02/23/2005: "Diary of a Rockstar, 23-Feb-2005"

Well, here I am back in sunny San Jose. It was an interesting trip to be sure, but the end result was - looks like I will have to work to become a Rockstar, rather than going straight to the top!

So, the trip report:

I left work and headed to San Jose airport. Its been a long time since I've been on a short trip of this kind, and the last time I was someone else was paying for it (ahhh, the good-ole days of business trips!). So, I arrived at the airport intending to do as I had always done, and park in the short-term parking for the two days I would be away. Only thin is, the short term parking, which used to be $12/day, has jumped up to $30/day! So, I decided to do a loop back to the long-term parking. Sounds easy enough, but seeing as the traffic flow at San Jose "Mineta" Airport must have been designed by someone who had never actually been in a car before (and quite possibly, never actually met any people before either), that wasn't as simple as it might sound.

After parking in the middle of a hige parking lot and wandering around trying to figure out where the bus I could see was going to head next, I finally made it to the terminal, and checked in for a reasonable flight to Seattle. I arrived without drama, and too the Shuttle to Thrifty to pick up a rental car - I had forked out an extra twenty bucks for an upgrade to a "Special-Deluxe" car, but was a little disappointed to discover that it was a PT-cruiser. A bit of a haul through traffic to the SpringHill Suites Mariott, who charge $14/day for parking as well. Thats a bit of a rip-off, its not like anyone is going to walk to this hotel given its location. Still, it was a nice enough place, with a little bar serving happy hour drinks! I dumped my gear and headed back down to the bar, for a couple of beers and to people watch. I was kind of expecting to see crowds of Rock'n'Roll types, but although I spotted a few, there was nothing much happening. I took a stroll down to the El Corazon, where the auditions would be, around 8:00pm. A pretty dodgy looking place, on a run-down street right up against the freeway. It was open, but absolutely no sign of anything INXS-ish around.

So, back to the hotel, I headed up to my room to read for a while. From my window, I had a pretty good view of the side of the El Corazon, so I figured I would be able to see if a crowd was building up. I checked a couple of times, and the place was - absolutely deserted.

I slept well for a while, but then vadly, as the noise from the freeway came right through the sealed window, and the anxiety dreams started. One was pretty simple, the old "Oh no, its already 9:00am and I'm late for the auditions" (this was around 2:30am - checked the window, nada.). The second was a little more complex, and is probably worth describing here.

DREAM: I was in my hotel room, but it was now on the ground floor with a glass sliding door. Four very disreputable looking guys, with black leather and long hair, walked by, and one of them glanced over and said "Hey, that guy left his door open". I heard, and walked over to the door to shut it, saying loundly "That guy is also still in his room!". A few minutes later, the front door to my room swung open, and in walked one of the four guys. I was a little taken aback, but figured that they were something to do with the auditions, so tried to play it off. I walked forward and offered my hand, saying "My name's Chris", but when the guy held his hand out, he had a syringe in it - with a very short, stubby needle. I said "Woah, OK, feel free to shoot up in the kitchen", and he replied, "No, I want you to do it", rolling up my sleeve and holding out his arm. I said that I didn't know how, but he insisted, and handed me the needle, and I decided to go ahead with it. Thats where I woke up.

I finally got up around 4:30, showered and make myself "Rockstar-ish" (Leather trousers, black pirate shirt, and then a jumper and jacket for layers), and headed down to the El Corazon around 5:00am. The auditions were supposed to start at 8:00am, so I figured three hours early would be cutting it close. Well, not so! There was one other guy there waiting, Vic, a law student who had done the rock'n'roll thing, and wandered the streets all night to stay awake. We chatted for a bit, and then two more people joined us, Jeff (Who has a Meatloaf tribute band), and his friend Coleen - who was there for moral support, although we almost pursuaded her to audition. They had come down from Canada. About fifteen minutes later we were joined by Vince, who had told us he was supposed to be working that day, but after he sang for his boss, his boss paid him money to come and audition. So, four auditionees in line by 5:30am. It was pretty cold, but at least it was dry, and we chatted, and made friends.

And that was about it for the next hour! The five of us stood there, unable to believe that a mere hour and a half before the auditions, and there was still no one else in line. After a while a few people turned up - straight out of my dream. One stood there swaying, and said "You should all go and get a life", and then staggered upstairs to a very dodgy party in an appartment over the El Corazon. People started showing up not too long after that, and the crew showed up to start setting up around 7:00am, so at least we were relieved to know we were in the right place. One of the producers said "Hi, I'm Mark Burnett", which woke me up for a few seconds, but of course, he was only joking. The "party-people" had finished whatever they were doing upstairs, and hung around for a while being annoying, but everyone else was great.

By 8:00am, there were probably 40-50 people in line, and finally, they opened up the doors and let the first ten of us in. Vic let me go first, so I was number 001! They took a photo, and gave me an envelope to put the application form in, and then we got a bit of a chance to warm up. Now warming up in a musical context usually means some throat and lung excercises, a bit of singing, and so on, but in this case, it literally meant raising my body temperature! Three hours outside in the cold had locked my jaw, numbed my nose, and everything was sounding weird!

We were then lead into the stage area, where the producer gave us a little spiel, and answered our questions. My question was "When will you call people back", and he replied "By 8:00pm tomorrow". Well, seeing as I was flying out at 4:00pm, that was going to be tricky... but I figured that the chances of a callback were pretty slight anyway. Then, it was up to me to hit the stage first. I handed my CD to the mixer, and then headed up on stage, where I faced a table with the two producers, and a small video camera. There was a video crew behind that filming the whole affair, but we were told to "Play to the small camera". I "slated" (gave them my name, told them I was from "Perth, Western Australia", and then launched into my song - Light My Fire, by the Doors. I thought it went pretty well, I gave it my all, and I got through two verses, including the "power note" at the end of the second verse before they stopped me. The mic was a little hot, so I was loud too, but it felt good.

Then it was straight out the door, where I hung around for a while to compare notes with the others. Vic seemed a bit down, because he didn't think his style was right for them. Jeff's CD didn't play, so he had to do an acapella piece. And Vince was no longer as chipper as he had been. the only one who seemed buzzed was the guy who went fifth (From Canada - sorry dude, I forgot your name!), who said something along the lines of "It doesn't mater what happens - that was fun!". I agreed with him, but I just had a feeling - that I didn't make the cut...

Kirk had this to say:

"The auditionees in Seattle were of a particularly high standard," starts Kirk. "Most of them were just awesome and had genuinely great voices." Although known throughout the world as the birthplace of grunge, there were apparently no grungey types at the INXS auditions. "Thank God!" jokes Kirk. "No flanalette shirts or shoe gazers turned up." He then predicts," I'm confident we witnissed some definite finalists in Seattle."

I like the "witnissed" - they even tried to get across his Australian accent! Unfortunately, he didn't "witniss" me:

"19 February - Seattle Open Call. Didn't go down today. A business associate arrived from Oz today. All went out to dinner with he and his girl to a forgettable, overpriced "upmarket" pizza joint."

Well, thanks Kirk!

I headed off back to the hotel with Vic, Jeff and Coleen, had some breakfast and a chat about life, music, and auditions, and then headed back to my room for a nap. Spent the rest of the weekend wandering Seattle, and visiting with Jared (who had played Jesus in JCS at Sunnyvale - he says hi to any of the cast that might be reading this!). By the time I got to the airport to fly home - still no call. I left my phone on until 8:00pm, and then switched it off, to stop myself from checking it every two minutes.

Well, that more or less wraps up my attempt at Stardom. There is still a minor chance that I might get called for LA, either because of my Video, or because by some chance I made some kind of shortlist, but time is rapidly running out for that. Ah well, I'm off for a jam-session with my new band tonight, which is gonna rock!