For many reasons, most of which are still unbeknownst to me, I have suchhh a soft spot for them a cappella fellows. It may stem from my childhood dreams of marrying one of the Backstreet Boys, or perhaps it’s because I am in awe of people who actually sing well since the only time I have the guts to belt out the tunez is when I’m alone in my car and bored out of my mind (Jason Derulo’s “Riding Solo” is an immensely entertaining sing-a-long song on my 5 hour car rides to/from Ithaca).
Anywho, as I said before I have a soft spot for the a cappella boys, so when my friend approached me and suggested I come to The Hangovers concert (aka complete #94: go to an a capella concert), I was all “hellll to the yes” (okay, full disclosure: he had to do a bit more convincing; I’m a huge hockey fan, and given the current NHL lockout, Cornell hockey is the only way I get my fix, so I was not so quick to give up my ticket to the Colgate game).
In my humble (but totally correct) opinion, any concert/event/ANYTHING that starts off with some Michael Jackson is golden. I mean, who doesn’t love themselves a little MJ? Or rather, who doesn’t love a little MJ with Mr. Dan “Calvin” Kuhr singing in falsetto? Yes. That, along with Cher Lloyd’s “Want U Back” AND my friend’s hastily made – but still awesome – “Take Me Home Tonight” sign certainly started the night off well (P.S. if any of the Hangovers are single and ready to mingle, hit me up; I have a potential lady friend for you).
Other highlights of the concert included The Hangovers’ rendition of James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain,” AKA one of my all-time favorite songs (it plays a close second to Santana’s “Soul Sacrifice,” in which Michael Shrieve plays a ridiculously awesome drum solo). The first act ended with a bang as The Hangovers belted out their famous “You Got a C” (link included so everyone can enjoy its awesomeness).
The vocals were awesome and the song selection could not have been better, which is something I expected from the subset of the Glee Club, the men’s choir here on campus. But this Glee Club affiliation wouldn’t lead you (or at least me) to expect them to have oodles of swagger (no offense, clearly I’m lacking swag myself as seen by my use of “oodles”). Well, that assumption is false. They closed the concert with “Too Close” by Alex Clare and brought the friggin’ house down. It was bananas with “wub wubs” and even overtones in the background (clearly I am not cool enough to be talking about dubstep, but they certainly are cool enough to sing it).
During the concert, I realized it was going to be pretttyyyy difficult to figure out what my favorite part of the night was, and then it happened: The Hangovers performed an encore and sang “Call Me Maybe.” It wasn’t the song itself, or even The Hangovers that made the song my favorite part (y’all were great, but my friend provided the comic relief). That song was the winning song of the evening, because during a quiet point in the song (she thought the song had ended), my friend screamed, “Call me definitely!” and that shiznit made my life.
So overall the concert was freaking awesome (awesome enough that I was okay with missing the very exciting hockey game Saturday night…if you know me, that’s really saying something). Basically, everyone should go to Hangovers concerts/arch sings, because I wouldn’t have been able to write a whole blog post about a group that wasn’t amazing. And, to the men of The Hangovers: Like I said before, I have a potential lady friend for one of you lucky guys, so call me maybe?
Original Author: Jaime Freilich