This is a guest post by AMP 2-11 Guardian of all things LOUD! Defender of everything with blinky lights! Champion of full frontal nerdity! Zombie by day, Rockstar by night AMP 2-11 loves taco carts, anything featuring David Grohl and long walks on the beach. You can catch more of his nerdalicious work (and free swag!) at TheTNTShow.com
Nearly 30,000 loyal (and lucky- tickets are hard to come by) Blizzard fans descended upon the Anaheim convention Center to watch the opening ceremony and taking all of the wonders that Blizzard has to present this year.
On Wednesday, two days prior, our band was invited into the massive halls for a technical rehearsal and final audition. We were given 30 minutes to set up and an hour to rehearse, not just our song, but things like entrances and exits. That stage is huge. Honestly, it was everything I dreamed. Getting to run around during the three run-throughs of our song was more than enough to keep me on cloud nine, even with only the crew working in the hall to hear it.
Kenny and Alex, our primary contacts at Blizzard, ushered us through the process. They and the rest of the crew were absolutely fantastic to work with. You can tell a lot about a company by interacting with its employees. The fact that all the employees we met all seemed genuinely happy and excited about what was going on speaks volumes about the company culture of Blizzard.
Thing to note is that because of the nature of our group this was the first time that we had ever played the song with all of us together.
And now, here we were, Friday night, sitting in the green room behind the main stage getting ready to go on in front of nearly 15,000 people plus several million more watching online around the world.
Tonight four finalists including ourselves would be performing. We had the opportunity to meet all the other performers, everyone was very cool, and we enjoyed chatting about our shared love of Blizzard games.
There was a lot of energy in the air to say the least. One by one each of the acts was led out of the green room to take their turn on stage. We were last. Which only made more time for me to get nervous. To my own surprise I felt surprisingly calm even though I was intensely excited.
When we were announced we took to the stage and give it everything we had. We were playing for fellow Blizz fans and for all of the people at blizzard who have done so much for us over the years.
Denson (aka Bassius), who was drumming, counted us in and we took off, Devin (aka Mrs. Bassius) tickling the ivories, Austin (aka Saxoholic) wailing on the sax, Tom (Youngmonkey) killing it on the trumpet and me on the upright bass just trying to hang on for the ride.
In the middle of the song, I am supposed to run out to the middle of the stage and interact the bit with the audience. Seeing the vast ocean of Blizzard fans spread throughout the entire hall is an experience I’ll never forget.
The end of the song breaks down into us “singing” Moo in the style of a classical fugue while wearing a cow hat, a reference to a famous blizzard in-joke. We were a bit hesitant with the idea when we first thought of it, but the crowd went nuts!
We exited the stage absolutely stoked. It was definitely one of the most awesome and surreal experiences of all of our lives.
All of the acts were amazing. Never in our wildest dreams did we think that when they announced the first Place winner that it would be us. But I will tell you this, I don’t have to guess how big the grin on my face was when they called our name because I’m still wearing it.
Never in our wildest dreams did we think that when they announced the first Place winner that it would be us.
Forget that famous mouse themed amusement park down the street, this was our fairytale ending.
On behalf of my self and the entire band we want to publicly say thank you, thank you, thank you so very much to Blizzard and its above and beyond level staff and crew for making this Blizzcon one of the absolute highlights of our lives.