Doomz: From Pathetic to EPIC: Battle of the Bands Megapost - Everything you wanted to know and MORE!!!

After weeks of basking in the awesomeness of the event, I think I've finally calmed down enough to take a crack at writing a much-needed entry on the
2009 OPS Battle of the Bands. It was a great event - I haven't heard the official numbers on what the attendance was like as of yet, but I think the
two charities that were being supported by the event - United Way and Ryan's Well - fully appreciated our efforts and that there were a number of winners
that came out from it. But there was a long path that needed to be travelled first before we got there!

*CASEY PALMER: A CALAMITY*

The first question to ask is how I got in a band in the first place! I come from a history of being in choirs and messing around with music, but it's not something I generally advertise, because well, I don't spend enough time at it to be awesome. But it went a little something like this:

My team and I were out at lunch at a place we've nicknamed Lim's Garden. It was probably the first or second week that I'd been with the team, and my boss, Paul, was making an attempt at singing a Jason Mraz song to the team so that we'd all know what he was talking about. After numerous attempts, I helped him out with my rendition of the song, whereupon everyone recognized it immediately. Paul stared at me intently, and the only other words I heard at that moment was from a teammate at the table - "Looks like we just got ourselves a new band member!"

*A PHENOM IN THE MAKING: PRACTICES*

If you're going to perform in front of a bunch of important people, including the Secretary of the Cabinet (you know, the highest-ranking public servant in the province...), you're going to have to make sure that you're on your A-game! So practice was definitely needed. I started getting the invites to hit up my boss' place after work on Thursdays for practice, but I was always busy for a while. Whether it was wrapping up my summer Ultimate Frisbee league, attending a friend's birthday party or whatever, I remember that I didn't end up making it for a practice until late September.

In the beginning, I remember the group being a lot smaller and the nature of the practices far different. We spent some time feeling out the songs we
would potentially perform and had random jam sessions of songs such as Bob Marley and the Wailers' "Waiting in Vain" or The Police's "Message in a
Bottle". I think we had a bunch of random people at first as well. In time, the people who would make up The Calamities that would perform at BotB started coming by while Paul took a three week vacation in India. (I'm still jealous.)

At one point, our setlist included Van Morrison's "Brown-Eyed Girl" and Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive", but those were scrapped - one for being too campy (and the band's outright refusal to do a ska version of "Brown-Eyed Girl" despite a very insistent Paul) and the other for previously having been performed by the Calamities.

With an ever-changing setlist (and practice attendee list to match) and tensions rising with incorrect lyrics and unwanted instrumental mishaps, one may have worried at a point that the Calamities might not have pulled it off. But as the weeks passed, with extra practices and refocused vigor, we came to a point where our sound was clear and our cues to remember. It was just about time to perform.

*THE OUTFIT*

So a special event needs a special outfit! Originally, I had no idea of what I'd wear for this, but our lovely vocalists Carny and Emily were quick to come up with a set of criteria about a month before the battle:

Blue or black

Yeah, those were pretty much the rules. But for the vocalists, they came up with an EXTRA rule:

Sequined.

What man owns anything with sequins these days??? Those went out with disco BEFORE I was born! But I'm a team player, so with the rules iin mind, I set out to find something wearable in Toronto. All I could come up with was a sequined hat from Malabar. I'm not the type to put just anything on my head, so no - the hat wasn't happening. I called up numerous costume shops and scoured their websites, but it didn't look like I'd find was I was looking for in Toronto.

When all hope seemed lost, in the midst of one of the singers' (many) email conversations on how we planned for things to do at the battle, they sent a couple of links for companies who sell sequined vests in the US:

http://www.sixstaruniforms.com/Merchant/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=UV&Category_Code=VEST_SEQUINS

http://www.everythingsequin.com/scripts/prodList.asp?idCategory=40&gclid=COiGiPvDl54CFQ_xDAodOUiFlg

(and sequined hats for good measure): http://store.malabar.net/product_info.php?products_id=3250

So a good week and a half prior to the battle, the vest was ordered (at $25 US for the vest, with another $22 on top for international shipping - the things I do for The Calamities, eh?) with a note attached reading: PLEASE get this to me by December 3rd, as I have an event then that I need this vest for! Thanks! So all was well, since yanno - New York is pretty close, and on the site, it said they'd take 5 days to ship it. Easy peasy, right?

Oh so wrong. Let's take a look at a few things.

*There was an EXTRA clause on the site. In addition to the 3-5 business days it would take them to SHIP the vest, they allotted another 3-5 business days on TOP of that to actually PACKAGE it. I don't quite know why they needed so much leeway, but eh
*Customs can be a pain in the butt - had the vest been made of any explosive materials, it probably wouldn't have made it on time
*I was having the vest shipped to my workplace, and since we're on the 8th floor, I didn't quite know where the vest would be shipped to: The post office in the basement? Straight to my floor?

So I was happy that I'd have an awesome vest, but anxious to get it on time, or else I'd have paid all that money for nothing. Here's a look at what the schedule went like for getting the vest in:

	Delivered Abroad, December 03, 2009, 2:51 pm, CANADA
	At Foreign Delivery Unit, December 03, 2009, 8:04 am, CANADA
	Out of Foreign Customs, December 01, 2009, 4:02 pm, CANADA
	Into Foreign Customs, December 01, 2009, 1:36 pm, CANADA
	Arrived Abroad, December 01, 2009, 1:36 pm, CANADA
	International Dispatch, November 28, 2009, 6:21 pm, ISC NEW YORK NY(USPS)
	Arrival
	Electronic Shipping Info Received, November 23, 2009

So as you can see above, it was a pretty close call. I was happy on the 23rd when they received word that they were getting the vest, but a little pissed that it took all the way until the 28th for them to actually SEND it. I started biting my nails a little by December 1st when it made its way through customs, but without any word of where the heck it was going after that. Things really hit the fan on the day of the Battle, with it being at the Foreign Delivery Unit in the morning. The day went a little like this:

Get in to work
See the vest is at the FDU
Call USPS to see where the vest is - they say it's at the FDU and to call Canada Post to check
Call Canada Post, who say that the vest WAS at the FDU, but is now in transit
Check with the post office downstairs to see if the vest would come there, but they tell me if it did it wouldn't be until 5 PM or maybe even the next morning. Well THAT won't work
Go back to the office - coworker calls USPS to give them a piece of her mind on the matter, they blame the company shipping the vest
We call the company to give them a piece of our mind and see what we can do about getting a refund
Go to dim sum for lunch, crestfallen
Go back to the office, find out that we have an office mailbox down there and one of the admin assistants have a key
Head downstairs to see if it's in the office mailbox
See a guy with a USPS box going in the OTHER elevator as we exit.
Me: "...nahhh, it... CRAP."
Coworker and admin assistant go to check the office mailbox, I chase the guy upstairs on the other elevator
Return to office to see coworker signing for vest
Get box
Tear it open
You get: SHINY ROYAL BLUE VEST!!!!

(Source: http://www.sixstaruniforms.com/Merchant/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=UV&Product_Code=SQ-189-ROYAL-BLUE)

So it was an epic battle of patience and running around, but in the end it turned out okay. I was getting ready to head out, and my coworker asked something along the lines of "you're not wearing THAT under the vest, are you???" So then I found myself being forced to go to H&M to buy a black shirt to wear under the vest - and while at the cash register, I saw they were selling fedoras. FOR FIVE BUCKS. Yeah, there wasn't even a moment's hesitation there. My outfit was complete. I was ready to go duke it out with five other bands and see what they were bringing to the table!

*THE BATTLE*

The event itself was an ever-changing test run. We didn't really have time to do a soundcheck, since:

A lot of the needed musicians didn't turn up on time
The architecture of the building led to some interesting reverbations when you didn't want them
Equipment not quite working the way you wanted it to

As a result of these and other factors, we were left with no stage monitors and low microphone volume. Thus, you couldn't hear yourself sing, you couldn't hear the OTHER vocalists sing and you had to try and get those notes out. (Yes, this is my excuse for why I sound like I'm shouting through all the videos.) I still had fun though - our bands really came together in the end and I look forward to any future times we can come together and jam! I'm already thinking about potential songs for next year :)

*THE AFTERMATH*

In the end, I'm glad to have been a Calamity in this event. It was fun, it was energetic, and we were raising money for a good cause! (And we won the People's Choice Award for the second year running as a sidebar!) I'm hoping that we'll have another gig coming up in early 2010 so that everyone who missed the first one can see what the Calamities are all about! We even wound up on the internal website for our organization's newsletter, which was pretty cool: