By the time the night of the Battle of the Bands came around, I was exhausted. The Battle of the Bands changed my attitude on a lot of things. Before that performance, I was never very confident in my playing, (although I was told that I was good). I also had become very self-conscious about being on stage ironically when I had spent most of my childhood as an actor performing on stage. After our set, I felt a pride and confidence that I had never felt before, and I realized that music was going to be a part of my future occupation.

Ever since I can remember, I had a huge interest in music, more so than a lot of my friends. I always enjoyed listening to every little detail and knowing as much as I could about the certain band an their music. And ever since then, being in a band was all I wanted to do. As I got older, I began listening to music that began to change the ways I thought. I became more open and didn’t care what people thought about me. I played piano when I was in elementary school, trumpet in middle school, and then finally got the instrument I was made to play: the guitar. Guitar has become the best way that I express myself. It’s more than just an instrument to me and all of my energy and effort is put into my playing. In the past year, my friends and I made a band and I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.

The full band was only formed about 6 months before battle and the songs were only completed about a week before the show. Despite all of this, we were known around school and the few people who had heard us, had spread good things about us. We practiced everyday for the 2 weeks leading up to the battle. They were 2 extremely stressful weeks where I was filled with doubt. We had a really good reputation around school and the pressure was on to do really well. The school day of battle is still a complete blur to me because I didn’t think about school the whole day. We did sound check after school that day and we went out to get some Subway before the show. As we walked up to the school, I realized how many people had shown up. The previous year’s turnout was embarrassing, but I guess the band’s heavy promotion this year paid off. As I walked around and mingled with my friends during the other band’s performances, I started to become a lot more nervous. Then we began to set up and after a few technical difficulties, we were ready. The drum roll intro to our first song started, and then I came in.

"Let’s go! Let’s go!" I screamed into the microphone for the backing vocals. Then suddenly, I realized that I wasn’t nervous at all. In fact, I felt great. The first song ended and I just stared around for 30 seconds; at my band, at the group of people watching us, and the other bands behind us. I was so happy that all of the hard work had paid off. And the set continued. I remember everything in an orange color when I was on stage and my friends standing up and cheering for us. I saw a lot of them just standing around because the school wouldn’t allow people to jump around to the music. But as our set progressed, I began to see people jumping around and getting thrown out by the assistant principal. The thought of it made me laugh on stage as I saw my friends arguing with the teachers. I was off in my own world playing as hard as I could and giving everything I had until I was hyperventilating on stage. We performed almost flawlessly that night. We did mess up terribly on one part but nobody even seemed to notice. As the last song ended, a friend of mine from another band, (who had been dancing in back of us the whole time), jumped back on stage and started to cheer for us. Our bassist put his bass down and jumped into the crowd as another one of our friends followed. We probably lost a lot of points because of the trouble we caused, but I still didn’t care. It was all worth it. I put my stuff away and went down to the audience. I was practically in a soaking wet t-shirt. I looked like someone had dumped a bucket of water over my head. People were slapping me fives and hugging me from all directions. We knew we weren’t going to even place because we were a sophomore band but friends were coming up to us saying, "You’re going to win first place!" And they were serious. We just wanted to play so placing didn’t even matter. I felt extremely proud of myself for the first time in my life. Nothing I had ever done in my life had meant this much to me.

That night gave me a confidence that I never had before. Even though I hate to say it, it was fun to show off for once. Ever since I was on that stage, I’ve wanted to do it again. It was an unexplainable rush. I know now that the only place I ever want to be is on stage, playing my music for others to enjoy.