One more thing

I think our live performances are all on YouTube. At the least, Unwritten, Friends in Low Places, and Bumblebee is there… If someone can verify that, let Brad know. (Loafy is on it! OUT!) (OK, I can’t find them, only Bumblebee with no sound, DRATS!)

Thursday LIVE from the studio

I don’t know if this is going to work or not, but I’m in the green room at the studio. Some people have asked about my surprises… First one was my mini interview at the beginning of the show. There may be more of it on the show tonight. Second was how the show is now 2 hours instead of 1. After the show, up in the dressing room, Nick and Vanessa came up and dropped two surprises. First, they bought each of us a gift from Tiffany’s. Guys got a silver money clip, and girls were given a necklace with a “C” on it. We about cried. THEN Nick says be has a bigger surprise. Tonight after the show, he is taking the choir (plus all our friends and family) on a cruise around Manhattan. He’s buying too. How awesome is that?? We are so lucky to be on this show. I miss my family and friends back home so much, but I’m going to be sad to leave NYC.

Ran out of time

I will try to write more this morning … ran out of time.  Have some other exciting news to share.  LATERZ

WEDNESDAY

I can’t even start to describe the emotions yesterday. We had such a long day of rehearsal at the studio. If you have been keeping up with the blog, yesterday I posted our call time of 6:30 yesterday morning. We didn’t get back from the hotel until close to 11:30 last night. Most of yesterday’s schedule centered around blocking on the soundstage. Every choir had to learn their choreography for the song featuring their superstar. Plus we had to review the Christmas song (ours was Mariah Carey’s All I want for Christmas), and also the choreographer for the ShowStopper (sorry Shawn Michaels) Flight of the Bumblebee. Our director made us take a nap for an hour after lunch. That’s the picture I posted at the bottom of this entry. Then I think we rehearsed our three songs with Nick in our dressing room at least ten times each. I can’t even begin to describe how bad the front of my legs feel. Or the bottoms of my feet. They are killing me. I’ve tried wearing each of the 3 pairs of shoes I brought to NYC, and none of them help. Speaking of — say a little prayer that the producers will let me wear the saddle shoes tonight on the air. We’re doing two classic songs, one of which is a 70’s type dance song. So far they have been reluctant to let me wear them on TV. While we were all backstage waiting to go on the air, most of the conversation was centered around if Team Lachey made it into the top 3. We did not want to be voted off by America. Obviously, each of the 5 choirs on the show are pretty amazing. But we feel that Team Lachey is the one true choir out there, not a group with a soloist and 19 backup singers. Not knocking the other teams, but that’s true. I don’t think America knows that though. The title of the show is Clash of the CHOIRS, not Clash of the Soloist. It’s not American Idol with 19 backup singers. Anyways, I digress. In practice we reviewed how to be eliminated from the competition. The second team named in practice was in the bottom two. I think that’s the way it happened on the air too. I honestly can’t remember. I can remember Maria looking at us and saying we were in the top three. We felt we belonged there the whole time. Had we not placed in the top three, we wouldn’t have been able to sing Bumblebee or Nick’s song. Read next post for more info.

TIME TO “SUPPORT” YOUR HEARTS OUT

Alright, they made it!! Thanks to everyone for voting… but we still have to survive tonight!!

(now is when I start typing in ALL CAPS)

THE “SUPPORT” FROM TONIGHT’S SHOW WILL DETERMINE THE WINNER OF ‘CLASH OF THE CHOIRS’

YOU CAN “SUPPORT” ONLINE HERE

 

12/19/2007 9:55pm Wed – 4:00am Thurs ET

 

REMEMBER, SUPPORT EARLY,

SUPPORT OFTEN,

SUPPORT CINCINNATI

LOAFY, OUT!

Wednesday Part 2

And the final picture for now is Nick and Vanessa. Just for Jackie and Beth. She is SOOOOO nice. And I love the look she is giving Nick in this picture. To answer a few questions: Nick ate roast pork and zucchini and string beans for lunch the other day when he sat next to me, Vanessa loves Nick, and last night Nick changed in front of the choir and actually took his shirt off. i think every girl in our group about fainted. Girls, he is as ripped as he looks. Give me until the summer and I will have that body. Get this — last night, Vanessa came to our dressing room with 3 boxes of cupcakes from some exclusive bakery that is located in Manhattan. Red Velvet cupcakes and Coconut Cream cupcakes. They cost $50 for 6. Yes, that’s right. But they were fabulous. I guess Oprah named the bakery on her My Favorite Things episode, if that matters to anyone. The bakery name began with an M, like Madelines?

Wednesday

WOW — all I gotta say is WOW — that was absolutely nerve-racking last night. None of the choirs knew who was going to be voted off until you also watched it. We were originally told that the top-three vote-getting choirs were going to be announced in that order. Until Nick came to our dressing room after the show and said that us, OK City, and Philly were all named randomly. We thought we were the 3rd most popular choir, but I have a feeling we were in the top two. And then the shocker with Kelly’s Houston choir being voted off in favor of Michael Bolton’s choir. WOW. I don’t think our choir was nervous though. We loved practicing Friends in Low Places, and Nick (our soloist) is absolutely channeling Garth. He sounded amazing. But I digress. yesterday was a really long day. Today is going to be longer. Not only do we have to rehearse our 3 songs we are hopefully performing tonight (yes, I said hopefully), but we also have to rehearse another elimination segment. They are going to send a choir home at the beginning of the show, not at the end. Each choir that makes it will be singing their Christmas tune, the song with their celebrity singing, and another surprise one. I’m tired, really tired. our call this morning is 6:30, so I have to get going soon. I will blog more later at the studio. I hope enough people voted last night. Picture time — first picture attached to this entry is one of Nick with the girls of our choir.

Monday Part 3 (just for Jackie)

Finally — here is a picture of my sister Jackie’s competition, Nick’s girlfriend, Vanessa. She is so nice.

Monday Part 2

OK — so where was I?  Let’s see … after lunch yesterday, we went back to the dressing room to get dressed into our Monday night live outfits.  Then we were off to the stage for dress rehearsal #1 for Monday night.  We ran the show top to bottom once (which took almost 2 hours).  I thought our performance was good, but not great.  Then we were back to the dressing room for some collapse and relax time.  We “freshened-up” and warmed up, then were back down at the studio around 7:15.  There was already a line of almost 300 people waiting to get into the studio.  Mostly friends and family of other choir members I’d imagine.  Then all of a sudden, we were lined-up, and led onstage, seeing all the people, the host, the lights, fireworks, signs, it was amazing.  My heart was racing.  I think our whole group’s hearts were racing.  We did the opening number (Living in America by James Brown), then got ready for our performance.  In the blink of an eye it was over.  We were off stage, in the green room in the back, being interviewed, praying, talking, laughing, crying, hugging, and just enjoying the moment.  We got to watch the other 4 choir’s performances on a tiny TV back in the green room behind the stage.  As soon as it was over, we went back to the dressing room, changed, then tried to get on our bus to head back to the hotel.  Of course, it wasn’t there.  15 of the 20 of our choir rode on another bus, while 5 of us were left behind.  Bus came about 30 mins later, and I was finally at my hotel by 11:30.  I got a few other choir members to meet me in the hotel bar for one quick drink (had to have one — I made my national TV debut tonight).  Plus I wanted a Manhattan in Manhattan.  Up to bed before Midnight.  I have no idea what we are doing today at rehearsal.  but as long as we earned enough votes (I HOPE EVERYONE VOTED 10 times at least), we’ll be performing tonight too.  Talk to you laters !!!  Oh yeah, here is another picture — it’s the guys from the choir in our dress up outfits.

Monday

Wow, I have no idea where to begin.  I know I was pretty much awake and performing and rehearsing from 6:15 am yesterday morning until 11:30 pm last night.  I am really tired today.  Thankfully our call isn’t until 8:45.  Yesterday was amazing.  Started off my day with the trip to the Today Show.  We had to be at the NBC studios at Rockefeller Plaza at 7:30 for our live broadcast at 8:30.  When we got there, of course, there were two pretty famous people in the dressing room — Gloria Estefan and Jordan Sparks.  I know most people know Gloria (she was super nice), and for those of you who don’t know Jordan, she won American Idol this past year.  Our selected group of 20 singers warmed up, lined up, and then were sent outside to the choir risers that were on the plaza.  We had seriously 15 seconds to warm up out there in the cold and wind, then all of a sudden Meredith and Al came out with Nick.  BOOM — we started singing.  It was really cold.  I think my picture was taken at least 100 times.  That was pretty neat.  We sung five songs, then were pulled back inside, then back on the bus, then back to the studio for the rest of the day.  Coolest part about the Today Show?  We found out we are getting paid for that gig too.  Don’t know how much, but anything is better than nothing.  On the way back to the studio, I found out from my mom that Nick mentioned “a high school math teacher who had to take unpaid personal leave to come to New York” on Live with Regis and Kelly.  Didn’t know about that one.  We rehearsed all morning on stage at the studio and in the dressing room, then had lunch.  Who came to sit next to me at lunch?  I mean right next to me?  Nick.  He came over, and actually asked if he could sit there and eat lunch.  I looked at him and said of course he could.  He smiled, sat down, and said that he was told by the producers that the Celeb stars were supposed to eat in their special area, but he wanted to come eat with his.  He doesn’t have a bodyguard on this trip either.  He just sits down, and the rest of us just chilled and talked with him.  That was cool too.  OK I have to start another entry.  Here is a picture of the Ice Skating rink at Rockefeller Plaza.  Never saw it before.  By the way, these are just “thumbnail” pictures.  You can click on it and it will open full-size in another window.