Oct. 29th: Stepping Out!

Saturday Night was the evening when our choir has one of the year's biggest concerts, and it was AWESOME.  Checo keeps mentioning how when he went back home for a year (though it seemed much longer than that) he returned to his musical roots, and reconnected with soul and gospel music is truly about.  Since then hew has reformed the choir, to the point where we even added the word SWEET to our choir name - because really, what is the point of being a Soul Gospel Choir if we are not Sweet?

Checo's intention was to make sure the music was authentic, and he has made it as such.  He has bumped all of our songs back up to their original keys (rather than the lowers ones he arranged to accommodate some of our voices), and he made sure to tighten up some of dynamics, and even our choirography.  However - one of his friends asked him about the upcoming Motown concert and the authenticity of it, and Checo was adamant that it was authentic until it dawned on him that we were missing one thing.  We weren't really 'stepping out'!

Now - our choir has always looked good while performing.  When we perform outside in casual concerts we wear either whites are blacks on the bottom (depending on the season) and our VOC Sweet Soul Gospel Choir t-shirts.  Then on fancier occasions we up the dress code to replace our red t-shirts with a dressier red shirt.  But black slacks and a red top is hardly equivalent to the kind of attire that classic motown musicians would perform in.  So this time Checo made sure that we were all dressed to the nines in cocktail attire, ready to "step out" and perform some classic motown hits . . . and one Philly song (what can I say - the folks love our version of 'Love Train').

It was pretty fantastic to stand on stage in a really nice get-up.  I do not get to dress up all that often, so any excuse to get all dolled up is pretty awesome, especially when doing what you love.  I can't say that I'm an authentic soul, gospel or motown singer now, but at least I can say that I tried my darndest and had an amazing time doing so.  I'm looking forward to Stepping Out again in the near future!