First time participating in a solo instrumental event

I recently participated in the inter-college fest SAMYOGA conducted by JAIN (Deemed-to-be University), Jayanagar Campus for the two events, Battle of Bands (BOB) and Solo Instrumental. For the BOB, we chose to play the three songs,

• Love is a long road - Tom Petty
• You give love a bad name - Bon Jovi
• Rock you like a hurricane - Scorpions

 Many participants from different colleges had come to participate in these events. Almost all the colleges performed really well in BOB. We got the third slot to perform, and I feel that we performed really well. No fault whatsoever this time, no change in tempo, no mess-up by anyone from the team. Here is a little glimpse of the performance.

 

The BOB and solo instrumental event had a clash in timings, due to the poor time management by the coordinators of the event. Added to this, there was only one drum kit in the venue. This was a problem because both the events started simultaneously, and all the participants of the solo instrumental event brought the instruments along with them like guitar, tabla, violin etc. I was the only one who was going to perform using a drum kit. But then, the head of the event managed to make the judge of the solo instrumental understand about this issue. They finally sorted this out by giving me a slot at the end of the solo instrumental event, and made me perform after the BOB events, in the huge auditorium where the BOB event was taking place. The judge agreed to wait to look at my performance after BOB for the solo instrumental. The glimpse of my performance is in the video below,

 

I had a fun time during the solo. The solo was entirely improvised, and this was my first ever drum solo. The drum kit provided to me was a TAMA 5 piece standard kit, with four cymbals. Sadly, there was only a single pedal. But, I enjoyed every bit of my time spent on the stage doing my solo. People also told me that the judge himself was grooving to my beat 😀. Before the solo event, I looked at some of the videos over on YouTube about drum solos, and how to come up with a really catchy solo. I'm glad that I did, because it helped me during this performance.

The results of the events came out the next day, sadly, we didn't win in BOB, but I did win the third prize in the solo instrumental event.

TL;DR

First ever drum solo for the solo instrumental event. Won the third prize.