Well, I was honored to be asked to sing the national anthem at the San Francisco Giants game at Oracle Park for Pride Day, and it was amazing! I was a little bit nervous, but also excited. It ended up going great though, and I got a lot of positive feedback from people who saw it. So, I’m just going to give a little more detail here about how it went (if anyone is interested). If you want to see me sing it, you can watch it on YouTube.
First of all, I went to the VIP Pride Party before the game. It was at the stadium, too (somewhere — that place is huge!) and hosted by Peaches Christ & Sister Roma. Also, Juanita MORE! was DJ, and a lot of other queens were performing. One of my friends/coworkers was seeing drag for the first time that day! Amazing.
I had a couple of drinks before I was escorted down to the field for sound check (yes, I drink before shows! See me at Martuni’s one day lol). We were taken through all these windy hallways, elevators and eventually a dugout entrance (I think it’s called). It felt like the movies, because I’ve only seen it in movies/TV. You know, you walk out onto the field from under the seats. Pretty cool.
To get onto the field we had to have these special “credentials” (like a name tag, but it looks cooler because it’s official Major League Baseball). They have to scan that tag or they will not let you in. My friend was with me, because she was going to film me when I sang. I tested the mic, after they stuffed my “ears” (like what the famous people wear on stage to hear the music/themselves) in, and pretty quickly we were done!
I loved the feeling of stepping onto the field before the players started the game, too. The person telling me what to do was like “step over the lines,” because we didn’t want to mess them up. Wow… I was on the field where the Giants (and Angels) were about to play!
Anyway, after sound check we went back to the party for a moment, but soon enough I was taken down again to get ready to sing. I was told to start singing after they say my name, and I totally didn’t remember that was my cue when they actually said my name live in front of the thousands of people in the stadium. Luckily, the sound guy waved at me and I started. You can see the look on my face in the video, though.
However, I was really happy with the performance! I think it was as good as I could have done, and I had this moment where I took out the pride flag during one of the lines of the song. “What so PROUDly we hailed…” — I held out the PROUD note for a long time and pulled out the flag at the same time. It went over well.
After I was done (it took less than two minutes) I waved until the cameras were off me (as I had been instructed to do) and was escorted off the field. As I went to my seat, sooo many people were congratulating me and telling me how much they loved my version of the song. I was giving high fives on almost every row as I walked up the stairs. When I got food/drinks and even when I was walking out of the stadium I had people coming up to me nonstop saying they loved it, some said they cried, were amazed. It meant a lot to me. I felt encouraged.
Anyway, that’s about it, but I thought y’all might like to hear a bit about my experience singing the anthem for the Giants. They lost by one point, unfortunately, but it was still a good game. Also, we had the first LGBTQ+ couples renewing their vows/getting married on the field in MLB history (so I heard)! Very cool for Pride Day with the Giants.
