I had the most fun these past three days. I was involved in a choir named Vox Society that was contracted to sing backup for Ray Davies, the lead singer of the 60's band, "The Kinks." You may know them from "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night." Apparently the Kinks have released a new album called the "Kinks Choral Collection" in which they arranged several of their hits for choral accompaniment. They came to the US to to a short tour (San Francisco, LA, NYC and Boston) and we got to be the choir for the 2 California concerts. 
Thursday morning we all got in a bus in Hollywood and drove 7 hours to San Francisco, stopped at the hotel for an hour, and then spent the rest of the night doing sound check and waiting for our turn to go on during the second half of the concert. Here are several of the 7 sopranos in our choir.
Friday we drove back home to Los Angeles, and then did the concert again on Saturday. Here's the view from the stage looking into the audience at sound check. I think the first picture was in San Francisco, and all the rest are in LA.
This is our amazing choral director, David Temple, who put this project together with Ray Davies, and whose choir recorded the cd they were promoting. He was so awesome---he rode in the bus with us from San Fran back to LA. We loved his typically English dry sense of humor and his adorable accent.
After the concert in LA we had a little "backstage afterparty" with the band and the managers and all that. PJ came to the concert, so he got to meet several choir members, band members, and the man himself, Ray. Here's a TERRIBLE photo of the group all together. You can kind of see Ray in the middle, and the tippy top of my head just to the left of center. 
This picture is a tiny bit brighter, but still not great. I'll have to steal some pictures from other choir members and post them later. You can see the drummer well in this one---the guy with the white shirt and tie. He was from Australia and was HILARIOUS to chat with backstage.
The music was surprisingly beautiful and really fun to sing. It was tricky to hear ourselves on stage, even with 4 monitors, because the band was really overpowering. Still, I think it sounded fantastic, (as our choir director would say) and the audience LOVED it.
Thursday morning we all got in a bus in Hollywood and drove 7 hours to San Francisco, stopped at the hotel for an hour, and then spent the rest of the night doing sound check and waiting for our turn to go on during the second half of the concert. Here are several of the 7 sopranos in our choir.Friday we drove back home to Los Angeles, and then did the concert again on Saturday. Here's the view from the stage looking into the audience at sound check. I think the first picture was in San Francisco, and all the rest are in LA.This is our amazing choral director, David Temple, who put this project together with Ray Davies, and whose choir recorded the cd they were promoting. He was so awesome---he rode in the bus with us from San Fran back to LA. We loved his typically English dry sense of humor and his adorable accent. After the concert in LA we had a little "backstage afterparty" with the band and the managers and all that. PJ came to the concert, so he got to meet several choir members, band members, and the man himself, Ray. Here's a TERRIBLE photo of the group all together. You can kind of see Ray in the middle, and the tippy top of my head just to the left of center. 
This picture is a tiny bit brighter, but still not great. I'll have to steal some pictures from other choir members and post them later. You can see the drummer well in this one---the guy with the white shirt and tie. He was from Australia and was HILARIOUS to chat with backstage. Here's a promotional picture of Ray, so you can see what he really looks like.
The music was surprisingly beautiful and really fun to sing. It was tricky to hear ourselves on stage, even with 4 monitors, because the band was really overpowering. Still, I think it sounded fantastic, (as our choir director would say) and the audience LOVED it. The best part is that I am now officially a rock star!
Update: here is a recording of the concert in LA. More can be found on YouTube if you're interested
3 comments:
Totally awesome! I'm glad you had so much fun. :-)
What an amazing experience!
hey, my brother brandon sang with you guys, too! brown hair, first row (really descriptive, i know)
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