For those of you that don’t know what twitter is, its the new invasion of privacy

Basically, people update what they’re doing constantly… You sign in, and get the update on what people are doing. I’m a follower of Barack Obama… Sara Bareilles… Derik Nelson (hilarious).

Just go to www.twitter.com and join the new fad! Find me!! Amanda Holmes!

www.twitter.com/amandaholmes

Here

The Grammys were amazing I was standing in line for food and I turn around to talk to the person behind me and it turns out its the Guitarist for Lady Antebellum! They’re a country group that were up for best new artists that night!! Pretty awesome! It was cool to watch it happen live. The commercial breaks they play previous performances during the grammys. There are a lot of commercial breaks! ha. Watching everyone hurry to their seats while the producer counts down to air!

I thought that Justin Timberlake and Al Green did an awesome performance together!! Did you know that they decided THAT DAY that they were going to perform! Thats pretty awesome I love Al Green You have to admit, Justin has come a very long way. ITs hard to make that transition from pop boy band, into an independent artist. I respect him definitely. Also, I thought Sugarland did a beautiful job! She captivated the audience with only vocal and guitar. She was spot on too, the other people you could hear off notes, but not that woman, she rocked!

I also went to the official Grammy afterparty! Robin Thicke, and Morrison Day and the Time performed! After Robin performed he was walking through the crowd and I came up to him, touched his shirt and said, “You did a great job!” He looked back and me and thanked me It was a beautiful moment ha. Morrison KILLED IT!! Great music to get funky to!!

I will be putting up a video blog of the footage I shot during Grammy Week!!! Coming soon!

ALSO!! From My Heart, the EP will be available on itunes in the next few weeks I’ve just sent it off in the mail!!! AHH!!

Today I got to:

1.) See Chris Brown do sound check for the Grammy show

2.) Go to the Honorary concert for Neil Diamond, and hang backstage!

So back to number one. We sat in the stands and got to watch Chris Brown joke around the whole time! ha. I’ve seen him once before during a sound check for the taping of American Idol. He was joking around and trying to do impressions of Simon Cowell, TO Simon Cowell. ha. Today, he had the pitch correcter effect on his voice so he kept randomly singing things and laughing. We could tell he was very amused by the sound of it with his voice. ha. He started singing Kanye’s songs! As a joke. And would laugh afterwards Then his dancers got up on stage with him and they were running their routine, it was seriously some AMAZING CHOREOGRAPHY! I was truly impressed. I’ve taken hip hop lessons since I was 5 years old, so I’m usually a snob when it comes to dancing, but this choreography was really sweet. He can DANCE! Then at the end he busts out with a round off back flip!! Which I have some expertise in as well, doing gymnastics for 12 years. And I must say, he looked really good! Nice form, good height, I was impressed! He goofed off any time he could, and the few people that were there watching the sound check all kept laughing at him!

Very entertaining

THEN!! My friend Matt, who is AMAZING!! Called me up and got me into the Honorary concert for Neil Diamond!!! So I got to see performers such as, Adele, Jenifer Hudson, Cold Play, Foo Fighters, Tim McGraw (again), Faith Hill and Neil Diamond (again), and a few other cool people! I’ve got to say, Tim McGraw wasn’t all that special at sound check, he was still learning the song, but tonight he NAILED IT! His heart was in that song for sure Also Cold Play did an AWESOME JOB! THey sang “I’m a believer” the song from Shrek Neil wrote that song and gave it to the Monkeys… Well they got up had one mic, two acoustic guitars, a tamborine, and the lead singer was holding a little portable keyboard that he held with one hand and played with the other. They sang the whole song like that, the harmony vocals they all sang on the same mic. It was really comical, really intimate, and definitely a highlight of the show!!!

THEN, we got to go hang out backstage!!! The Jonas Brothers walked by and one of them waved at me! ha. It was funny. He was three feet away from me, I don’t really know why he did… ha. I was within three feet of the following artists: Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, David Grohl (Foo Fighters lead singer), David Spade, Chris Martin (Cold Play’s lead singer), Jimmy Kimmel and his gf, the Jonas brothers of course, and Josh Groban! We stood with David Grohl for a while, he was definitely already drunk and kept yelling that everyone went home too early and he wanted to know where the party was at! ha. Him with a beer in hand… Overall, it was a pretty awesome night!! I have got to say its weird that these artists can’t go anywhere and show their faces, without people staring at them… Its got to be a little awkward. You can’t live anything near to a normal life. It really shows me how amazing some of these artists are that they’re still humble. And it also proves why so many are so crazy and have attitude. Everyone treats them like God…

Still have the actual Grammys to go!! I can only imagine what thats going to be like I know we got great seats!! Saw them today! Right next to the stage off to the right. The closest level to the nominees. They sit on the floor, so I’m sitting the first level up, which is RIGHT NEXT TO THE FLOOR!!

So excited!!!

love.life

Rehearsals for Honorary Show for Neil Diamond!!

So I got to go to the rehearsals yesterday. I saw the tail end of Josh Groban perform, he did a superb job, his voice was majestic! He left soon after that. Then Tim McGraw did his sound check. Afterwards he came up four feet away from me and the group and he started being interviewed by a bunch of different TV news channels. It was funny watching four different networks ask him the same exact questions, “Whats it like to sing Neil Diamond song infront of Neil diamond?” And everytime he responded with, “Well Neil has his own style, its very hard to hear anything but his way…” It was cool to see what its like to talk to press, having to answer the same questions, give the same cheesy smile and answer them like it was the first time they’d ever heard that question. ha. Then I yelled to Tim as he was walking away that I thought he did an awesome job! He yelled back thank you

Then Faith Hill and Neil Diamond got up on stage and did a few run throughs of their song together. Neil had to teach Faith how to dance!! ha. At one point she said, “I’ve only danced with my husband and my brother.” ha. And then she laughed awkwardly like she felt uncomfortable that a seventy year old man was hitting on her. ha.

Over all, it was a pretty awesome experience. Seeing the sound check process and how people perform the song through about three times over the course of an hour. Standing and waiting for sound, lights, producer, cameras, all to set up their cues. It was definitely awesome to see into the life!!

-Tomorrow I go to the rehearsals for the Grammys!!

GRAMMYU ROCKS!

Hey!

So this week is “Grammy Week.” Where the Recording Academy puts on a bunch of AMAZING events!! They started off on Monday with a “Salute to Classical Music” at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, then the “Salute to Jazz” on Tuesday. I went to this show, it was absolutely wonderful! Herbie Hancock performed and he was brilliant! Along with the Grammy Jazz Band, made up of the best high school students from around the nation! That was held at Club Nokia which is a really classy new club located in LA Live.

Then today, Wednesday, they had Grammy Career Day. This is one of my favorite Grammy Week activities. The academy brought in 1200 high school students from all over the LA county, and introduced them to Grammy Nominated talent. These talent consisted of musicians, songwriters, producers, engineers, rock stars, A&R people, managers, etc… All people that have been in some way connected to a Grammy. This year our two celebrities that came were Ne-Yo and Jesse McCartney. (Don’t get me wrong, all the other amazing Grammy participants are celebrities in their general fields, just behind the scenes.) Out of the thirty some odd number of Grammy talent, I was fortunate enough to escort Jesse McCartney!! Let me tell you that it was seriously an eye opening experience! Jesse was very humble, no pain, very considerate, really easy going person! I didn’t feel like the hired help at all, it was more like hanging out with Jesse McCartney! ha. Imagine that. I got to ask him about his career, what he was up to, what were some of his favorite artists… I was very impressed to hear that he’s writing songs for other artists, I know Leona Lewis is one of them…

Then not only did I get to hang out with Jesse, I also got to say hello to Ne-Yo, hang out nearby him! ha. I sound crazy. But it was cool to just sit there and listen to him, Jesse, Jimmy Jam (songwriter/producer of artists such as Boyz 2 Men, Janet Jackson, Usher, etc), and a few other amazing people talk about their music careers, what they’re doing, what they’re really like below the surface. Listening to them talk about their careers made me so unbelievably inspired to keep doing my music career!!!! It was a nice relief. As college graduation gets closer, the pressure to get a “day job” haunts me! But not today, today I got to hang with the success stories, the real deal!

I had these opportunities because of GRAMMYU (Grammy University). If you are in college and are interested in a music career, you can join GrammyU! Its amazing! You get amazing events like Grammy Career day, ALL THE TIME!! Go to www.grammy.com and become a student member!!!

Anyways, tomorrow I go to the rehearsals for Niel Diamond’s honorary concert!! They said we might see Adele, Jennifer Hudson, Josh Groban, Cold Play, or more!!! I’ll let you know tomorrow how it goes!!!

AMAZING. LIFE. THANK YOU