15 minutes of fame

For the past three days, I've been at the Mohegan Sun Casino Resort in Connecticut. For yes, that is exactly the kind of exciting place that we hold our work offsites. You wouldn't have thought this place is up my alley, for I'm not much of a gambler myself (although I did win $20 at Atlantic City this past summer, ahem).

A typical work event, conferences during the day, and happy hours, dinners and socialisation in the evening. Except this year, a group of employees had got together and secretly formed a band as surprise entertainment for everyone. I knew they had been rehearsing for the past couple of months, but nothing prepared me for how good they actually were.

The evening before their performance, I was speaking to one of the band members. "So how come you don't have any girls in your band?!" I asked. Being the HR bod and all, I just wanted to make sure they hadn't been exclusionary.
"Glad you brought that up, we actually do need a female background voice for one of the songs - you wanna do that for us?"
I found myself backpaddling rapidly.
"I can't sing! I'm tone-deaf!" I blurted.
"Doesn't matter, it's just a small part and it's really easy, we'll show you."
Sigh.
They pretended I had to be formally interviewed to participate in their band. They sat me down on a stool in the band room, and all stood scrutinizingly across from me.
"What previous experience do you have with rock bands?" the band leader asked.
"Erm, I used to date the drummer of the school band in high school?"
"Okay that's fine, you're in."

And thus it came to be that I found myself back in the days of Keats karaoke. In truth, I had only one line. Each time the lead singer finished the chorus, I had to sing "gimme, gimme". And that was it. But boy, just standing up on stage in the limelight, with the crowds cheering, there it was, my fifteen minutes of fame.