One thing I can say that probably never suited me overly well is reading directions. For a lot of things, I really like diving in and just doing something for the sake of figuring it out and doing it. As far back as grade school I used to be a take the plunge and do something kind of person. Apparently my teachers all praised me for such a cavalier attitude. Told my mom how great it is that I’d busy myself tinkering with things. I was given free reign, go figure.
Sometimes, doing such things ends up being a great thing as it can help one stand out from the crowd. Sometimes it’s not so great. Where it can actually take you out of the running for something cool. Such is the case of last night. I had a friend email me about Roger Taylor of Queen doing a cool touring show for next year. I went and looked at the website briefly and thought, hey that’s cool, I’ll do it. I’ll audition. Why not?
Of course I’ve been in the middle of finishing several projects. So I had to get that out of the way first. In my haste to get the audition video done before the deadline of today, I quickly went over the site, not thinking about reading exactly what had to be done, other than watching a couple of videos for inspiration and making a video of myself playing a Queen song.
Up till 4 am last night, I finally got the video done, with a fun trailer pasted on to the end of it. I went to upload it to the contest and as I’m filling it out I see something about the rules. I start reading and suddenly I’m like, uh oh. Seems there was only a choice of 4 songs to choose from. Of which, my choice – which came from the videos to watch for inspiration page – was not one of them. To add insult to stupidity, it also stated that you had, HAD, to use the backing tracks they provided. Of course, I didn’t because I was playing the song solo acoustic on camera. Geez.
Missing that and the words that said, if the backing tracks are not used you are instantly disqualified. Ugh. Well, one can hope that Roger will still get a look at it, as I did point out card counting and blackjack. I’m sure he’d remember that dinner if he sees/hears that message. But it doesn’t excuse the fact that I didn’t read the directions for the audition. Won’t likely matter how good it is now. Oh well. Either way I now have a great live video of me doing Crazy Little Thing Called Love.
Since that’s the song I put on video last night, I’ll roll with Queen’s awesome live version today.
Enjoy! And remember, sometimes it’s a great thing to read directions first.