Powering into our jubilee year

We really enjoyed the 2018 Christmas party, which also took place at Colosseum Theater in Essen. There, some colleagues did a routine to a Spice Girls track, which was very well received. As soon as the organisation team for the 2019 Christmas party had announced the theme of “RWEST’s Got Talent” I sprang into action. I spoke with a few colleagues and had soon teamed up with Guy Tyrrell as the vocalist and Andreas Over on the drums, we just clicked.

We didn’t have much time for rehearsing together, but we did our best to put on a good show. We tried out a few ‘crowd pleasers’ and the 3 we performed were the ones that we felt we could do justice to, and the ones which we hoped would get the best reception.

<Laughing> The kind you would expect! Luckily there were a few pockets of Brits in the crowd that appreciated it <Laughs some more>

The three of us only rehearsed together three times for an hour each time, but we got as much in as we could with just two band members at a time. Sometimes that happened quite spontaneously, for example during lunch breaks in the cyclists’ changing rooms! The look on the faces of our sporty colleagues who returned from lunchtime runs and found us with the keyboard in the locker room, singing “Football’s coming home” at the top of our lungs was priceless!

We were more nervous than expected, but it really helped that the whole show was so well organised – we even had our own room backstage for last minute prepping! When the time came, and we were led to the stage, everything ran like clockwork. The sea of waving mobile flashlights that greeted us was amazing but a little scary. It was a nervy start but hearing the crowd enjoying themselves and singing along, and knowing the 3 of us were doing it together allowed us to relax and really enjoy the experience. Also Chris Savage, Julia Giese, Dominikus Priller and Ilka Röhrhoff did a wonderful job entertaining the crowd before us – we’d like to send a big thank you to them for warming up the crowd, and to all of the wonderful people who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make it all possible.

<Laughs> We were just trying to make each other laugh with stupid suggestions and that was the one that stuck – probably because it was the least offensive option and therefore the most likely to be deemed acceptable at a work party!

We are still rehearsing together and are building a repertoire of songs. We may not have any gigs planned, but if something comes up, we’ll be ready. Watch this space…