Rock Choir - Wembley Arena 2011
Unquestionably the most exciting thing I have done so far this year - this is the audience I sang for earlier today:
The picture shows a capacity crowd of ten thousand people (mostly women) filling Wembley Arena for this afternoon’s Rock Choir Live event.
Plus, there’s breaking a Guinness World Record, recording a track to be released on a deluxe version of the existing Rock Choir: Vol1 album and not only that but it has all been filmed for a documentary to be broadcast on ITV later this year. Not bad going for one afternoon!
So, what’s the story? How did I come to end up on stage in front of that many people?
I joined Rock Choir last year after hearing about it on a friend’s facebook page. It sounded like a bit of fun, so I went along to the free taster session and loved it.
Of course we don’t normally have all eight thousand of us meeting at once. The choir is split into separate choirs and I am in the Blackheath choir. Choirs with the same level of experience all learn the same songs so that we can perform together if/when we meet up. To date I have performed with choirs from the South London area but nothing on today’s scale. In fact our largest public event was a series of performances at a school fayre a couple of months ago.
Today’s event was specially arranged by the Rock Choir company as a way for all of the choirs around the country to get together to sing. As well as performing for each other we also had some special guests performing for (and with) us including Debra Stephenson, The Soldiers and real life opera singer Wynne Evans (aka Gio Compario from a TV advertisment I’d probably have seen if I owned a television). Speakers from Rock Choir’s two supported charities (Refuge and Missing People) came to tell us a little about what they do.
It may not have been the highlight of the event for the audience, but it goes without saying that the best part of the day for me was my own appearance on stage. This is me performing Roy Orbison’s Pretty Woman with the men from the Rock Choir Men’s Workshop held in Guildford a few weeks ago.
I’m fourth row from the front, eighth man in from the near edge.
I had a seat by the side of the stage so this photograph is a reasonable approximation of what ten thousand people look like. Unfortunately it doesn’t convey a fraction of what it is like to have that many people clapping and cheering for you, so you’ll have to take my word for it that it was a pretty awesome experience!
Like proper Rock Stars we had our very own poster, complete with “Sold Out” label.