161 Things Every Cornellian Should Do, #94

#94. Go to an acapella concert

Until a couple Fridays ago, I’d seen CU Winds and the CU Symphony Orchestra, visiting jazz groups and orchestras, but I had not been to an acapella concert. (I also haven’t been ice skating at Lynah, but that’s another matter.) What was particularly special about this acapella concert was that it was my first concert as a Cornell student that I was in the audience for. Up until that point, all the groups I’d seen had been from backstage while working for Cornell Productions.

It was definitely a different perspective, and the second time in the span of a week that I was looking at things from another point of view. The first was at the homecoming game, which was the first football game I've ever been to where I didn't have to play in the halftime show. (And more generally, one of the few sports games that I didn't go to with the band.) It was a little weird being there to watch the game and not to play Davy when the team scored or to start chants of “Let’s go red.”

Similarly, sitting in the audience instead of backstage felt kind of strange.  It was an interesting night overall, because I was actually working after the concert to take down the curtains and speakers in preparation for CU Winds later that weekend.  Anyway, vocals don’t travel as well as instrumentals backstage, so I guess this was a good concert to hear from the front of the stage.

As for the concert itself, it was a joint concert between twelve different acapella groups, so there was a decent variety of songs.  One of the groups did “Bad Romance,” and personally, I like the Zheng Lab’s parody “Bad Project” better, but it was done well at the concert.  Near the end, the Hangovers sang “You Got a ‘C’” to “Under the Sea,” which was pretty funny . . . especially in prelim season (which this semester, is every week for me).  [I was having trouble keeping track of which groups performed, let alone what they sang, so normally I wouldn't remember the group and the song, but they were one of the last to perform and I was already backstage waiting for my shift to start.  In contrast, even after not having used it for possibly a year, the other day I managed to come up with the molar mass of calcium. . . . It’s 40.08 grams per mole.]

Overall, the concert was great.  I enjoyed myself, and I didn't even get back to my dorm too late after work.  And while we’re on the topic, here’s one last acapella song: “We Didn't Go To Harvard” by Cayuga’s Waiters.  They were at the concert, but didn’t perform this song.  It never gets old.  (The lyrics at 1:30 fall under the "sad but true" category.)