For a campus that otherwise shows little interest in student-led artistic activities, the Georgetown community has a peculiar fascination with a cappella music in all of its doo-wopping glory. One can find spontaneous outbursts of coordinated vocal seranades in many forms, from small-scale performances by the Saxatones to Sellinger sing-alongs with the Phantoms and Superfood. These disparate offerings are anchored each spring by the three-weekend Cherry Tree Massacre extravaganza.
Georgetown’s wide variety of a cappella groups and events, as well as its hardcore fanbase, belie the underlying disorganization and substandard technical prowess of many on-campus groups. Perhaps it is attributable to the inordinate amount of study time to which Georgetown students dedicate themselves, but save a precious few showings by the Phantoms, the groups’ lack of focus and refinement are painfully obvious.
The result: One must take our a cappella groups for what they are and enjoy them for the overall feeling of community, good clean fun and the occasional stroke of brilliance that we have come to expect from them. It also means that one must forgo judgment of campus groups against the heavy-hitter guests that Cherry Tree regularly solicits.
Such was the case at week two of this year’s 29th annual Cherry Tree Massacre, which, for three nights, brings together everyone’s favorite blazer-sporting, barbershop holdovers, the Georgetown Chimes, who host the event, in addition to another on-campus group, two guest groups from the region and a group of unruly a cappella hooligans for an evening of tittilating unaccompanied merriment.
Ex-Chime Zach Glaser (CAS ‘96) kicked off the event with a round of tepid stand-up comedy before launching into a “Behind the Music” style Chimes mockumentary. The short was interrupted by technical difficulties and, although briefly amusing, dragged on far too long. In a sense, the piece set the tone for the evening: mildly enjoyable, unchallenging, frequently inspired, but on the whole, drawn out too far.
The Chimes finally emerged 30 minutes into the event and provided mediocre renditions of some favorites from Grandma’s generation, including “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.” The lighting and microphones were poorly positioned, which contributed to an imbalance between components of the group, and challenged the performers throughout the evening. Poor technical setups, however, were overcome by the UVA and NYU groups that followed, suggesting that the Chimes lukewarm wind-up was more the result of a deficiency in the group’s charisma, balance and song selection. To be blunt, if a group’s staple numbers consist of war-era singalongs and Beach Boys medleys that wield little connective power with a college-age audience, the gap has to be filled by an over-the-top and technically fluid execution, which the Chimes simply did not deliver.
The performance quickly gained momentum as the next group, Georgetown’s Gracenotes took the stage. The all-female lineup showcased both impressive individual voices through solos and duets and a cohesive and integrated sound. Ultimately, the Gracenotes performance was lacking not from a dearth of individual talent, but from weak projection and bland stage presence, both of which were exacerbated by the large space and poorly-levelled microphones.
The Gracenotes could also benefit from a more diversified selection of pieces. Their set included Patti Smith’s “Because the Night,” Sarah McLaughlin’s “Possession,” and Dave Matthews’ “Say Goodbye,” all of which were performed with elegance and precision. Unfortunately, this choice of sterile, adult-contemporary songs hints at the Gracenotes’ limited range and pigeonholes the group as the softer of the outfits on campus. Although future variety would do much to augment and deepen the group’s sound, their performance certainly did not warrant Glaser’s arguably sexist objectification of the Gracenotes, which repeatedly referenced their attractiveness, rather than their considerable artistic potential.
Building from the Gracenotes’ inertia, AVP, a nationally-acclaimed group from the University of Virginia, flipped and tumbled onto the stage. The all-male group, clad in gas-station attendant uniforms, generated more energy than Gaston Hall has seen in some time. The boys were certainly the most enterntaining element of the evening, cranking out tightly rehearsed and jubilant interpretations of Sublime’s “Summertime” and the Beach Boys’ “Kokomo” before launching into a disturbingly flawless rendition of the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back.” AVP filled the space, and had the crowd roaring into intermission.
The second half of the show was jump-started by NYU’s embryonic co-ed a cappella experiment APC Rhythm. Mounting the stage dressed with black on black austerity and a self-proclaimed “New York style,” APC commanded the space, and showcased incredible technical proficiency and of each of the individual members’ outstanding voices. Selections ranged from “Jack and Diane” to an Aretha Franklin medley that brought down the house. APC was easily the most talented group on the individual level, but often fell prey to a lack of group cohesion and harmony as a result.
It was on the heels of these two remarkable groups that the Chimes made their return among Glaser’s shameless promotion. Tradition or not, a group should not have the right to open and close a show, in the process sapping energy from the performance simply by hosting the event. An extensive Beach Boys medley quickly gave way to the traditional round-style “If I Were Not a Georgetown Chime …” song, the Georgetown fight song and a drawn-out onstage reunion of Chimes past and present. What was briefly an amusing and aesthetically pleasing evening quickly turned into the annual Chimes back-patting, which ground the pace of the show to a halt. When the concert finally ended, it was with a lurch rather than a bang. Sadly, you can only beat a horse so many times?a lesson the Chimes should learn before massacring next year’s show.
