Anyone who walked through the quad last Friday night may have been surprised to hear music coming not from Boombox Backpack kid, but from the sky. While you may not have been in the best mental state, I promise you were not losing your mind. What you heard was the various Loyola musical groups competing in the annual riff-off as the groups battle to represent Loyola University Maryland in the Middle Atlantic Regional Intercollegiate Vocal Competition, or “Regionals” as people in the know and Glee fans call it.
Due to the wealth of Loyola vocal groups on-campus, five years ago, the sing-off was born as a way to determine just exactly which singers will represent us at Regionals. A panel of three WLOY DJs, two Loyola Police Officers and loyal WLOY listeners make the decision. All participants harmonize to the number one song on iTunes, this year “Happy” by Pharrell, as seven candles are lit to symbolize each group participating and the start of the competition. As each group is eliminated, a candle is extinguished.
This year, the Loyola University Singers, Repertory Choir, Chosen Generation Gospel Choir, Belles, Chimes, Chapel Choir, and Greysounds all arrived to compete. If a person is in more than one group, the two groups flip a coin to determine where that person will be singing. All of the singing is performed on the roof of various buildings around the quad including Jenkins, Beatty and Maryland to ensure the winning group has the ability to project. It also helps the judges to be fair because they cannot see any of the groups singing.
In the first round, each group had five minutes to prepare a mash-up between two songs chosen at random from a hat. This year, the songs were “Love is an Open Door” from Frozen and Taylor Swift’s “We are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” A challenging opening number, but most of the groups rose to the occasion choosing to sing the songs as a conversation between someone deciding to break up and someone who would not let go. The judges whispered for a moment before demanding that groups two, four, and seven appear to extinguish their candles. The light of the candles revealed the losers to be the Belles, the Loyola University Singers, and the Chapel Choir.
Final round favorites, the Belles, appeared extremely shocked and immediately began drinking wine out of their ridiculously high heels. The Loyola University Singers also seemed a bit miffed. They had been hoping to use the money from Regionals to launch a new ad campaign featuring cardboard cutouts of their members around campus, building off of their giant headshot campaign from last semester. The Chapel Choir claimed they were moved by the Spirit and could not be held accountable for forgetting the words to “Love is an Open Door.”
The next round gave each group three minutes to prepare a song from the category “Songs Ruined by Glee.” A soulful rendition of “Don’t Stop Believin’” caused the few members of SGA at the event to form a small mosh pit on the quad as if they were back at the Mullet concert. Other songs performed were “The Thong Song,” “I Know What Boys Like” and “Like a Prayer.” The Chimes tried to save “The Thong Song” but in the dark, their stage antics and showmanship do not come through. Sadly, they were eliminated as were the Repertory Choir after they sang “Like a Prayer” in such a way that even Madonna would have been embarrassed.
And then there were two. Chosen Generation Gospel Choir and the Greysounds. The groups were now allowed onto the quad and performed around the statue of St. Ignatius Loyola for the lightening round. The judges shouted out songs and the group who performed it first won the point, and whoever was first to seven points (representing the seven groups competing) would be the winner. The Gospel Choir easily won the first few points moving from “Redneck Woman” to “Heartbreak Hotel”, but then their lead started to slip as the Greysounds regained their confidence. Their transition from “Geek in the Pink” to “Pretty in Pink” brought them to the magic number of seven. The Gospel Choir showed good sportsmanship as they accepted their defeat to the underdogs.
The Greyhounds were thrilled to secure a victory in their first official year as a singing group on campus and broke into an impromptu rendition of The Pointer Sisters’, “I’m So Excited.” As quickly as it began, the competition was over and the quad returned to the normal hum of drunken students wandering to midnight breakfast. Greysounds will be performing at Regionals at Temple University in Philadelphia on April 12.