~Kept this post as a draft for a week coz I was too lazy to finish it...~
~This post was edited over a few days and finally posted up on 20th March~
~So, i apologize if the time frame is a little off~

Last sem I got together with a few friends,
And we formed a band... Calling ourselves Radiant...
And we finally made our debut in uni yesterday...
Limkokwing University recently organized an event called "Heal The World"
In support of the plight for the recent Palestinian war.
Ok, some of us might not agree with it, but let's not go there right now...

I was told a week before we got our shot at performing in uni on friday....
Was really worried about it, but I figured it wud just be the regular Friday afternoon band performances at plaza during lunch time...
Only to find out later its for a fund raising charity concert, in the presence of a foreign country ambassador, university VIPs, and of coz sound and music faculty people...

So we basically spent the entire week in and out of the studio, practicing for the big event..
Honestly, its really getting in the way with my classes and studies...
Im actually behind now in Business Law and IBS..
Gonna have to buck up and catch up over the next few weeks...

So, on the day itself, around 12pm I got an sms from Davis telling me that our sound check was pulled forward from 3pm to 1230pm...
Great way to start the day.. I rushed to the shower, got ready, met up with him and we went over to campus...
Only to find out that they were still busy setting up the sound equipments...
There was nothing much we could do, we just hang out, had lunch...
Went up later to check on the studio, see if we could practice a little more... Only to find out that its totally closed.. Everything was brought down for the event...

So, we just chilled all the way till around 3pm... Then the bands started going up for the sound check...
Waited for Joy to come with her guitar, and we were up, right after Melodica..
Another great start for our band, sound check right after the best band in the uni...

Soundcheck went pretty well... It was more pressure than I thought, although its just a soundcheck...
After that, we carry on to juz chill...
As time pass, we could see the guest artists coming in one by one...
All taking turns to do their sound check...
We took the time to grab a bite, and freshen up.. All of us changed into our outfits..
And we waited...
and waited...
and waited....

As if we were'nt waiting long enough, when it was our turn to play,
they announced the arrival of the VIP...
Suddenly, everything was in a mess....
The stage manager... or wtv u call him, the guy who organize the acts....
He told us that they had to put our act on hold... We cant go up after the other student bands as planned earlier....
So we waited, they carried on with the official events...
We who were supposed to "open up" with the other amateur student bands, had to wait till further notice...
FYI, we were told we were up at around 640pm..

We waited ALL THE WAY till about 11pm and still no news about us going up..
On and off they wud come n tell us to standby, they might find an opening...
But we were still waiting backstage, wandering around... Waiting for good news...
Finally our opportunity came... When the staff couldnt locate one of the guest artist for the nite, Dina of Malaysian Idol Season 1....
She was supposed to perform right after Common Culture, a Malaysian based American band...
So since she was nowhere to be found, we were put on standby again... And by the look of it, we were gonna make it this time....
Only bad news is, Common Culture totally got the crowd all hyped up...
They performed 2 songs at first... But they continued to do another 2 more for the encore...

There was really not much we could do.. We tried to keep the hype up in the audience...
But the bar was set really high...
And we only had one song planned for the nite...
Titled Beyond A Cry, written by Joy specially for the event itself...
So we didn't really expected much, we just step up after Common Culture, set up and played our song...
Well, obviously the crowd wasn't as responsive as they were during the previous act...
But they were ok... We expected worse...
They did respond.. At least our presence were noticed...
Best part of all, is we actually enjoyed ourselves up on stage...

And for the iceing on the cake...
Few days ago, Joy forwarded an email from Tifannie Marie, our beloved President's daughter and his "special assistant"..
Praising us for our effort... And saying that they'll deifnitely invite us to play more shows in the future...

Well,
Guess all our efforts actually paid off... :D

My only regret...
We were too excited and nervous about our performance,
that we totally forgot to get people to take pictures of us on stage... XD

Its a beginning for Radiant... Hopefully there'll be more in the future...

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