First live television show on one August night

This is my third “first” in a month! This is the first time I have watched a live television show. I did not even thought of doing this back home. On the last day of August 2006, I went with my friend Paolo to Caldecott Hill, MediaCorp TV Theatre to watch….Singapore Idol!!! Actually, Paolo pleaded with me as he can’t find anybody to watch the show with him and being a good friend that I am, I just couldn’t refuse. Peace bro! We actually got the tickets from my cousin Anton. It was given to him by one of his clients who is a sponsor of the show, that was his excuse when he flashed me the tickets.

We left the office early and went directly to the studio without having dinner just to see the last 5 idol hopefuls. Our tickets were balcony seats. The first thing we noticed was the size of the stage. If Michael Jackson moonwalked there for more than 5 seconds, he would have already fallen off. It looked bigger on TV. The second thing was that it felt like we are watching the Nickelodeon’s Kids Choice Awards! Most of the people watching were kids! 12 to 15 year olds. I mean for the first time, I really felt old. I did not even feel like taking out my glasses even if I can’t see clearly from up there. Then there was somebody on stage working the crowds. So this is what they do to make you feel like there’s a party going on out there whenever it comes on after commercials.

30 minutes before live broadcast … a studio staff asked us to go down as there were still a lot of available seats below. We hurried down to get good seats so I wouldn’t need to use my glasses anymore. When we got down, we noticed that the crowd (or the kids) were already grouped into sections according to who their favorite idol is. We went to the middle which was Hady‘s section. Not bad. Fortunately, it was not Jasmine‘s section as it might look uncool if ever some friend saw us on TV. It was really kid-noisy now us the MC stepped it up a notch.

15 minutes before live broadcast … somebody was signalling that there were still 5 available seats nearer to the stage. We went for them and got seats just behind the main camera. Paolo even got one of the Hady posters being distributed around.

5 minutes before live broadcast … out comes Gurmit and Daniel and they helped worked the kids more.

2 minutes to live broadcast … now the idols are out waving and signing autographs. You need to shout to talk to the person beside you.

3..2..1..the idol theme music plays to signal the start of the show. Everybody goes crazy, especially at Paul‘s section. Almost every kid at that section dressed and looked like him. Unbelievable! The idols performed a number on stage…or lipsynched on stage! Man, I thought this was supposed to be an Idol show. Why aren’t they performing live?! To sound better?! It says a lot about the show’s confidence in it’s idol hopefuls. After the number, we noticed that Gurmit was sitting himself to our left with a cameraman! This might be it! Our few seconds of fame! The show went to commercial. Daniel worked the crowd as the show is coming back on. 3..2..1..Bam! There was Gurmit talking on the big screen above us about something but I was not listening anymore as just behind him were Paolo and me waving on TV! Our 15 seconds of fame with my cellphone vibrating with Michelle’s text message about seeing us on TV. Our (Michelle and myself) Amazing Race appearance 3 years ago was better but that was just for about 2 seconds, this was around 15 seconds! Cool!!!

Well, there goes my third first for the month of August. That’s certified jologs for you lah. Right or not? By the way, the Joakim guy got voted out and almost everybody in his section was like crying. That capped the night for us…icing on the cake…lah.

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