Milli Vanilli in Ho Chi Minh City

I'm sure that it's happened to you all at some point or another in your lives. You leave a message on an answering machine - most likely the one at your house - with the expectation of another family member listening to and then promptly deleting the message. It sounds simple enough, but of course, every so often the moon shifts in its orbit and its gravitational pull becomes so strong that it prevents all of your family members from returning home before you, thus making the collision of speaker and recorded voice almost inevitable.

My voice doesn't bother me when I'm speaking. I think the acoustics of my head are such that my words seem to ring with a light, sweet tinkle. I suppose that I always assumed that my voice sounded exactly the same when it leaves my mouth as it did when it was in my mouth. At least, I assumed that until I happened to come home on one of those odd lunar days when I had the great misfortune of hearing my recorded voice - all stilted and bumbling - on our answering machine.

It's humbling to hear one's own voice, and oftentimes it sets off days of silence springing from intense self-consciousness, but at least you can make answering machines stop.

A few posts back, I wrote about having to sing "Seasons of Love" in front of an auditorium full of the Ho Chi Minh City Youth Union. Since then, Susie and I have been asked (or, more precisely, instructed) to sing another song in front of a stadium full of 25,000 Vietnamese students as well as anyone else who might like to watch us on Vietnamese National Television.

I haven't written anything about this, partially because I think I've been in a state of partial catatonic shock - refusing to allow the reality of our fate sink into my consciousness. There are a few things wrong with this whole thing.

First, the largest group of people I've ever sung to was a theatre of - at the very most - 500 people. Ok, so 25,000 divided by 500 is about 50, so 50 times the size of the largest crowd that I've ever performed in front of. Did I mention I get butterflies whenever I have to introduce myself in small groups of new people?

Second, although our performance of "Seasons of Love" was compelling and fun, the Youth Union has asked that we sing something a bit more formal and popular. This is OK until they informed us that "formal" and "popular" to them is something by Britney Spears or the Backstreet Boys.
* Given certain - ehem - restrictions, we chose Backstreet Boys.

Third, we are singing "I Want it that Way" - the hit single from the Boys' chart-topping album "Millennium". On the surface, given our restrictions, this doesn't seem like a problem worth giving a whole number to; however, the song and I have a history. The last time I lip-synced to this song, it was at a middle school church beach retreat. I stripped down to my boxers only to realize after the song that - despite their excellent reputation off keeping guys "inside" - Brooks Brothers boxers had a tendency to, how shall we say, help you "open up" to a crowd.

My stripping had not been a premeditated thing. I had just realized that simply lip-syncing to the Backstreet Boys was about as exciting as spending an afternoon peeling carrots.

So with one week's notice, Susie and I began to put off practicing as much as possible. After all, we didn't know what the band that the Youth Council would be providing for us would be like. So until our practice with the band, Susie and I set out to listen to the song on Susie's iPod as much as possible - taking special note of the "ooo's" and little falsetto "yeah's".

This past Tuesday, Susie and I got into a cab to go practice with the band. We pulled up at a little clothing shop and were invited by a greased-haired, bespectacled man to come into the back of the shop where were brought into a tiny recording studio with a tiny girl very aggressively singing/screaming an Avril Lavigne song in the little booth.

"So where's the band?" We asked, looking for any sign of space for a band.

Naturally, it didn't take long for the reality to set in that the band was the actual song from the album without any vocal tracks.

"So...we're recording, then? But why?"

Evidently, we had not been compelling enough in our previous performance to deserve the complete trust of National Television. As I began to sweat and look panicked around the room, the truth was delivered in a few strained words of broken English.

"You're lip-syncing."

I'll stop here to say that I have no problem with lip-syncing. I almost think it's kind of fun. Truly, there are few expectations for a lip-syncer other than that he or she know the words and be fun. What I do not think is fun is lip-syncing to myself and trying to pass it off as being live. The situation was getting worse: lip sync to a personal (and very bad) imitation of the Backstreet Boys for a lot of people - and make it look like you're doing it live.

Images of Milli Vanillia and Ashlee Simpson flash in my head. After their own fiascos with botched lip-syncing, both had basically disappeared off the face of the Earth, their careers ruined, images destroyed.

I move into the recording booth - a small wooden box with egg carton matress lining its entire surface. It is about 6 feet tall and I am 6'3. I crook my neck awkwardly and begin to sweat as the climate of the box is suffocating.

You are my fi-ur / My one dee-si-ur...

They stop the recording and play it back in the headphones for me to hear. I don't remember ever singing into an answering machine, but this makes that seem desirable. I continue singing,

Tell me why-ee

My voice cracks. The recording stops. The technicians laugh, putting my cracking voice on a looping loud speaker.

Why-ee! Why-ee! Why-ee!

They laugh more, as I glare from within the Sahara-like box - its window beginning to fog.

I continue to record - realizing that my voice is beginning to fade even further. My high notes begin to fade, and the recording stops again. They speak with a very shy, meek boy for a moment, and he comes into the recording booth - steam pouring out of the doors - to tell me, "Sing Better."

I feel my inner diva beginning to raise its head, hissing. I'm growing frustrated, wanting to demand a break, needing water, a limo ride for sushi, a cool towel. I begin to sympathize with why artists always get a bad rap for being impatient and tempestuous.

At last, the session ends and they tell us they will have the recording ready for our Friday the 13th performance (damnit!).

***

The next few days passed with me giving very little thought to our Friday performance. Knowing that I don't have to save my voice takes a bit of the pressure off. Although the news that we will be following Lam Chu -a Vietnamese pop star (who, incidentally, took a huge popularity hit recently when he was found to be lip-syncing at one of his live shows) makes up for the pressure that had been removed.

Finally (or, more appropriately put, dreadfully), the day of our performance comes. Despite the fact that for the past week it has rained almost constantly - making any outdoor activity impossible (our concert was set to be outdoors) - from our chairs at the stadium, we behold a rainbow beginning to peek through the clouds nearly an hour before the show is set to start.

Profanties begin to stream through my head - erasing any remnants of the words to the song.

***

I can feel myself rambling and the show leading up to our performance does not deserve a lot of detail - I don't think I could write much about it primarily because I think I blacked out until we went on stage.

Nevertheless, as we began to walk out on stage, mouthing along to our recorded "yeah-uh's" and "Why-ee's" (they edited out the cracks, thank God), people began to clap and, as the crowds tend to do here, people began to congregate in front of the stage, clapping and waving their hands over their heads. And somehow, after exactly 3 minutes and 33 seconds, we finished - unscathed with our reputations maintained (for now at least...) - and moved back to our seats, feeling much better than we had all week, and knowing that I would never want to sing a song "that way" again.