Row L, Seats
2 and 4 (right side, on the aisle)
We saw the
10-man a cappella ensemble Straight No Chaser several years ago at Wolf Trap
and thought it was a good show, but they outdid themselves last night before a
wildly enthusisatic sellout crowd at the Weinberg (with the possible exception
of the three folks sitting next to us who left at intermission). As the crowd was
settling into their seats, the show started with a video featuring fictional
appearances by various members of the group in a variety of reality TV shows,
both plausible (The Voice) and less likely
(Shark Tank, Naked and Afraid). The
initial five songs were all contemporary, winding up with a hilarious take on
Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass”. The rest of the first set included
material that was a little older, including a moving version of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and concluding with a medley of “Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay” and “Proud Mary”, with Jerome Collins channeling his inner Tina Turner to
hilarious effect. (Collins, the only African-American group member, also drew
some chuckles later during the introductions of the guys in the crew by giving
a shout-out to “the three black folks who came out to see us tonight”.)
The second
set featured a number of other medleys and mashups, including the heartfelt “On The Road Again / I Play The Road” and their you-had-to-be-there “The Movie Medley”, finishing with a mashup of “Thriller” and “Uptown Funk” that brought
down the house. The encore set started with their classic take on “The 12 Days Of Christmas” (their 1998 YouTube video went viral – now over 19 million views –
and led to their record contract) and ended with a heartfelt version of Bob
Dylan’s “Make You Feel My Love”, done without microphones.
No comments:
Post a Comment