A night to remember

 First published in Column 8 on 10^th July, 1991

Before Christmas I wrote that some of the city’s historic events get bypassed in the news. Today I’m under obligation to mention one such occasion, though perhaps it should have been forgotten – and quickly!

 As I’ve said previously, I accompany soloists in one of the town’s brass bands – in view of the following I won’t mention its name. One of the perks of the job is being invited to their annual dinner, this year held amongst dragon decorations in a Chinese restaurant.

At their annual dinners the various sections of the band each like to perform a little item. This year they were to do some lip-synching; in other words, pretending to play and sing along to a pre-recorded tape.

There were to be four judges for the evening, including, I found to my dismay, yours truly.

As judge I was supposed to give marks and make notes (read ‘rude comments’) about the performances. However, it isn’t easy to be witty between umpteen courses of a Chinese meal, the constant refrain of ‘it’s my birthday tomorrow’ from a slightly inebriated bandsman, and the spectacularly varied items. None of my uninspired judgements received an airing, for which I am grateful.

About midnight, when the waitresses were despairing of ever going home, the judges were summoned before the audience to speak. I was given a generous 48 seconds, but since public wit comes to me no easier than private, I gave them no more than a sentence – and I don’t mean life.

Now that I’m in the relaxed atmosphere of my word processor, I can say the items varied from the insane to the amazing to the ‘I’m only doing this because I have to, but I wish I was somewhere else.’

The baritones performed the perennial Along Came John. This enthusiastic pack of melodramatic hams were so boisterous you failed to notice their lack of synchronisation.

The second cornets mimed a song by the rock group, Queen. The energy level was over the top in this one, cardboard guitars and all, and the lead singer was almost as gross as the sound. The female guitarist seemed incapable of standing up or still. Nevertheless, whether supine or rampant, she continued to play her guitar.

The performance was rather surreal, really. By the time they finished it was hard to tell whether the antics of the actors aroused the screaming and shrieking on the soundtrack, or whether the latter was causing the painful gyrations of the performers. Either way it was a major assault on the senses.

Somewhat more refined was a performance of a piece by Diana Ross and the Supremes. Diana Ross was played by a gentleman with a wig definitely in need of a perm. (The wig, I mean.) A bit of electrolysis wouldn’t have gone amiss, either, on his/her moustache, or on all of the performers’ six hairy armpits.

Apart from these tonsorial matters the three artistes lip-synched excellently, the two back-up singers elegantly performing a complex choreography like up-market Hawaiian hula girls.

The most credible lip-synching came in the piece de resistance of the evening. It was also the only item in which the males managed to stay in male attire.

These gents performed Nessun Dorma with all the bravura of Signor Pavarotti and Co, and twice as much stress and body language, including constant deference to one another, and handkerchiefs to the brows. So strong was their performance, and so full of vocality, that it threatened to spill over onto the audience. I mention this because I was in the front row and the thought of three hulking tenors tumbling on you makes even the most equitable judge mindful of his mortality.

For better or worse, I lived to tell the tale.

 

French brass players clowning around in a street performance
courtesy: KimonBerlin

 The ‘baritones’ mentioned above are not singers but the bandsmen who play the instrument known as a ‘baritone,’ that is, in the middle range of the band.