[From the Ontario District's newsletter, The Trillium, issue 61-01, January - March, 2007 , Waldo Redekop, editor.]

[Printed from www.orilliapacket.com web site Saturday, January 13, 2007 — Original printed in Orillia Packet & Times. Used with permission.]

Saturday Evening Post delivered;
At annual barbershop concert

By John Swartz, feature writer, The Packet & Times

Entertainment — There’s a difference between a good performance and a great performance.

I saw a great performance Saturday night at the Ontario District Association of the Barbershop Harmony Society’s fourth annual concert at the Opera House.

With the exception of the performance by the Barrie Huronia Soundwaves, a Sweet Adelines chorus, the evening was wall-to-wall barbershop quartets.

Before you move on to the sports section thinking — wow, Barbershoppers, how interesting — hear me out.

It doesn’t matter what particular type of music you like — I don’t know how it’s possible to be unimpressed by a great performance, whether it’s a country star, hip-hop gangster rapper, big band, rocker, barbershop quartet, or even Celine Dion.

I heard a lot of impressive singing Saturday night and not one group did “Down By the Old Mill Stream.” Yes, some played genre standards, but if you heard the Ottawa-based quartet Play It Again! do “Bring Him Home” from “Les Miserables,” you would appreciate these guys would do very well with any material.

In fact, I often thought a few groups would do well in the mainstream if someone would wrap an instrumental arrangement around some of the stuff I heard.

And then there was the feature quartet, Saturday Evening Post, from Colorado Springs, Colorado. Bear in mind, I had been listening to great singing all night because, with the harmonic structure, you have to be right or your gig is going to tank fast.

Well, there is something to be said for stage presence and showmanship. These four, even with a sub filling in for an ailing member, owned the stage. They probably own every stage upon which they walk.

There’s an attitude I detect every time I see a performing artist who transcends being really good to truly great. How do you describe it? I can’t. I just know when something moves me. There’s such a variety of things that come together when that happens.

The best I can say is, it certainly looked and sounded like those guys were living and breathing the songs they were singing, rather than just singing, which anyone can do. . . .         k