A capella.

[elwen]

OoC got the Moore-Hufstedler Fund to invite Hookslide down from San Francisco and give us a free concert. (Well, free to the audience, but they got paid by the MHF.) It was really, really awesome. If I'm ever back home during one of their concerts, I'd actually seriously consider going. Especially if I could drag along some other people from back home.

So Jon Pilat does bass and beatbox. At the same time. I was really confused at first. When they started singing, the auditorium just filled with this bass sound, and I couldn't figure out where it was coming from because his movements only reflected the percussion. It was kind of like listening to the countertenor that time at PSICA, and my mind just couldn't reconcile the fact that the guy mouthing the words on stage was actually producing the soprano voice I was hearing. It makes total sense how it's possible: you voice the bass notes and create the percussive sounds with your mouth, but it's still amazing to see. Aside from that, he also sounds really pretty in the middle and higher ranges.

Of course, all four guys were great. I was really impressed by how flexible they all were. They're billed as bass, baritone, and two tenors, but as far as I could tell they could all hit the high notes equally well. But only Jon could do the drums sequence he did in the middle of the set. *_*

In the middle of the concert, they did two songs without the mics, and it really made me realize the differences and similarities between a capella and choral music. The first song was this wedding chant set to music, and it was like, 'Dude, there are chords!' But there's still a lot of harmony in their other songs, just somewhat masked because they change the quality of their voices so much.

So yeah. I don't think I've ever been to any sort of concert involving modern music. [I mean, I've been to lots of choral concerts, and chamber music and orchestra concerts, but not band concerts.] It felt very impromptu, which was nice. It's not like classical concerts when you mentally check off each song on the program as it's performed. There was a lot of joking between songs, and even audience participation. I'll withhold cynical judgment, but if nothing else, they're great performers.