Day 4: Quartet Semis, Rehearsal, and the AIC Show

This morning was our last morning of free breakfast, so we savored it as much as possible before dashing off to the quartet semifinals to watch the twenty top quartets from the day before duke it out for a spot in the top ten.  Mic testing as the 21st place quartet was Expidition, a younger quartet with a bright, ringy, energetic sound.  Following them was the powerful quartet The Allies, whose sparkly suits where outshone by their smooth, rich tone.  Also unique was their song choice; though we often hear many familiar songs at barbershop contests, occasionally new ones pop up.  The Allies performed the first barbershop arrangement of “Ding, Dong, The Witch is Dead!” that I’ve ever heard, and did a fantastic job with it.  It felt a little out of the spirit of barbershop to be celebrating a death, but other than that little twinge I thoroughly enjoyed the performance.

Following The Allies was the quartet High Definition.  Just like yesterday, they skirted the edges of the barbershop rulebook in favor of jazzy arrangements that showed off their great vocal control and crackling louds while being just different enough to keep the audience off-balance.  I believe they ended one of their songs on a 13th chord, which until today I didn’t even know it was possible.  Some fellow NVPers informed me that though you don’t see it often, you apparently can get away with it legally (you’re allowed a certain number of ‘non-barbershop’ chords, especially if the melody requires them).  Regardless of their progressive arrangements, they were very entertaining to listen to.

After High Definition came The Edge, a quartet that I hadn’t heard before.  They opened with a new arrangement of a ballad that u4eeuh (my crew’s original quartet) used to sing: “Lovely Way to Spend an Evening”.  I was entranced by their buttery smooth sound and musical execution on the lovely song, and was fully drawn into the story.  Their up-tune was weaker in my opinion (simply because their ballad was so good), but they really impressed me in the last third of the song with some sick bell chords into an electrifying tag.

TNS was the next quartet to take the stage.  Though several of my neighbors disagreed with me, I wasn’t as much a fan of this quartet compared to the others that had preceded them.  They performed two barbershop classics: “Tumbledown Shack in Athlone” and “Wait Till The Sun Shines Nellie”.  They executed them relatively well, but I feel like their performance of the ballad was lacking in emotional connection.  The latter half of the up-tune really impressed me though, as they seemed to finally let loose and let their sound really sparkle.  They nailed the tag of “Nellie” against the back wall, making me wonder where that amazing sound was during the first number.

If TNS did barbershop classics, ‘Round Midnight did exactly the opposite.  They opened with a lead feature on a brand new arrangement of Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind” – not the kind of song you’re used to hearing at a barbershop convention.   Jamie and I are now both huge fans of them.  Their lead sounds like he came straight from singing the solo in a modern acapella group, but he’s very experienced with barbershop and apparently arranged both of their songs himself.  Their second song “Honesty” once again ended on a non-tonic chord (a 6th in this case) and brought my crew to our feet in appreciation.  I don’t care how well they scored in this contest; I just want to buy their CD.

Following ‘Round Midnight was the quartet McPhly.  Their bass, Travis Tabares, is known in the barbershop community for the jazzy tags he writes and posts to YouTube and he definitely had a hand in the tags we heard today.  Performing “I Wish You Love” and “All of Me”, they had a smooth cool sound as well as a couple of the most fun tags I’d heard yet.

Finally, the Swedes took the stage.  The much-anticipated Ringmasters set thoroughly failed to disappoint, with their version of “So Much In Love” featuring the tenor’s powerful pingy voice and the bass’ awesome low range on several huge spread chords.  What really brought the crowd to their feet, though, was their unique arrangement of “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love”  which showed off the effortless ring and lock of the group while quoting half of the songs that the Beatles ever wrote.  Their screaming tag had the audience cheering before the chord was even cut off.  Though not many people agree with me, I think Ringmasters has a serious shot at the gold.  They are in such solid control of their sound and aren’t afraid to take risks and be showy.  I’m very excited to see what they do in the finals.

The last quartet we got to see before we had to run to front-row rehearsal was the ever-surprising Storm Front.  Their set, as usual, was comedic genius.  They started with “Lida Rose”, a barbershop classic from the musical The Music Man, and it soon became clear that they were attempting to do the quartet/soprano duet that is done in the musical and in shows by choruses across the country.  However, obviously, their soprano couldn’t make it (the lead “called” her on his cell phone after several unsuccessful cues for her to enter, and learned that she was “coaching Old School”, but it was ok because “they needed it more anyway”) so they were forced to sightread the music in the girl’s range.  Though the rest of the quartet continued bringing the pitch into a male key (lowering the music stand), the tenor really wanted to sing high, and so he kept raising the music stand (and therefore the pitch) when the rest of the quartet wasn’t looking.  Finally, they performed both songs at the same time, bouncing back and forth between the words and melodies whenever there was a space in one of the songs.  The audience (and we) shot to our feet in appreciation.  For their second song, they parodied the fact that the definition of barbershop has been getting more and more loosey-goosey with each passing year.  With impressions of several winning quartets (including a drunk lead imitating Realtime‘s rat pack set and an amazing imitation of OC Times’ Sean Devine) they put smiles on the faces of the entire audience.

After this great performance, the crew and I were obliged to get ourselves to NVP front-row rehearsal.  We spent an unexpected two and a half hours working on our presentation package, but it was definitely time well-spent.  We are so excited to show the world what we can do, and give them the gift of the performance we’ve been working so hard to perfect.

We had about an hour-long break between the end of front-row rehearsal and the beginning of warmups for full-chorus rehearsal, so we decided to go get some food.  Jamie, Andrew, and I all had very tasty sandwiches from a local deli and sang some tags with fellow NVPers and some other barbershoppers in the area before heading back up.  During rehearsal we had the opportunity to work with Sandy Robinson-Marron, our fantastic singing coach and director of the incredible Lion’s Gate Chorus (2nd place in Sweet Adelines International last year) as well as with Justin Miller, coach, mentor and director of NVP’s barbershop model, The Westminster Chorus.  Musicality and presentation were emphasized above all else, making sure that every person is 100% focused and giving everything they can at every moment to make the audience’s experience just that much better.  Everything is really starting to gel, and we all are incredibly excited to sing tomorrow.

NVP getting excited about the AIC show

After rehearsal, several of us went to the annual Association of International Champions (AIC) show.  This show features the quartet champions from the past 5 years, as well as honors the champs from 25 and 10 years ago, and is bookended by performances from the AIC chorus (made up of a bunch of past quartet champs with two or three rehearsals together).  The most impressive part of the show for me was the video honoring the quartet The New Tradition (who came to sing for NVP in person at our rehearsal yesterday), which featured several major TV personalities talking about how much they loved the group.  The video was ridiculous, but when Jay Leno and Jimmy Kimmel talk about how they’ve been following TNT since the beginning your jaw tends to drop a little.  Apparently the bass of the quartet is high-up in NBC, but other than that I have no idea how they pulled that off.

There’s so much to write about the AIC show, but I’ll keep it to just two more standout moments.  First of all, this was EVG’s own Realtime‘s last year on the AIC show and they went out with a bang.  Their performances of “Take 5″, “Loch Lomond”, and “Flight of the Foobirds” were the most solid and electrifying I’d ever heard, and they definitely showed the society why they were crowned as champs in the first place.  Secondly, Crossroads‘ performance was stunning.  They featured baritone Brandon Guyton on the strongest performance I’ve seen yet in the entire contest – a powerful cover of Sandi Patti’s “Via Dolorosa” that (at least in my opinion) far surpassed the original song.  No matter what your beliefs, you had to be moved by Crossroads‘ heartfelt sincerity and achingly beautiful music.  Those gentlemen are amazing singers, and I’m excited to see them in the next four years at future AIC shows.

After the show, I got pulled into an hour-and-a-half or so of tags with a wonderful lady named Sandy (affiliated with the mighty Vocal Majority), my good friend Jeff from the Bridgetown Sound Chorus, and of course my NVP bretheren and friends.  I was finally able to drag myself away in order to get back and write this very blog, which has gone on rather longer than I had originally intended.  Please pardon spelling/grammar mistakes as my editor has fallen asleep already and I’m too tired to catch everything.  Tomorrow we look forward to our hit on the international stage and to watching Westminster go for the gold.  I want to leave you with one last thought.

Out of all the fantastic things going on at the international convention, the best part in my opinion is getting to rub elbows with all of the high and mighty members of the BHS.  The majority of the big players in the society are at International, so minor celebrities will walk by on a regular basis.  For example, I ran into Mark Hale (Director of the mighty Masters of Harmony chorus) in the 7-11 last night, and talked to Bob Franklin (lead of universally-known 1961 international champion quartet Suntones) in the line for the bathroom.  Barbershoppers are as a rule very humble, happy to talk with you and even sing a tag if you’re lucky.  Barbershoppers are some of my favorite people.

NVP with our coaches!