I get to watch music! Ha! This is weird :).
First of all, big ups to VoxPop, Glue, Afro-Blue Vocal Band, and Cluster. Good show guys. Second, good work VoCAL Nation. Just learned this is a collection of a bunch of groups and people associated with CASA and they put this whole schebang together. They got a great venue, and fairly central area (for the NE) and got a lot of people to come, pay, and stay.
My thoughts about an a cappella show though leave me feeling that there is a plateau with things like this. Like perhaps the biggest baddest acts in the biz are only so big. Why?! Cluster is freaking good, and their leader Erik Bosio is a dynamo on stage. But we seem to lack performers like him in our niche. In fact, a cappella seems full of scientists, if you will. People who analyze, dissect, research, and rely on acumen and levels of education to further their careers.
WE ARE ENTERTAINERS…right?
I truly believe there is a threshold that must be reached technique-wise and the intangibles take over after that. I have had the pleasure of working with somebody (Rey Deguzman) who has more intangibles than 90% of a cappella-ers; it is refreshing because audiences actually like what he does (rather than simply respect it). It seems evident that if we can find ways to stop the analysis of a cappella and take the incredible singers that are in the industry, we might actually have something….
Still looking.