Reid's 5oth birthday party

Okay, get your mind out of the gutter; I'm a married woman! :lol:   First, I’ll tell you what was going on which led to my one-night stand!

The evening of March 3^rd was hubby's 50th birthday party.  Hubby has been playing rock music and been in bands since he was 15-16 years old, so for his 50th birthday he wanted to get as many of the old musicians together as he could and have all the various bands play throughout the night.  His friend and one lead singer, Lofty Christian (his real name), flew in from Indiana, another friend and singer came from Utah, and a bass player came from Arizona, plus various other people from in this area.  Lots of family and friends and co-workers, etc, were there.  It was held in this bar and grill place.  I had to go home after decorating to pick up the kids, and when I got back, the place was packed!  There were at least 100 people there, which is so cool for Reid.  People had to stand; there weren't enough tables and chairs for everyone.  Some of the musicians hadn't played together in 20 years or more, so there were bound to be some mistakes (and Lofty is famous for singing his own lyrics to hubby's songs, even with the words taped to the mic stand).  But everyone had a great time, hubby was in heaven, I think, just having fun, being able to play again with everyone.  That was all he had wanted to do—play music on his 50^th birthday with all the musicians, and not have to worry about much of anything.  He ended up having to do a little bit of work, but not much.  I decorated while there were still people eating, but I just worked around them, and when they finished, the staff put out reserved signs so the party people would have room to sit and eat.  There was one group at the back of the room that wasn’t invited (we couldn’t close down the room just for us, since we didn’t pay to have the party there), but they stayed for the bands and seemed to enjoy the music, so that’s a plus for Reid, maybe build his following a bit.  Let me think--there were three full bands represented, and other bands were mixed together, so there were about five bands total.  They played from 8 until about 1 AM, with only a 15-minute break in between musicians, if that.  I had put together a scrapbook of all the pictures and ticket stubs of the bands Reid has been in, from high school to the present, the last being his opening for Lynch Mob in December last year, and I passed that around for everyone to look at, and I had a big card going around also for everyone to sign, and amazingly, I got them both back, and the Sharpie that went with the card!

The kids had to leave by 11 pm, and I had told Reid that I wanted to sing one song.  I had wanted to do Shine, but with the drop D tuning, he didn't want to have to re-tune his guitar just for one song, so I gave him a couple of songs to choose from--Blvd of Broken Dream, and Paperback Writer. He said he'd always wanted to do Paperback Writer, and I kind of thought it was appropriate for me to do ;-) so that's what we did.  I had no practices with a band, just practiced with the cd.  I have never been onstage singing with any band ever, so this was going to be a new experience for me.  The kids (mine and my friends) kept asking when I was going to sing, because it was getting close to 11. I had my daughter go and ask hubby when I would be singing.  He said, after the band that was up there.  So, they finish, and Reid says, "We have a very special guest singer--my wife, Margena."  Ack!  It's my turn!  So, everyone gives what I'm sure was a polite applause as I go up onstage.  Reid says, "This is a first, being onstage with my wife."  Then he tells me "Okay, go ahead and start it."  I'm thinking, "oh, crap, that's right, I have to start it."  I was sooo nervous, I'm pretty sure I was off-key for the start of the song.  Being onstage is weird; I couldn't hear anything, especially me.  But after they started playing, I got right into it and just started singing, and didn't even think about the people out there or even think about the words (which I was so afraid I would screw up, I almost pulled an Ed and printed them out).  I could actually hear people singing with me, and shouting and cheering as I sang.  We finished the song, and I got a freakin' standing ovation!  I was so shocked!  I was expecting more polite applause.  I got a high-five from hubby, and lots of hugs from my kids, and I had a lot of people tell me I sounded really good.  Got a high-five from Bubba, too.  I had one lady tell me that I should wear tighter pants, get the cleavage thing going (like I have any!), and do a June Carter thing (why her, I don’t know!).  Anyway, I had to take the kids home right after that, and on the way home I asked my daughter, who would tell me if I sucked or not, how I really did, and she said I sounded good. 

It was so fun being onstage, I actually wanted to do more songs that night, which is funny, because all throughout the day, I was thinking I should just tell Reid I didn’t want to do a song, I’d be too scared (he told me later that when I got onstage, I had a really frightened look on my face, and he asked me if I really wanted to do it.  I told him I had to, the kids were bugging me about it!), I was afraid my cold I’ve been putting off with Zicam and vitamin C would make me too hoarse to sing, yada, yada, yada.  It was so fun!  I want to do it again!  I never felt like this in HS, when I would get solos in choir, I guess maybe because I didn’t get into it so much like I did last night, I was having fun, because it was a fun song, and people knew the song.  A couple of people told Reid that I should be his new lead singer.  That’s hilarious.

So, that was my one-night stand with a band!  I could so do that again!  Thanks for reading, and I hope I haven’t bored anyone to death!