RocKwiz

Guess who was on the SBS show RocKwiz which was filmed last night?

Bzzzzzzzzzzz! Try again.

Yes, I made it on to RocKwiz. It was filmed at the Espy Hotel in St. Kilda. ChrisQ (a guy from work) asked me in the last minute to replace someone who couldn't make it. I thought, what the heck, it will be fun watching the show. Didn't think I actually had much chance of making it on the show. Things weren't looking good when we arrived. Chris was under the impression that we had a table booked, but when we got there apparently we were in standing room only. Well, it wasn't really standing room, it was more of a "sitting on an unnumbered table" room. Well actually, it was the same room. Just our table didn't have a number on it. So it didn't look like any of us had a chance of getting on the show at this point. Here's how the contestant selection worked. Each numbered table gets a sheet of trivia questions which they have to answer as a group. In addition, there were several wildcard entries from the people in the standing room, and we were in this group. Everyone on the table contributes to the answers, and then each table had to nominate a person who they felt could best represent their table. I was chosen by our table. On to the next round...

Next, the selected contestants went up on stage (where the real show is filmed) and we did a mock show. The warm-up guy (good ol' Brian Nankervis) acted as the host for the mock show, asking the questions. We all took turns buzzing in and answering questions. Then some members of the crew chose 8 people to be contestants on the real show. I heard my name being mentioned by some crew members, and nervously waited the call out of contestant names. Right near the end, my name was mentioned! I was on the show.

For anyone unfamiliar with the show, each show has 2 teams of 3 contestants. 2 of the contestants on each team are audience members, and there is 1 celebrity contestant who sits in the middle. So of the 8 audience members selected, 4 were going to be in the first show filmed, and 4 in the second show. I was selected to be in the second show, and I was very glad about this as I hadn't actually seen the show and I wanted to see what the format of it was like before competing on it :-)

The first show commenced. The 2 celebrities were Lisa Miller and Robert Forster of the legendary Brisbane band The Go-Betweens. Being a big fan of the GB's, I was a bit disappointed that I wasn't on the first episode and in the same team as Robert, it would have been fun to chat to him. But ahhh well. When each celebrity comes out, they sing one of the songs they are famous for. I didn't recognise what Lisa Miller sung, but Robert Forster sung German Farmhouse from their 2000 reunion album The Friends of Rachel Worth. Great stuff!

At the end of the show, Lisa and Robert sung the classic Blondie smash hit Picture This as a duet. And that was the end of the show!

After a so-called 10 minute wait (more like 25 minutes), the 2nd group of contestants went up on stage, including me! I was put on a team with a guy who was wearing Elvis Costello-esque glasses, so in hindsight it would have looked pretty cool if I had worn mine as well, but I'd left them back at my table. The lovely host Julia Zemiro came up to all the constestants to introduce herself, and then told us that the first question she was going to ask us on the show was what our first album that we purchased was. I started thinking very hard here, should I be honest, or should I say something that is wittier? Technically, the first album I acquired (my Dad actually purchased it from overseas), was the Cocktail soundtrack. But I'm fairly sure that the first album I purchased was Even Worse by "Weird Al" Yankovic, and I thought that would get more laughs, so I said that instead.

Then the celebrities were brought out. Before they come out, Julia does a "Who am I?" by saying clues about the person who's about to come out, and constestants can buzz in if they know who it is. The first person to come out was Vanessa, but for the life of me I can't remember her surname. She was born in New Zealand, and moved to Australia when she was very young, and lived a gypsy lifestyle here with her family. I know she's fairly well known, she's very familiar looking, but I can't remember her name. Maybe after seeing the episode on TV, someone can fill me in on what her name is, and I can update this blog :-) The other team guessed who she was and she ended up on their team. The next celebrity was Ross Wilson of the legendary Aussie band Daddy Cool. The other guy on my team (who was quite a gun) guessed who he was from the clues. Ross was on our team!

And then the game started. Overall, it wasn't as nerve-wracking as I thought it would be. It was really laid back, kind've like a pub trivia night with cameras and lights pointing in your face. I stumbled on a few questions, but also contributed a bit (although nowhere near as much as my fellow audience team member, who was gunning it). A few questions I knew the answers to I missed out on answering because I didn't buzz in quick enough.

Vanessa and Ross Wilson ended the show with a duet of Al Green's classic song Take me to the river.

In the end, we won by 1 point (actually 5 points, but there was 5 points for each correct answer so it equated to 1 point). We didn't win anything (it's an SBS show, they don't have a very big budget). But I was definitely on a high after leaving the show. I asked Julia (the host) if Robert Forster was still around, because I had the CD of The Friends of Rachel Worth in my car and I wanted him to sign it for me. Brian Nankervis gave me directions to the dressing rooms, and I went up there but unfortunately he had left already. A disappointing end to a great night out.

If you want to see me on TV, I suspect it will be on Saturday 5th March, at 9:15pm on SBS. That's assuming that it's filmed a week in advance.

I hope this makes up for the Double Dare debacle of 1989!