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Monday, January 9, 2017

Now if I were Mariah Carey...

Hi there and happy new year!

Did you hear about Mariah's NYE show? She is blaming the production team for sabotaging her set in Times Square when her in-ear monitoring failed to work. Whether the lack of foldback was intentional or not, I know for sure that the quality of sound a singer receives on stage is an absolute maker or breaker of a performance. Audiences hear something quite different to our sound so sometimes it is hard to get their sympathy but I really feel for Mariah.  We know that not being able to hear properly can potentially make us sing off key and usher in such insecurity that a great singer becomes a terrible one. But as Mariah said herself in this particular show's aftermath, 'shit happens'. The trick is to pull yourself out of it smelling like roses. While we may not all possess her vocal gymnastic ability or star power, I actually think we gigging singers have one thing over Mariah Carey. One of the benefits of not being a multi million dollar megastar is the multitude of less-than-perfect gig conditions you get to experience! Being thrown into difficult situations over and over again tends to prepare you to jump just about any hurdle and still land on your feet.

I was in a kids show where we three girls performed to an audio visual track that, at one particular venue with an outdated system, started to skip noticeably and eventually froze. So we girls created acapella singalongs and dance competitions on the spot. While it was very obvious to the audience we were suffering fairly major technical issues, we kept them involved and onside and noone complained. If anything, we got extra credit for handling ourselves well under pressure.

I once did a nationally televised Christmas gig that had a huge live audience as well. I was one of two backing singers for a band that was to support some well known Aussie artists and celebrities. About 20 minutes before the show started, we were told we would be leading the live audience in singing Christmas carols during the commercial breaks of the live telecast. We were to follow the autocue. My fellow backing vocalist warned me she was not hugely familiar with carols and we had zero time to prepare. But the idea was we two girls would sing with the band and the crowd would sing along following the booklets of lyrics they had all received. I think someone forget to tell the audience because when the band played the first carol, we were the lone voices. That wouldn't be so bad except the keys of the songs were completely female unfriendly and so, in front of 30,000 people, we were jumping up and down octaves and throwing in harmonies on the spot to make the songs sound decent. We were doing OK with the first couple of well known tunes when the next song showed up: 'Good King Wenceslas'. At its appearance on our autocue, my fellow backing singer gave me a look of panic. Ok, so I was on my own for this one.

Now I love my Christmas songs but I wouldn't put the Good King at the top of my list and was only vaguely aware of its work. But all was going fine until the end of the first verse when the autocue froze completely. So in front of 30,000 people I winged the rest of the song, largely repeating the first verse over and over again! I don't think many people were any the wiser although I'm sure no one would have blamed me for shutting up completely if they had known the situation. But as performers, we are more than just singers, and I think we have a contract with our audience to entertain them the best way we can, in any situation.

I'd love to hear what you would have done in Mariah's position. What I wouldn't have done is walk off stage mid performance, however tempting that might have been. That kind of thing only punishes your audience and hurts your own reputation. I would have let the audience know what was happening, to make them really feel involved. I would have told the production guy - over the mic - to turn off the backing track because my audience and I were going to sing in the new year together. Then I would have led them in an acapella version of the songs. I think it would be pretty cool to say that you rang in 2017 singing along with Mariah Carey, don't you?

I'd love to hear some of your gig horror stories...

All the best,
Amanda