What happens when an ironing board, a Swiffer, four Americorps guys, Def Leopard, Bon Jovi, and Styx combine? If you guessed some crazy insane air band action, you were absolutely correct. This perfect combination happened on August 25, 2005, and will not soon be forgotten by the estimated 80 people who saw it. On this day, Big Bald Nate and the Special Surprise succeeded in their mission to rock the socks off of the Americorps talent show that took place at the Denver campus.
It all started out when Dave, Gabe, Elijah, and myself decided that we needed to be a part of last Thursday's talent show in some capacity. Next, we just had to decide which of our many talents were worth being shared with our peers. Dave is already a very accomplished ironing board juggler and Gabe has equal skills with a Swiffer. They both thought the talent show would be enhanced with an exhibition of these abilities. Still, Elijah and I did not know what to juggle, so the hunt for an idea continued. Than it dawned upon us that I have previous experience in lead air guitar and Elijah actually plays drums, combine this with the fact that an ironing board looks like a key board and a Swiffer a bass and one hell of an air band can be formed (and holy moly it was).
The name spawned from the fact that I had recently taken a razor to my head and, despite the bit of stubble growth on my head, am basically bald. The special surprise was the fact that a Swiffer and ironing board would in fact take flight at various points in the show.Next we took to finding the right music and practicing it. I am an accomplished air singer of the Styx song, Mr. Roboto, and that song was chosen pretty quickly. Shortly after, we settled on Pour Some Sugar on Me by Def leopard and You Give Love a Bad Name by Bon Jovi. All of these songs, we decided would get the crowd excited and had potential of blowing the roof off. Turns out our premenisions were correct, but I will get to that later. After finding the songs, we made out album and began to practice in the basement of the cafeteria. Here we began to choreograph some sweet jump kicks, guitar rifs, and other sexy moves that were sure to please. Elijah had to practice his one handed drumming since Def Leapord's drummer only had one arm. The seclusion down there was perfect and allowed us to practice for 1 1/2 - 2 solid hours before the campus police kicked us out. Apparently, we were not supposed to be there. I think the campus cops got a good laugh out of walking in on our practice session though, because they were pretty nice to us. Still run ins with the law definitely helps out the validity of a solid rock band.
Next, costumes had to be acquired. No reputable band goes on stage in regular clothing, they must look a little better than the average Joe to be good at all. Fortunately, my friend Jen is a rock star at heart and had some great clothes to lend me. Damn do I look good in women's red plaid pants. She also lent me a sweet red scarf to match, a tan pleather jacket, and a big hoop ear ring. Topped off with my steel toe boots, a bunch of wrist bands and some sweet shades, I looked like I was ready to take the world by storm. Dave also came up big by wearing a tight white T cut appropriately high at the midriff in order to show off hit amazing stomach. Gabe, not to be out done, dawned his favorite wife beater tank top and put on some sweet blind guy glasses. Elijah, since he was the too-cool-for-school drummer, kept it simple wearing a black T and some jeans. His hair was his biggest asset.All that was left, besides the show, was to get some roadies. Jena and Parker filled the roll perfectly.
Parker took charge of tuning the guitars and setting up the drums, while Jena was in charge of sound. Parker did an amazing job of introducing the band; both pumped up the crowd plenty. Jena really was huge when she was checking the microphone. The one provided on stage, simply would not work for out cause... too much sound was coming out of the damn thing. Luckily, she had a blow-up mike on her which worked to perfection. After they had everything set up, Parker was great at pushing play to get the music to start and Jena brought Elijah new air drum sticks when he broke his. They also served as great back-up dancers for Mr. Roboto.When the show time came, we were lucky enough to land one of the closing acts. I guess that those in charge of the show knew to save the best for last. As our turn came closer, Dave got extremely nervous. It ended up that he had to go outside and dry heave for a while to get a hold of himself. After some pep talks and a lot of jumping around, Dave was ready to go and so was the rest of the band.
We took to the stage and with a couple swift jump kicks we began to rock. Starting off with You Give Love a Bad Name, we really got the crowd into it. Women fainted and screamed while men wished they were us. Second, we played Pour Some Sugar on Me and everyone in the crowd was singing. The adrenaline rush was amazing, and only caused us to play harder and push the limits even further. That was out last song and we rushed off the stage only to hear chants of "ENCORE!!!". Luckily we anticipated this warm reception and had a song prepared. With that we went back out and performed Mr. Roboto to perfection. Styx would have been proud. After that song, the show was over and we hit the bars downtown to celebrate.My moment as a rock star was as wonderful as I ever dreamed. I hope to take this experience back to La Crosse where I can join my original air band 70sexy and make it even better. We all still receive compliments from our fellow corps members and get questions about an upcoming tour. Unfortunately, because of our commitment to community service a tour won't be possible and that wonderful Thursday night will most likely be the only time Big Bald Nate and the Special Surprise will ever play.
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