Sing! Sing! Sing!

An inclusive singing experience I got to be “part” of

A screenshot from one of many Choir! Choir! Choir! videos on Youtube.

A lot of us like to sing, right? We bellow with glee as little kids and it’s fun. Then, slowly we get told to dial down the volume. Eventually, some singers emerge as true vocal talent. They get solos.

The rest of us may stay in choir because it’s still fun, and we’re with friends, but we’ll never shine. We know that. Still, there are those moments—you know what I mean—where the harmony aligns in near perfection. The tone is pure.

Something shifts; the air crackles with electricity, and you and everyone around you is lifted by the vibrations emanating through your vocal chords. It’s magical. I have been chasing that magic most of my adult life.

I once organized a church choir because it seemed like it would bring people together. I did not conduct, and I did not accompany, but I did corral the chorale, and it was fun while it lasted.

Then, one summer, a young music teacher put an area choir together, and it drew young and old from Newell, Storm Lake, Alta, and Aurelia, perhaps Cherokee, too. We sang at Alta’s Night Out in the city park, and it, too, was fun.

A year or so later, an adjunct at Buena Vista University started an early music choir. I sang with real musicians, and I was out of my depth. They obliged me even though I was lost much of the time. It, too, was fun while it lasted.

Around the same time, a friend and I went to a weekend-long adult choir camp at Luther College for a couple of summers. Again, singing with real musicians was a workout that I was not in musical shape for. What I really loved was the after-hours “beer choir.”

In other words, for people like me who love music, who can carry a tune, but aren’t trained musicians, there aren’t a ton of just-for-fun places for group singing.

One day, a friend posted a video on social media showing some everyday Canadians singing Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” I had to know more. The throng of voices was led by two friends, Daveed Goldman, who played guitar and Nobu Adilman, who conducted.

Their idea was simple. Invite people to a bar. Teach them to sing an arrangement of a popular song. Practice harmony. Put it all together. Have fun. Connect with other humans.

It was not a performance. There was no audience. It was just for the sheer joy of singing together. People of all ages and walks of life showed up and clamored for more.

I spent countless hours watching video after video on their YouTube channel. This non-competitive, low-stakes, open-participation event lit the pleasure AND reward areas in my brain.

For years, I dreamed of making the trek to Toronto, where Choir! Choir! Choir! was based. They met in various bars. The places were packed. Sometimes people were turned away. Sometimes they didn’t meet. The logistics for someone coming from afar seemed problematic.

And then, people from all over wanted their own Choir! Choir! Choir! experiences. In 2017, Daveed and Nobu (who sometimes go by DaBu) began touring. This meant that they were in Toronto less frequently, and with that, logistics seemed even more problematic.

At first, DaBu visited mostly Canadian cities, but after the worst of COVID passed, they began to appear in big American cities, sometimes with famous singers joining them. I followed the C! C! C! tours and salivated. How far would I have to travel?

Somehow, someone had the good sense to nab them for smaller venues, too. When I discovered they were booked to perform in mid-May at the Temple Theater in Des Moines, I knew it was time.

The friend who introduced me to C! C! C! was all in, too, and she brought another friend, a newbie. I had expected that DaBu would follow their old protocol of rehearsing just one song, getting it down pat, and then filming the final product.

But no, they now do an evening of songs by a given artist: ABBA songs or Fleetwood Mac or, on our night, the songs of Queen.

“Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?”

Oh, it was real, all right. So real that DaBu agreed to do two shows instead of just the one originally scheduled.

“Don’t stop me now, cause I’m havin’ a good time!”

It was grand, even better than I hoped. I felt the electricity, and it was over much too soon.

Choir! Choir! Choir! is where those who feel consigned to sing in the shower or the car find their people at last. I’m often shy, but afterward, I walked up to Nobu and said, “Thank you for not making me come to Toronto.”

Instead, I wish I’d said, “Oooo, you ma[d]e me live!”

It’s not that I wouldn’t want to visit Toronto. It’s just that I never thought they’d come to a place like Des Moines.

They said they were impressed by the sound we made. They said they would come to Des Moines again. We’ll hold you to that, DaBu!