The Story of

Above 5.9...with heels

Preface
Along came two foreign visitors, who can sing a thing or two. With the knowledge of an event called "Encore" whereby all singers from different parts of the country would gather to sing their heart out, the filipino invited the two,

"I heard that you guys can sing, so we would like you two to be a part of us, the very talented and gifted singers in the journey of joining 'Encore' "

That was when everything started...

Chapter 1
Alright alright, that was the exaggerated version, but things were more or less the same. The singing competition was way ahead of us. It was few months away and no one actually talked bout organizing the event and yet we grouped up our group already. The passion. Of course beside group mates, we were good friends, who would hang up untill late nights just talking, or slaver burgers at the study room singing blindly into the night. Such miraculous coincidence that the mind could not understand.

So this bunch of 4 started brainstorming over songs. I felt very lucky to have these people as friends and singing mates. Azhar, was very good with scores and instruments along with music arrangements. Andrew, pure singing material, where every song he sang sounds nice. And since the 4 of us were averagely tall, Azhar named us, Above 5.9!

It was another burger day when Thip, a funny perky second year joined us. I can't remember what happenned when we were singing through the songs in our phones that Thip was officially in our group too. Coincidentally, Thip was above the height of normal girls in college ( girls here aren't occasionally tall), our name evovled to...above 5.9 WITH HEELS!! Though its too long, i personally find it better than names like, freestyle or chill out that sorta thing. Names like, Boys like Girls, 30 seconds to Mars, Michael Learns to Rock are in line :)

Chapter 2
Practice practice and practice. I missed out the official starting of it because i was busy with events and stuff ( aren't i always am?) Well i'm glad my group mates are considerate to some extent. Things went ok. We were practicing for auditions and thankful enough there were 3 auditions so we had to prepare 3 sets of songs. Amazingly, although we always drag practices to late late nights, songs are mastered comparatively fast. We can finish a song with dance moves in just one night for instance, well the rest of the time was just chilling like usual. Guess its because, singing with friends is always much easier.

But of course, with the ups, there were the downs as well. Just like what you see in survivor :) It was truly reality and if there were a camera following around, we would have won the Emmy's XD Anyways, just like any other bands, through the ups and downs is how we grow, together. Drama really spices up our life, just like what Andrew is so into :) I hope everyone of us learn something out of this, not just laying faults but really, grasp something more bout you, and others.

Still remember G18? That is our usual hang out spot, with a keyboard, use to be a guitar, laughter (most of the time), singing, sawing, colouring, teasing and so much more. The room is occasionally visited by a whole range of people and its practically a party every night till 2 or 3. I'm seriously appreciating the patience of the neighbours with the capacity of withstanding our shouts and laughs every single night. Salutes!

Chapter 3
We went pass auditions by auditions, repeating the same intensity of excitement and nervousness everytime we walked into that room. Though there's always minor minor mistakes, i believe we were one of them best groups that rocked the audition room :) "Very surprising", "I really didn't expect this", "Good harmonizing!" were one of the few comments we got. And for the first time ( and didn't even know that would be a time like this), judges compliment bout "very strong bass". Ok, Basses gets compliments too? XD hahahahahahaha

Then out of a sudden, we were in the finals already. Being a finalist means more practice and more practice. Days and nights, we work hard on it. Although they were unfruitful results, at least we were doing it together. FLyers and banners of our faces were up in corners of school. Though barely noticable, the fugly pictures are still there! I guess publicity of the event wasn't that successful because, even my classmates didn't know i was in it untill the event ended. Lol---

We performmed to the public a week after and i believe it was one of the best too. Due to the fact that the sound system was awful, our dance moves covered the flaws of the singing :) We were first too and just wanna say thank you to whoever that went and support. Though it wasn't that great, yep we had fun

Chapter 4
fast forward-----

"test mic, test one two.."

A day before the actual night. We went up the unfinished stage and rehearsed. With plenty of confidence we sang and danced. To our surprise, we sounded horrendous. Emotions started spilling because that could not be what we want to give to the audience. Our fast song "Upside down" was in a serious upside down! The key was not possible, the music swollen everything, the singing wasn't appealing. In less than 24 hours to the night itself, we made a big decision.

Change song..

I was feeling dreadful all the while because i had a bad sorethroat and a stingy flu which even till now hasn't subside. With the remaining energy that we had, we went back to zero and started the repetua of searching songs. The initial idea of medley was retaken. Our "bartender" along with its assistants mix songs from disney to rihanna and westlife to r.kelly. Sounds crazy? Well we did it. That morning, we went to bed at 5 in the morning, with deep eye shadows and tiredness.

Personally i felt very bad because its THE day and i'm still catching a cold. Whenever i open my mouth the irritating sound of my noise drowns everything. But look on the bright side, it does sounds sexy. I bet if i went and tried this line " hey baby, you look good tonight, may i know your number?" around college, it might have a 80% success XD

you've reached...
Chapter 5
The night itself, we were probably ready. After the opening ceremony, we rush back stage and change. Before you know it, the emcee anounced the performance of, Above 5.9 With Heels!

Our first song was an accapella, "Dahil Sayo"which means because of you in Tagalok. We started our song with a recital of a poem. A bible verse to be exact, which was something different from what others do, but effective or not, it was up to the audience. With the backup of mountainful practice, that song went nice. ALthough a lot of the audience might not notice that we were singing without music, and take harmonizing as - "choir style", we were happy with it :)

Then came our second song. Azhar was left alone on stage, singing gently to the disney theme song which i love so much, while Thip, in her beautiful dress that Azhar and Chin Yee made, glided dreamily on the stage...

"When you wish, apond a star..

makes no difference who you are..

when you wish apond a star..

your dreams..

come true"

Then came the mic problem, of which Andrew was suppose to come out with Jonathan. But let me describe the show instead of the technical flaws that are unmendable.

Once Azhar finish singing that dreamy song, the music started playing and Andrew along with Jo came out in aprons and a chair. Andrew was supposed to introduced..

" As the dining room proudly presents you....your dinner!"

With full enthusiasm, they sang "Be our guests" after exchanging the mic that wasn't working with Thip. Thip was acting as a lady guest with a menu in hand while the two gentlemen sang happily away..

"be our guest! be our guest!!!"......."Please don't stop the music!"

It was a 180 degree change as me and Azhar storm up on stage to the rhythm of the song. I know it was an arguably unsuitable song because among us, only Andrew sings good fast song. But hey, we were cracking this idea at 3 in the morning so what do you expect? After all back then, we decided to just have fun and sing it out loud!!!

"Its getting late, i'm making my way over to my favourite place..."

I was singing it out of tune because Azhar suddenly stop singing and i had to solo so i messed up a bit ( and got buuu-ed) but who cares!

"I wanna take you away! let's escape into the music, DJ let it play!"

"Please don't stop the music!"

"Who stopped the music?"

Yep after the chorus Rihanna went away and then came in Westlife. With the elegant dress she was in, Thip walked out of us and sang

"I have a dream... a song to sing"

I wasn't sure whether her mic was working but she did sang i'm sure. Thip had her 15seconds of fame and we came in "If you see the wonders, of the fairy tales...you can take the future, even if you fail" with an ending note. And then, we came to the last part, it was time to fly!!!

"I believe i can fly! I belive i can touch the sky!!!!"

"If i can see it, then i can do it!

If i just believe it, there's nothing too late!!"

At that moment, it really did not matter who was in tune or who was too loud, all that matters was, the stage was ours, and thats the only brief moments that we have after all the effort sholve in, so enjoy that moment. and really sing it all out!

Chapter 6

The story of Above 5.9 with Heels did not end with the most happiest ending that there could be, in fact it was not really joyful at first as we did not win anything. But slowly, i guess we realized winning was not such a big thing. In fact in the whole story, the winning part would just be 0.1% of the amount of words agree?

We came back to hostel together and guess what we did? We just laid down on the grass opposite the guard house and..chilled. Some were on the pavement road literally, some on the grass. The breeze was so soothing that we questioned ourselves why didn't we realize it before.

With all that's been done, we made it through the finals and gave out all we have. Now that the encore became a thing of the pass, all we have to do is feel the wind..

Encore 2008, accomplished.

THE END