“I’m so excited….da, da, da, da…and I just can’t hide it….da, da, da, da… Next Wednesday is the Raw Final and I think I like it….ooh, yeah!”
In fact, I’m almost as excited as when I first succeeded at putting Ella’s hair in a mohawk.
But I digress…oh yes, Raw! Boy oh boy is the line-up for next week amazing. A lot of the same faces from last year but with the difference of another year’s worth of stage-time: it’s going to be one hell of a night!
I’m so excited about doing my routine next week (in case you missed that point) It’s a whole new set, Tim and I used our driving time to the semi-final to go through and refine it. I’m so lucky to have a hubby who’s keen to help me in that way (as well as dozens of others) and really ‘gets’ how to edit stuff. Oh yeah, and he’s hot. So I’m happy with my set, it runs 30 seconds under-time, which is awesome because while there’s no minimum you need to be up there, if you go even 10 seconds over the 5 minute limit you get music-ed off.
Don’t laugh, it happened to me last year. 🙁
But most of all…I’m excited about my musical number! It’s a new addition to my collection which may alone be the reason it’s my favourite. I thought it could be a risk even to perform it at the semi-final, as the sensible thing to do would just be to perform the safe ‘gold’ as they say, that you’ve proven time and time again to work. But the thing is, I feel like I’ve lost a bit of the joy for some of my old stuff. I mean, it still works, but I just feel a bit bored with it, and I’d much rather take a risk and do something I can perform with passion and actually get excited about, than go through the motions. Anyway, the beautiful part of all this is that the risk paid off in the semis.
One of the judges came up to me afterwards and said “I can’t wait to come back next week just to see you do that song again!” (disclaimer: he won’t be judging next week!) But it totally affirmed to me just to keep it as it is and take advantage of my infatuation with it.
Because, as a very wise man on the comedy scene said to me recently, “at any given competition you could have five different judges and five different winners, so there’s really no point pinning all your hopes on it!” So I’ve decided to take that on board, throw caution to the wind and just focus on what I can control, which is having fun. In my eyes, the best, best, BEST part of a final is that the crowd is just awesome. It’s almost always sold out, people want to support you and they want you to succeed. Bring it on!!!
Oh yeah, so if you’re a friend of mine (and if you’re reading this blog then, whether we’ve met or not, you ARE!) please do consider coming to the final and supporting my cause. You get judged on audience reaction so the more the merrier, though maybe we’ll strategically place you around the room just so the raucous applause isn’t coming from one suspicious corner.