KERESIMESI CONCERT - WHY I DIDN'T PERFORM?

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Keresimesi is Abeokuta's largest Christmas concert, and I happen to be the main guitarist (but not the only guitarist) for the church that hosts the programme that day. The event took place yesterday, December 18th, at Muda Lawal Stadium. It was a large open event with a large number of people attending the programme.

People who knew I played for the church and noticed I didn't play the guitar all asked me why. and it all seemed like a long story to explain why I didn't play the guitar but was still there for the show. In fact, I wore the clothes that were assigned to musicians that day, but I still didn't play the guitar.

In this post, I would be sharing why I showed up for the event and yet didn't play the guitar....

If you assumed that the reason I didn't play the guitar was due to my absence from rehearsals, I would say you are both wrong and slightly correct. In fact, I attended 80% of the program's rehearsals from the start and played all of the songs sung yesterday in those rehearsals. So, I suppose you're wondering, what's the problem now?

The reason for this is pride and disagreement. How? This is how it's done. It all started with a Friday night rehearsal that lasted all night, followed by another Saturday rehearsal that lasted all day. I was surprised to learn that we had to rehearse again on Sunday after service, which I chose not to attend due to my stress from the series of rehearsals.

I left the church without telling anyone, but the music director saw me and was furious. I had to return to tell him and apologise for leaving, as well as properly inform him that I would be unable to attend because I had somewhere I needed to be before leaving the second time.

The next day, I saw in our WhatsApp group a message from the 2nd Music Director stating that I had been removed from the programme for failing to attend the Sunday rehearsal. I immediately entered his DM and pleaded, but there was no response from him. He simply snubbed my messages.

Then it occurred to me that I was not being compensated for all of the stress they were putting me through, and I had other people pleading with me to attend the programme during their scheduled rehearsal dates. As a result, I left for those programmes and stopped attending rehearsals because I felt unappreciated.

I chose not to play for Keresimesi again on purpose. The music director was surprised to learn that I had left the team and told a friend that I should message him again about why I was leaving. I was enraged when I received the message and he had not responded to my previous message or bothered to call me and ask why. But, in any case, I had @olujay cover for me because I had dropped my roles for the big event. You can read the keresimesi post here.

However, I had a good time on the day. I had time for myself, time to take pictures and feel included even when I wasn't performing. It was the perfect break for me, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Here are some photos from the concert.

These are photographs of some of the church's drummers. This does not include all of them, as some are not present. Because drums are so common, there are a lot of people who play them, and they are always in large numbers when drummers are summoned.

Here are some photos I took with @olujay. I don't know why, but I dislike this one because it makes us look so short. The man with the camera was tall and stood quite a distance away from us.

One of the most vexing aspects of this was that they did not reserve seats for musicians (instrumentalists) and instead forced us to stand aimlessly in the field. This made me feel like they don't value us musicians enough because they don't always keep us in mind when making plans or making arrangements.

Transportation for musicians after the programme was not arranged for the same reason that the instrumentalists are not valued. Because the programme ended late, we had to arrange for commercial vehicles to transport us home. Yesterday wasn't easy for @olujay and me...

The most important thing was they shared food with the musicians, and I got to eat to bed.

NB: This post was written yesterday... Too busy to click publish...

WHO IS STARSTRINGS01

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_{Starstrings01, also known as Giftedhands, attends the Federal University of Agriculture in Abeokuta to study Mechatronics Engineering. He is a lover of the hive, a guitarist from Nigeria, and a student.}

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