Day 6: Harmony Foundation show, Quartet Finals and TAGS!

This morning started out with a special surprise from our own Sean Kelly.  He went to Sing With the Champs and sang “Grow Old With You” with OC Times.  At the end, he stepped out and proposed to his girlfriend (Katie) in front of everyone, who tearfully accepted.  To help you all share in the moment, we took a video for you.

After Sean’s proposal, the team split up.  I went with a couple of other NVPers to watch the Harmony Foundation show at the convention center, while the rest of the crew went out to explore Philly one last time.

The Harmony Foundation is an organization devoted to supporting the philanthropic efforts of the Barbershop Harmony Society.  They put on the Harmony Foundation Presents show every year at the convention as one of their fundraisers, and it’s always a fantastic show.  This year the show consisted of a performance by the two-time gold medal chorus Westminster, the 2009 International Quartet Champion Crossroads, and the most recent iteration of the fantastic Four Freshmen.  If you’re not familiar with them, the Four Freshmen are a group that’s been around for 62 years (in various configurations) that has inspired such groups as the Beach Boys, Take Six, and The Four Seasons.  Their most recent configuration is fantastic, playing and singing jazz simultaneously, and they failed to disappoint.

All three of the groups were great, with Westminster performing (amongst others) “Lux Aurumque” and “Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel?”, Crossroads singing their amazing “Country Dances” and the hilarious “Blew By You”, and the Four Freshmen doing “Angel Eyes” and “There Will Never Be Another You”.  Unfortunately, I had to leave about 15 minutes before the end of the performance to be able to make rehearsal for NVP’s final official event of the week.

NVP had been invited to sing on the reception after the Harmony Foundation Presents show for all the members of the Harmony Foundation and the Presidents’ Council.  This was a big deal for several reasons, but most important among them the fact that these people had been the ones who had helped provide the money that allowed NVP to pay for International, helped some of our new members join the society, and ultimately had been heavily invested in the future of our chorus.  We were all tired but we shook it off and tightened up a couple of our afterglow songs in order to give our best performance.  We headed over to the venue, waited for the signal, and jogged into a ballroom full of tables of people who’d donated to help us (and other groups) get to Philly.  Despite the tight quarters (the first tables were about 4 feet in front of our front row) several people have said that we gave one of our best performances ever there.

After this event, we went off to grab some food and then headed over to the quartet finals.  The room was PACKED for the big event.  The crew and I were hard-pressed to find empty seats where we could see AND hear well, but after several migrations we found a couple that worked.  Though the other groups were great (including Lunch Break‘s unique 44-man mic test), the three quartets that we were watching for were Old School, Ringmasters, and Storm Front.  Out of these three, Old School went first.  They sang incredibly well, but the lead had some trouble with a couple of hangers and they were overall lacking the energy that heralded them as the winner of the contest.   Next came Ringmasters, a quartet who I thought had a shot at the surprise victory.  However, though they also sang very well the arrangements they chose were just too out-there.  In the words of a gentleman sitting in front of me, he’d rather hear non-standard chords in pleasing progressions than the relatively normal chords in crazy orders that Ringmasters was singing.  So although they sang great and handled some very difficult arrangements admirably, they just pushed the envelope too far for them to be awarded the victory and the contest was still undecided.

Then Storm Front took the stage.  They started off with a parody called “We’ve Grown Accustomed to Third Place” wherein they hosed the other competitors (memorably Ringmasters, parodying their spiky hair and too-tight pants) and pleaded with the judges for a gold medal, much to the audience’s amusement.  They then did an amazing song that took place on a quartet car trip, complete with a car radio and volume knob, the Doppler effect, and even a flatulent tenor.  Both were near perfect, and brought the audience immediately to their feet after each song.  But still the question remained: would the judges give the 2010 International Quartet Championship to a comedy quartet?

The tension in the audience was palpable, but finally the contest administrator came out to announce the top 5 quartets.  In fifth place with a total score (out of 9000) of 7829, The Allies.  In fourth place with a score of 7841, Musical Island Boys.  In third place with a score of 7868, Ringmasters.  Now the audience was silent, anxiously awaiting the second place result.  In second place with a score of 8163, Old School!  The audience erupted!  There was only one quartet who could touch that score!  In first place, with a score of 8220, Storm Front!  Five minutes of standing ovation followed that announcement, as a tearful Storm Front emerged from back stage to take their trophy and plaques, and shake the hands of their competition.  In the spirit of Rocky himself, the audience favorite had won out over the dominant competition to finally take their gold medal.  The audience walked smiling out of the venue and back to the hotel, and prepared for the last epic night of tagging.

Throughout the night, NVP bounced between hundreds of tag circles.  I personally sang with at least 100 different people, including such greats as Chris Vaughn, Kipp Buckner, Rick Knight, Tim Waurick, and Doug Broersma.  A group of about 14 NVPers gathered in the lobby of my hotel around 12:45 AM to work on a contemporary acapella song, which we then went and sang in the center of the second floor tag section.  We then dispersed to go our separate ways.  I personally walked downstairs, sang my way through the lobby, found Andrew, threw the frisbee on the roof of a nearby parking garage, sang some more tags, etc.  I eventually got back to the room at 6:30 AM, with the birds happily chirping and the sky cerulean.  I sat down to write this blog, but nearly fell asleep at the computer and managed to drag myself to bed for 4 hours of sleep.

Overall, we had an awesome time in Philly.  HHHHHHHHHHHHHH took 8th place in the college contest with an average score of 76.9, NVP took 12th place in the chorus contest with an average score of 84.5, Fast Track took 41st place in the quartet contest with an average score of 77.0, and we all got a huge dose of barbershop harmony and brotherhood that will last us for a while.  I personally can’t wait until the next event NVP will be attending, and look forward to our next rehearsal.  NVP for life!