Dear Diary: Behind the scenes of a Lip Sync Battle

When Michael Keaveny volunteered his talents for his local GAA & Camogie club’s Lip Sync Battle fundraiser he forgot he needed to possess those talents in the first place. Tens of minutes of rehearsals, costume malfunctions and cold sweats later, he survived his stage debut and live to write the tale

October 1st 
Dear Diary,
Now that the days are getting shorter hopefully there will be fewer distractions I will be able to knuckle down and give my college work some much needed attention. There’s a meeting in Dunderry GAA clubhouse tonight about something called a “limp sink battle” whatever that is, sounds violent. I’ve no intention of taking part, but I’ll help them out a bit by selling a few tickets or something like that.

October 2nd
Dear Diary,
It turns out the the meeting was about a “lip sync battle”, which involves copying an American TV show format where contestants prance around a stage pretending to sing and trying to dance... and I’ve been roped in. 
Despite my threats that I would move clubs (a claim that is only taken seriously when you can actually play football), Fergal Maguire, chairman of Trim Dunderry Macra Na Feirme club nabbed me to join the macra group along with two other unfortunate souls, Bryan Smyth and Jamie McGurl. 

November 3rd
Dear Diary,
Sorry I haven’t written a lot lately, this lip sync business takes up a lot of time. There’s been about four fundraisers a week for it for the last month varying from cake sales to barn dances to GAA blitzes, so November has been pretty hard on the wallet...and the body. With less than three weeks to show time and we haven’t even picked a song, never mind learn any dance moves. At this rate we’ll end up on stage doing the hokey pokey and clapping our hands.

November 12th 
Dear Diary,
Just under two weeks left until the big night and we’ve cobbled some sort of a routine together and it definitely has a PG 15 rating. It involves bopping around for a minute to the tune of "Twist and Shout" pretending to be the Beatles and as it reaches its crescendo we strip off and do a borderline pornographic dance to Eric Prydz’s “Call On Me" (think of Olivia Newton John's "Lets Get Physical"). If my grandmother sees it I’ll be disinherited.

November 19th 
Dear Diary,
Show week, generally a time when performers can putting the finishing touches to their routine and enjoy the build up. But seeing as we’ve yet to practice together as a group, don’t have any costumes or props and have to collect sponsorship  I’ll be lucky to sleep at all this week.

 
November 23rd
Dear Diary,
T-1 until show night, which coincidentally is also called Black Friday, hardly a good omen. Our preparation has been somewhat haphazard, and unless Michael Flately joins our troupe, the act is unlikely to get any better. All we can do say a few novenas, drink holy water and hope it works out. We've cobbled together costumes which involves us wearing something resembling our communion suits at the start but finish up with us wearing little more than our birthday suits at the end.

November 24th 
Dear Diary, 
8am D-Day, Zero Hour, judgement day, whatever you want to call it, it doesn’t matter. I hardly slept last night and whatever shut eye I did get was interrupted by dreams of me falling flat on my face onstage. Out of the 11 acts we're on 7th out on stage, which is second after the interval. Hopefully that will give the audience (and us ) enough time to juice up and enjoy the show.

2pm Our drummer has pulled out, our costumes don’t fit and our dancing is out of key. Things can only get better....right?

8pm There are around 1,200 people in the crowd, each one with a good quality camera phone, so there'll be plenty of photographic and video evidence of this for years to come. I’ve accepted my fate so I’ve said my goodbyes and have a plane booked to the Australia for after the show.

10pm
If Carlberg did lip sync acts.... they’d probably be better than ours. The act wasn’t the complete disaster I was expecting it to be, despite us changing our costumes at the wrong time and our lead singer (or syncer) Fergal falling off the stage. We’re unlikely to get nominated for a Grammy or finish on the podium tonight but nothing ventured nothing gained.