we said our goodbyes at the end and said "See you on Sunday, in Toronto".
OFF TO YYZ...
I was on the first flight departing at 7am, half of us were. The other half on the 8:30am departure on March 19th. I was tired, but couldn't sleep. We were an excited bunch. We landed and headed off to the folks holding signs that read "Canada Sings". We got on a shuttle and headed to our hotel. Check in took forever and we were late for where we needed to be. We had a guy named Steve trying to keep us on schedule.
First stop was wardrobe for a fitting. That took some time, and by the time we were done, the other plane had arrived. We did a group recording of our song in a recording studio that was two doors down from Vanilla Ice's dressing room. After that we were able to go eat and relax in our room for a bit while plane 2 folks did their wardrobe fitting. Afterwards, we were to dress up and go to a photo shoot.
I was tired and very hot and hungry. I got to my room and died. I ran a bath to cool me down. I was about to get in when I got called back to Wardrobe as they needed me again. I got dressed and ran to the theater (it was connected via a convention center to my hotel). I got there and realized I left a part of my undergarment in my room. But I was woozy and feeling ill. So Nicole went to my room and got it, she came back and dropped it off at Wardrobe. As I waited and worked with Wardrobe, Steve advised me I had no time to rest and eat, and I needed to run to my room and get my photo shoot outfit and make up. I texted Nicole and told her to meet me in hotel lobby as she had my room key. I got to the lobby and she calls me and tells me that its in the bag she had Shane drop off at wardrobe. I had to run back to the theater. I almost fainted. I was so exhausted and needed to eat. I got my key, went back to hotel. I threw up at that point. I ran a bath, and cooled down. I got a call from wardrobe that they were looking for me. I didn't get a chance to do my hair or make up. I grabbed my photo shoot clothes and ran! When I got to wardrobe, they knew something was wrong. They gave me juice, a sandwich, water and a fan to cool me down. Apparently the producers didn't like my costume and wardrobe had to ramp it up.
It was time to go to photo shoot and my hair was horrible. A girl named Alex in wardrobe french braided my bangs, and did a cute side pony and put a flower in my hair. Thank goodness. Nicole did my make up on the shuttle bus to the studio. I was starving on that drive over but was in good company.
PHOTO SHOOT
We went into this building and lined up against a wall, two guys would come over and check you out and designate you to a room depending on what you needed. One room was just for powder, the other was for everything. I was nervous when they approached me. So hipster they were. They looked at my hair, stared at my face and then said "EVERYTHING". Embarrassing! I went into the room and when called, the hair guy, Jukka said "I love your hair, its perfect, I am just gonna smooth out the sides". Well, that was OK! Then I was called for makeup, Susanne redid all my make up. There was food while we waited, but I didn't want to ruin my lipstick!
The photo shoot itself was a blast. I so love my Cabin Pressure teammates! It was over so fast :( Back in our shuttle and to the hotel we went. When I got back, my parents and my sisters had arrived. We all went out for dinner at 10:30pm, had a good laugh and meal. I was in bed by 11:30pm. I passed out talking to Sandra.
PERFORMANCE DAY....
Woke up at 7am. My parents got me Timmies. I tried to eat my bagel, but I just gagged and threw it out. My coffee, I cherished. Jesse slept in, and met us with no shower and no coffee. I shared my coffee with her.
We were taken to the stage we would perform on and was reunited with Kelly. We ran through our perfomance a couple of times and little things got adjusted. We got mic'd and sang. It was soooo cool! Scott and Kelly kept yelling "BIGGER!" We just weren't being showey enough. BIGGER!!!!
We then had to go back into the studio and do individual recordings. Before I could get to mine, I was taken into hair and make up first. I didn't get into the recording studio as we sent off to do another rehearsal with hair and make up done.
Back to wardrobe I went, after 3 run through on stage, then putting on a body shaper undergarment, I got overheated again. More water and a fan. Wardrobe treated me so well! Then onstage to do a full dress rehearsal with the set, the mics, the hair/makeup and costume. More adjustments made. Again, we were told to go BIGGER! After full dress rehearsal, I was back in the studio to do my recording. That was scary and fun!
We finally broke for dinner, we had to put ponchos over our clothes while we ate so we didn't get our costumes dirty. We looked redonk. We met the other team as we all waited for final final wardrobe fittings. The OPP team were so awesome and good looking, especially in their WestJet colours!
We were led backstage. We were a nervous bunch. I talked to Jann Arden and Vanilla Ice..I guess it was more like a rambling.
Not much more I can say about what comes next, but it was amazing. We left it all on the stage and put out our best performance.
Win or lose, we had no regrets.
