Annie Drama

I know that last week I promised to post about the rest of my experience at the Ed Sheeran concert, but that is an experience that I will remember forever and will post next week, and the one I'm posting this week is more of a "Current Events of the Lefler Household" post but it does have to deal with music. My brother, sister and I have all taken piano lessons as kids but my brother and I have both forgot, I'll learn again someday but this week's post isn't about me. It's about my little sister. She has stuck with playing the piano and even sings sometimes. I always tell her to stop singing when she does though because I really don't like loud noises up close; I know, I'm a mean sister. This week was a big week for my little sister, Gracie. She had auditions for this years fall community play, Annie. To be honest that musical freaks me out. The whole orphans thing is just too sad for me to think about. As I've mentioned in earlier posts, my father is a teacher at the high school; that is where the auditions were held. He watched her and all the other hopeful teenage girls get on the stage and sing their hearts out to "Little Girls" and "It's a Hard-Knock Life."

Gracie was hoping for the part of Ms. Hannigan, the orphanage keeper. My father said that she was so good during auditions that the girl who had to audition after her said "how am I supposed to follow that?" so my dad was super confident that Gracie would be given the part of Ms. Hannigan. It was an agonizing two days waiting for the results of the auditions. I think Mom, Dad and I were more anxious to find out than Gracie was, and when we finally found out the results we were all disappointed. The director had e-mailed everyone the whole cast list with all the parts and who they were going to be played by. Gracie did not get Ms. Hannigan. Instead the part was given to the girl who had gone on after her, the girl that asked how she was supposed to follow that. My father said that Gracie was way better than that girl, and she easily should've gotten the part. My mom ended up replying to the e-mail saying that our whole family was disappointed. Gracie didn't know my mom had done that, and when she found out she almost cried from embarrassment. It really was a hard-knock life for Gracie this week. I think my mother's heart was in the right place when she did this, but she still shouldn't have. The e-mail made it sound like she thought her daughter was the best and what-not, like a crazy parent yelling at their coach from the bleachers to put their kid in. I hope that just because Gracie didn't get the part she wanted she doesn't stop singing. She's really good at it. Maybe someday I could play piano for her and she could sing along.

Ed Sheeran's Concert Part 1 of 2

Ed Sheeran has been my favorite artist for a few years now, ever since I first acquired his + (plus) album in 2012. All of his songs are so deep, and have a meaning to him. A good example of this is his song "Afire Love." From the lyrics the listener can figure out that his grandfather suffered from dementia and died when Ed was six years old. It is a beautiful song with a nice melody that you can watch below.

Last night I was honored to pay $70 for general admission tickets to see Ed at the Palace of Auburn Hills. I had never gotten general admission tickets so I wasn't sure what to do. When I had purchased the tickets the map showed me that I was going to sit in ground floor section 2 which was behind the ground floor section in front of the stage. I was a little bummed that we weren't going to be super close, but I was still happy that we were pretty close. Then there was a whole fiasco about the tickets being credit-card entry and my card being stolen last week, so I had to call the box office to see how to get my tickets when I got to the concert because obviously I couldn't swipe my credit card. I had that straightened out Tuesday so last night we hopefully would be able to get into the concert smoothly. That wasn't the case. When my friend and I arrived around 5:00, (the concert started at 7:30) we thought we were early, but the line to get in was about 100 yards long. That means that I was going to have 100 yards of typical white girls between Ed Sheeran and I. Some of which had been waiting there since 9:00 this morning.

I had to go to the bathroom anyways so we went in a different entrance to see where I can print my tickets off and go potty. There was no potty in sight so I put it at the back of my mind and went up to a ticket booth. I asked the lady to print my tickets off to which she replied that they weren't printing tickets until 5:30, and we had to get in the long ass line until then. It took us five minuted to hike to the back of the line where we waited together for about ten minutes and then I left Kaitlin and went to go get in the line inside to print the tickets off. While I was in line for that I was talking to the girls around me about how the lady told me to wait in the long ass line to get in, and they told me that all the general admission people have to wait inside. That was news to me. I had to call Kaitlin to tell her to come inside because according to the friends I had just made, we needed wristbands. After Kaitlin and I reunited we got the tickets printed off and got in another line to receive wristbands. There were two colors of wristbands; orange and yellow. We got the orange ones. Then we had to get into another line to wait until the doors opened. When it was 6:00 they should've been starting to get people inside, but something was stopping the process. Apparently we were in three lines and then we had to be in two, and then we had to be in one. It was so confusing and crazy. After we finally pushed through the line to get our tickets scanned, we went to get into the actual event area. We walked down the steps to get to the floor and I saw the two sections, the ground floor 2 was for yellow wristbands and ground floor 1 was for orange wristbands, which we had. We got to be directly in front of the stage! It was a dream come true. 

Please enjoy this lovely music video featuring Ed Sheeran and a cat. Next week I will post about the concert itself.

High School/Night Visions

Whoever said that high school would be the best years of your life was a dirty liar. My high school was so cliquey -yes that is a word according to Google definitions- and I didn't fit into any of the cliques. I was alone 90% of the time in high school, and I was okay with that. I did have a few friends but they all played different sports so they hung out with their cross country or volleyball friends. Not being in a clique was my fault too. I didn't want to fit in and conform to their beliefs. Like the belief that you couldn't wear the same pair of jeans twice in one week, and the belief that Justin Bieber would be the ideal boyfriend.

I know only God can judge us, but seriously anyone who wants a boyfriend that says "Swaggie" on a regular basis needs to re-evaluate their priorities. Anyhow, I didn't start out being an outcast in high school. At first I was popular. When I walked into school on my birthday Freshmen year, the whole Freshmen hallway said "Happy Birthday Andee!" really loudly. Its pretty ironic, then I was chubby, had short frizzy hair, and braces filling my mouth and people liked me, but senior year when I wasn't chubby, had long gorgeous hair and perfect teeth, people didn't want anything to do with me. That's because sophomore year this boy started a rumor about me and it got around the whole school within two class periods. It was a very vulgar, explicit story that wasn't true. It is so bad that I'm not comfortable typing it. Thinking about it still makes my throat burn from holding back tears. I did the uncool thing and cried and talked to the counselor about it, and then my dad, who is a teacher in my old high school, talked to him. My reputation of being the perfect teacher's daughter was ruined. Everyone thought I was a slut and a "snitch" for telling on him. From then on I was a loner. I had few real friends, but many fake ones who just pretended to  like me but they really were just all making fun of me when I wasn't there. I was depressed. Whatever, who needs friends-I had music. Imagine Dragons specifically. Their Night Visions album was my go-to album whenever I started to get bummed about being a loner. 

The whole album just has this vibe of "keep your head up", which was obviously relevant to my situation in high school. It seemed to make me feel important and strong and made me realize that there are so many bigger problems in life. The album came out in 2012, and I just heard "Demons" play on the radio earlier this morning. That is the song that reminded me about this story, and inspired me to share it on my blog. When I prayed to God to help me get through high school, it is the song I would quote. "Your eyes, they shine so bright

I wanna save that light I can't escape this now Unless you show me how." This album helped me get through high school, so if you're having a tough time in high school or any situation, I highly recommend it. Please watch the video below!

Why is this blog about music?

My earliest memory of growing up would be my parents blaring 80's rock and roll albums like Poison and KISS throughout the house on Sunday afternoons. That's when dad would be mopping the floors and mom would be making dinner. The whole house would be mixed with the smells of Pine-Sol and roast beef and the sound of  "Talk Dirty to Me" playing from a stereo. I would have to say that Sunday afternoons were my favorite part of my childhood. I chose to talk about music in this blog because it has been around forever, and it isn't going anywhere; it is only changing, and it never stops. In this blog I plan to share my love for different genres of music, different artists, albums, and my favorite songs. I have a new favorite song just about every week, and right now I have a tiny/large obsession with Ed Sheeran. That's him below; the ginger with a ginger beard and an awesome color tattoo sleeve that includes a kitten. Anyways, back to why I chose this topic.

I enjoy deep music that has meaning- not the music about fuckin' bitches and gettin' money. Music can get you through any situation whether its heartbreak, suicidal thoughts, or the all too common parents being divorced. I think we all can agree that music is powerful. Music has gotten me through my own fair share of tough, troubling times; some of which I will address in future blogs. I've also chosen this blog because I think song lyrics should be used more in real life. Personally, I am not good at expressing how I feel romantically so I always just quote song lyrics to express my feelings. There is an album or song for every situation or emotion that human beings come across in life, so if you ever think that you're alone or that you're sure that you're feeling something so terrible that no one has ever experienced it before, trust me, there will be a song about it to help you through it, and if it doesn't help you through it, it will at least let you know that you aren't alone.

I felt alone through all of high school. I had been working at McDonald's every evening and weekend so I had no time to hang out with friends, so I lost all of my friends from school. This made me hate high school because no one would talk to me and everyone thought I was gross because I worked at McDonald's. Music really helped me through this part of my life. I'm so much happier in college because no one knows much about me or anyone else so it's easy to make friends. A cool thing that I'm finding out right now is that music connects people to each other. One of the first things I ask people is what type of music they listen to. I like almost all types of music so it is an easy conversation for me to have with people to get to know them. Music is truly powerful and I can't wait to post more blogs to talk about it.