32 Seconds of Fame

For the last few years I’ve wanted to try out for American Idol. It’s one of those things you put on your “Bucket List” and never think you’ll actually follow through with.

My husband and I needed a vacation and thought “What the heck!” So we, like 12,000 others, were American Idol bound.

After driving nearly 11 hours to Chicago in crazy traffic and rain we reached our destination.  Four am came much too soon that Saturday morning as we made our way to the United Center for registration. When we pulled up, we could hear the crowds, some that had been camping out since 8:00 pm the evening before, screaming for the cameras.

We only stood in line for four hours that day to register.  As we stood there in 80+ degree weather, lo and behold,  ice cold Coke and Coke Zero was being handed out by the producers. The Coke bottles were Collector Editions, sporting music notes for American Idol.

By 10:30, wristbands and tickets were handed to us and the producer said to be back by 5:00 am on Monday morning. Gulp, that’s early.

Neither of us had ever been to Chicago so we took the next day and a half to sight-see.

Monday morning, we showed up at 4:30 am. There were about three blockades full of people. I’m sure when it was full there were at least 12.

The crowd would roar for the cameras screaming things like, “I’m the next Amercian Idol.” There were definitely some crazies looming in the crowds. You could see the producers scoping people out. They told us it was the second largest audition in AI history, 12,000 strong. There were news crews, firetrucks, helicopters around and reporters getting stories aplenty from the crowd.

About 7:30 am we started moving inside and ended up in our seats around 8:30. Senior Producer, Ron Deshay, led the crowd in “Hot and Cold” by Katy Perry. The “crowd song” sounded pretty rad with 12,000 people singing along.

The producers and directors filmed the opening shots of the auditions for about an hour. This entailed making sure there were no logos on hats, shirts, water bottles that were not anything but sponsors of the show....i.e: Coke, AT&T, Ford, etc.

After the opening shots, the crew set up 12 cubicles on the floor of the United Center and started sending people through. Groups of four sang for the producers. Only one person made it through per group of four, if any at all.

I could see when each person began and ended their auditions. I decided to start timing them to prepare my song. Some people had 20 seconds, some 30. I saw one producer motion for a girl to stop after 10 seconds at one point. It seems the producers usually had their minds made up in the first few seconds.

As our section was called we were escorted to the main floor and put in groups of four. I was the first of the four out of our group to sing. The producer called me up, I stepped forward and sang “There You’ll Be” for approximately 30 seconds. It was hard to hear myself as the girl in the left cubicle sang a robust gospel song and the guy to my right was rapping.

We all finished and she called us up and said “Very nice auditions today but I’m afraid it’s a no for all of you.” That was it. We were then directed outside where we wished our American Idol dreams good-bye, which I was OK with. The winners of that round advanced to round two, and if they passed round two, they sang for for “the judges.”

For me, it was all about the experience. Something I could say I did once but have no desire to ever do again.