Seattle - Part 1 - American Idol Registration

So it's been a couple weeks since the American Idol Auditions. Christina and I made a trek from Salem, OR to Seattle for the auditions there.

How it was supposed to work:

Sunday 9/19 - Begin lining up at 6am, provide proof of id, get your AI wristband (one for you and one for your guest), and tickets
Tuesday 9/21 - Begin lining up between 6-7 am and enter Key Arena to audition, get judged yay or nay and walk

How it actually worked:

On the way up to Seattle, we stopped at Fry's and picked up a digital camera. We just so happened to have showed up while they had a one day sale on an off brand 5M camera. We debated upgrading, but ending up getting it, then fought through the hassle that is purchasing something from Fry's. And like Willie Nelson, we were back on the road again. For the duration of the trip, I took random pictures of everything, so there will be quite a pictorial representation of the trip.

Our trip was planned pretty extensively, as I'm completely anal about itinerary. We were to stay at La Quinta close to the Bellevue/Kirkland border on Saturday night, then move to a hotel downtown after the initial registration. We arrived at LQ shortly after 8. The staff was courteous and quick with the limited interaction that we had with them. After getting settled into LQ, we went driving around for dinner. Besides steakhouses there weren't any easily accessible restaurants, we ended up in Bellevue, just shy of downtown at a Denny's. It was definitely Saturday Night as full families were just wrapping up their meals, and stoned, tweaked out people arrived to throw down their change for a cup of coffee. The food was alright, but it was Denny's so we weren't expecting anything to extravagant.

We decided to scope out Key Arena, for the different parking venues so that we weren't looking for them half-asleep the following morning. We did alright navigating downtown Seattle, with the trusty American Idol parking information and Yahoo maps. We arrived back at the hotel around 12:30 or so. In what seemed like 15 minutes, it was time to get going.

Not so bright and shiny on Sunday morning (around 6:15am) we approached a line of around 500-800 people. Most people had arrived between 1:30-6:00am, despite the various warnings of following all of the rules in regards to lining up. The weather was decent, so that was a plus. A lot of nervous, sweaty people standing around wondering what trick American Idol was going to pull on them.

A couple of people attempted to make contact with us, their prospective line friends. I attempted to be cordial but it was god awful early in the morning and the last thing I wanted to do was talk to complete strangers. There was one particular person who went out of her way to talk to us. She was a Southern girl, which had actually flown into Seattle to audition from Roanoke, Virginia. She went on for about 20 minutes about her "costume" problems and how she had been working with a voice coach and was just so darn excited. And thus she was dubbed, Ms Roanoke for her beauty pageant-Esq attitude and costumes. I attempted a conversation, but for the most part my responses were grunts and nods. She was the first of many that thought that she was onto a broad American Idol conspiracy that the actual singing auditions would be on Sunday. She ended up being herded a bit behind us, where she started talking up some other people. Throughout this time, we were shuffled closer and closer together, thankfully most were all gussied up and were at least showered.

Once people started waking up from the daze, the singing began. Many a pop icon was represented, Josh Groban being the big hit amongst the dudes, where the women were busting out anything from Tina Turner to TLC. Our good friend, Ms. Roanoke, was amongst the last of the people behind us to sing. It took much coercing, she was obviously saving her voice for the secret auditions that were to come. Finally, she relented and began singing something that I did not recognize, either because I'm musically challenged or from the reactions all around she butchered the song. Keep in mind, that we are surrounded by people who have either been singing all their lives or that are just hanging out with someone who did. A hush fell over the crowd, and the musical stylings of a cat being sat on spewed across the morning air. Christina witnessed the group of boys that were hanging around our fair Virginia belle take a huge step backwards and to the side. Obviously, her game was too big for them.

The line continued as we were herded from one section of the Seattle Center concourse to another. Christina picked up a line friend (Gabrielle) along the way, who shared our sarcasm with everyone taking themselves too seriously. We ended up sticking close to Gabrielle and her mother throughout the rest of the journey through the line. Around 10am or so, we got to the front of the line where we were shepherded into Key Arena to obtain our wristbands, tickets, and verify our IDs. We ended up being amongst the last of our group to sign up, mainly due to our lack of pushing. After 4 hours, what's another 10 minutes? We finally were shuffled to a table, where the AI intern checked IDs. This is the last year that Christina could audition, so her birth year was flagged. We had a similar scare earlier that week when checking the final restrictions, so I quickly pointed out the correct dates. And we were given wristbands, tickets, and additional instructions. My wristband was red, and Christina's (the actual singer) was blue. They were made out of paper similar to the old paper that you'd buy to feed through a dot-matrix printer. Keep in mind that we have to keep the wristband on until Tuesday in order to get in.

So it was 10:45, and we made our way back to the car. The first American Idol day accomplished. Now we can settle into our classy downtown hotel for a couple days and be tourists. Heaven knows, that's what we thought when we were walking to the car. But then, Murphy's law reared it's ugly head....