Collateral Bloggage

just found out that Felix Hernandez will be the starting pitcher for the M’s at the Mariners-Red Sox game we’re attending on Wednesday.  This makes me glad.  When your favorite team is fairly lousy and you’re going to a game anyway, it doesn’t hurt when they send their ace out there when the other team is not lousy.  The opposing pitcher is Clay Buchholz, who threw a no-hitter last fall but has struggled a bit this year.  I’m looking for a Mariners win.  Woot!

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I sang on the worship team at church this weekend, and it was a blast, but a stretch for me. I did the special, and that went pretty well.  Actually, I felt really good about it.  But more on that later.  I was also the only male up there on the front vocals (there was another guy doing some vocals from his guitar).  Hence, I had to carry the melody on a couple of songs that are more tenor-friendly than lady-friendly.

Did I mention most of my melody-carrying happened in the Eleventh Hour?  That’s our more contemporary service.  That’s not generally my bag.  I’m more the lyric tenor, floaty-voiced dude.  So that made it interesting.

Even more interesting was when my Aviom (in-ear monitor) went completely dead right in the middle of the first chorus of “Happy Day” (which is an AWESOME song, but hardly an easy one).  Completely dead.  Battery.  Gone.  Of course, since everybody uses the in-ear thingies, we didn’t have the front wedge monitors going.

I was singing deaf.  On a song that was difficult.  And then on the next song, too.  Fortunately, nobody seemed to notice.  I think it went fine, and all I really noticed was an uptake in my sweat output.  But that’s hardly out of the range of normal for me anyway.

The lovely and talented Janet (our producer for the weekend) rescued me with a quick battery switch between songs (Ben the Guitar Dude was leading out on the next song, so I was free to dip backstage).

I console myself with the knowledge that I’ve had my mic go out before, and that is VERY noticeable.

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Did I mention Felix is pitching?  Still geeked about that.

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As I mentioned, I did the special this weekend, a song called “Questions for Heaven” by Chris Rice (why is it I always type “Christ” and then have to erase the “t”?).  It’s a light song about questions Mr. Rice would put to the Almighty if he could, but he’s willing to wait.  The band was its usual awesome self, and they put a really cool vibe on it.  I actually had somebody tell me it sounded Sting-y (not to be confused with stingy).

Funny thing.  Don (husband of the lovely and talented - like awesome worship leader talented - Jill) came into the greenroom after the second service and said he was sitting near an elderly gentleman (think 85 or so) who, after I finished singing, leaned over to his wife and said, “Who’s Evan?”

Let it sink in.

Henceforth and forevermore, the song shall be known as “Questions for Evan.”

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Felix.  Yeah, it’s that cool.

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One more thing about the singing this weekend.  Never let them see you sweat, right?  Yeah, that’s not at all on the list of possibilities for me.  So, don’t let them know you’re nervous, right?  Perfect.  I tell people all the time how nervous I get about soloing, and I usually get the (true or not, but nice to hear) response, “You didn’t look it.”

Here’s a tip:  If you don’t want the ENTIRE CONGREGATION to know you’re nervous, don’t tell the pastor.  Yeah.  Pastor Ron outed me as a bundle of nerves in both services.  Fun stuff.  At least he did it after I was done singing.  Then I got to hear the entire congregation doing the “You didn’t look it” applause.

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I will not be mentioning anything more about Felix, the Mariners, or baseball today.

Oh.