One of the things I love about singing in the chorus is the variety of different concerts that we get to sing in. On Thursday night, we were performing as part of the Video Games Live event in Glasgow which was certainly different from any other concert I’ve done so far. The music was taken from the soundtracks of popular video games (from Pong through Sonic and Mario Bros to Halo 3); we had speakers on either side playing pre-recorded percussion and vocals for us to sing along with; everything we sang was picked up by microphones, had all kinds of effects applied to make us sound like medieval monks or alien warriors before being pumped out through loudspeakers; the orchestra had earpieces giving them a strict tempo so that the music would be synchronised with the video action being shown on a big screen and the light show; and – probably the biggest difference – the audience were almost all in their late teens and early twenties.
I really enjoy shows like that. The music might not be as inspiring as the Mozart and Walton that we sang earlier in the season, but there is a sense of being part of an event. The audience were clearly thrilled by the whole experience, which is surely what any live performance is all about.
Strangely though, it was almost impossible for us in the chorus to know what the performance was like. We couldn’t see what was being projected onto the screen, we didn’t get the full effect of the lighting and we could hear very little of what was being played (apart from the French horns, who were sitting right in front of us). As a result, I have spent the last couple of days watching bits of the concert on YouTube. Suddenly it all makes sense!
