The best bowl game played yesterday was not held in Indianaopolis but at John M. Green Hall at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.
The 28th annual Silver Chord Bowl featured seven or eight of the best a cappella groups from the Northeast, including one each from Smith, UMass, Trinity College, Brown, Penn, UConn, Berklee School of Music and, of course, Dartmouth.
Since it's always a sell-out event, we sprung for some good seats this time because we wanted to see and hear the Dartmouth Aires up close. Michael Odokara-Okigbo was in great form, and seemed to love every moment of adoration from the almost-hometown crowd. But, the entire show was terrific, with special shout outs to Berklee, UMass and Smith.
In case you don't know the Dartmouth Aires, they came in second place in this year's Sing-Off, the extraordinary a cappella competition NBC holds every fall. The Aires sealed themselves a slot in the finals with a riveting medley of songs from Freddy Mercury (including Somebody to Love and Bohemian Rhapsody), which they performed again yesterday with substantially less glitter. Still, they rocked the house.
Follow this link (http://youtu.be/RJasmvWmaSA) to a video of the Aires doing their Queen medley on Sing-Off. Above, half of the group sings the 1950s evergreen Shama Lama Ding Dong. These guys are not only talented, but smart and adorable. Michael is, well, Michael. I'm sure we'll be seeing and hearing more from him after he graduates this spring.
The 28th annual Silver Chord Bowl featured seven or eight of the best a cappella groups from the Northeast, including one each from Smith, UMass, Trinity College, Brown, Penn, UConn, Berklee School of Music and, of course, Dartmouth.
Since it's always a sell-out event, we sprung for some good seats this time because we wanted to see and hear the Dartmouth Aires up close. Michael Odokara-Okigbo was in great form, and seemed to love every moment of adoration from the almost-hometown crowd. But, the entire show was terrific, with special shout outs to Berklee, UMass and Smith.
In case you don't know the Dartmouth Aires, they came in second place in this year's Sing-Off, the extraordinary a cappella competition NBC holds every fall. The Aires sealed themselves a slot in the finals with a riveting medley of songs from Freddy Mercury (including Somebody to Love and Bohemian Rhapsody), which they performed again yesterday with substantially less glitter. Still, they rocked the house.
Follow this link (http://youtu.be/RJasmvWmaSA) to a video of the Aires doing their Queen medley on Sing-Off. Above, half of the group sings the 1950s evergreen Shama Lama Ding Dong. These guys are not only talented, but smart and adorable. Michael is, well, Michael. I'm sure we'll be seeing and hearing more from him after he graduates this spring.
