Who's that girl??

In order for the title of this post to make sense, there are a few things you need to know about me.  I'll try to keep it short at sweet, but as you know, I'm prone to over-explanation.  I can't help it, I'm verbose.

The first time I ever sang in front of people, it was in the 8th grade.  I entered in the 8th grade talent show.  I was too scared to sing by myself, so I enlisted the help of a fellow classmate who was deemed popular at the time.  She happily agreed.  We practiced, I thought we sounded okay.  I actually thought I sounded okay but she was off key, mostly.  Anyway, at the try outs, she was sick so I had to audition all by myself while our algebra teacher (yeah, our music program was cancelled) played the sheet music.  I thought I did okay.  The reaction to it was pretty great though.  People thought I was so good that she actually blackmailed me into singing in our 5th hour Algebra class by telling the class she'd skip homework for the rest of the week if I sang.  It was mortifying, but I did it.

Later that day, I heard someone in my class saying something about how I wasn't "all that".  Whether or not he was trying to hurt my feelings or genuinely believed I wasn't "all that" is irrelevant.  This is what I like to call the seed of my insecurity.  Clearly at the age of 14, in what can only kindly be called my "awkward years", I was deeply hurt and confused and it caused me to have this total lack of faith in my ability.

I sang at the talent show.  It went fine.  People clapped.  People told me it sounded great.  But I had felt such panic before the show due to the comments I had heard, that I felt like I couldn't ever do it again.  It made me feel too vulnerable and scared.  I didn't sing again till 5 years later at my high school graduation.  Even then, it was only because I was voted "best singer" in our class.  I was again, totally terrified.  It possibly took years off my life is stress alone.

Since then, I've sang at a whole heap-load of weddings.  In college, I participated in a few open-mike nights.  I have a debilitating fear of singing in front of people.  It's truly terrible.  It's probably not rational for someone who has sung in front of hundreds of people to have mild panic attacks at the thought of singing karaoke in front of people.  But I do.  I can't help it.

Enough of the background.  Here's the good stuff:

My company just had it's client conference in Kansas City.  They threw an afterparty at the Midland theater and this year, they went all out!  They had dueling pianos, a comedian, and Matt Nathanson performed...

At some point in the evening, there was a huge opening right in front of the stage.  I seized the opportunity to take a killer shot from about 2 feet away from him...right in front of the stage.  I even have proof!  See evidence below:

So I'm standing like 2 feet away from Matt Nathanson and they've been hilarious all night, playing covers and their own music.  I hear this guy behind me yell "Hey, play something I can do the worm to!"  So Matt says "Hmmm...I don't know what I could play.  We don't do a lot of hip hop.  Unless you like Eminem..."  As a girl who is from the 313, I obviously heart Eminem and now all the words to most of his songs.  People start cheering and they start playing the opening riff to Lose Yourself.  Then he realizes he doesn't know the words.  So he asks "Does anyone here know the lyrics to "Lose yourself?"  Being Indian, and being genetically programmed to raise your hand when you know the answer to a question (because that's what our people do), my hand shot up.  I was standing 2 feet away from him so it's not like he could ignore it.  He looked down and started laughing and asked me to come on stage.  I don't know what I was thinking (I had not been drinking) but I quickly googled the lyrics to it (just in case) and brought my phone on stage.  He was very happy to also have the words to the song so we dueted to Eminem's "Lose Yourself."  SURREAL!

So there I am.  I don't look too scared.  I might even look like I'm having fun.  I'm horrified by the sheer number of videos being taken and I hope they never surface in some sort of public way.  Anyway, the point is that I think that what I realized is maybe it's a lot easier to get up in front of people if you don't give a rat's ass what they think.  The fact that I wouldn't be singing (which is something I'm self conscious about because I don't want people to tell me I suck) really helped me get over some of that initial fear.  Honestly, I don't even know what I was thinking...I don't know who that girl is because I've always been so scared of getting on stage.  I even just got a phone call from someone seeing this picture and asking me what I'd done with her friend... 

Maybe I've turned a page and won't be such a freak about it.  To conclude my story, I was able to score a backstage pass to meet the band.  The Indian guy in the band told me I did awesome.  I got a signed CD, talked to Matt Nathanson for a few minutes and got a free t-shirt and went on my merry way.  It was an amazing night.  One I'll probably never forget (hopefully not because the videos surface...)

This is the shot of me and Matt backstage: