John Seager's 30 for 30: Day 28

A Cunning look back of 30 days which have changed my life over the past 30 years

Day 28:  4^th September 2011 – A piece of unofficial broadcasting history

Evening all,

Well that special project involved the studio manager Mark – who works as a DJ across the clubbing land known to me as Margate – broadcasting live from the studios for 8 days and 8 nights nonstop.

If we were able to do this, then it would be classed as a Guinness world record. Which i thought at the time would be great to have on the CV. So i was on the bus from day one.

The main day which i found to be quite interesting for me was the last day, the 4^th September 2011, a day which i had to do something very extraordinary.

At the beginning of the broadcast on the 27^th August, Mark announced that the support team would be doing various special challenges over the week and our individual main challenge would be performed live on the radio.

We had little challenges like i had to get a pizza for a meal for the studio and i had to do a 2 hour trance DJ set which i have to say i thoroughly enjoyed doing.

Then we all found out what our main challenges would be for the week. My one was one the most difficult ones set for the group. I was told that i was going to perform a song on the guitar live on the radio on the final morning of the broadcast. But i didn’t know what one i was going to perform so Mark played the song live on the air which song i was going to perform. It was ‘Firework’ by Katy Perry.

At that point my head just dropped with fear knowing that i will be killing a song live on the radio. Luckily for me i had 7 days to learn the song and whilst being unemployed at the time, i feel that i had a good chance of doing a good attempt of performing the song.

Over the week i spent whatever available time i had to learn the song and i only had the internet to do it. Lucky for me i had found a very good tutorial video to watch over and over again. By the end of 6^th day i near enough had the chords and the song in my head.

 Me getting doing my final preparations 

So it was time to get ready for the performance live on the radio. Luck came my way again as i had to perform live at 7am in the morning so i had a bit more time to practise, Sadly i needed a power nap in order to help me perform the song.

When 7am came it was time to perform the song to a packed studio and a few listeners as well. I feel that i did ok with the song and i did struggle with the notes on a few lines but i did an ok performance in the end for a first timer. At the end of the song i got a massive round of applause from the studio so i was pleased that i have passed my challenge for the radio marathon.

Sadly due to a technicality, we didn’t get the world record but we did prove that anyone can do an 8 day radio marathon and if we had the chance to do it again i most definitely would.

If you want to hear the performance is it on my Facebook page under the video section. I couldn’t find a copy to put on here sadly.