|
"We
have had an amazing weekend! Sweet Adeline’s
has welcomed the chorus into their association with
open
arms, and for Phoenix to win the Chorus competition
and Flaunt!
to win the Quartet Competition on our first year in
is just wonderful!
I can’t tell you how proud I feel to be President
of the most incredible bunch of women ever!!" The
President
Phoenix due to go to
Hawaii
Quote from Lynda Wood, Director |
PHOENIX’S
CANADIAN DIARY
We all left Gatwick Airport
on a beautifully sunny day on Sunday
29 June – destination Montreal. Just
before we boarded the plane we entertained
the other passengers and crew in the
departure lounge with a couple of tunes!
We all arrived safely at Mirabel airport where we were whisked off in buses,
taxis and stretch limos to our Hotel which was to be our home for the next
7 days.
On
the Monday we had the day to ourselves to explore the City
but all met up for an evening meal to celebrate a member birthday,
Jane Martin. We had a splendid meal, all sitting outside
and of course, lots of singing by Phoenix and Caboodle much
to the delight of the other diners and the waiters.
9 am Tuesday morning we commenced our first rehearsal in one of the hotel
conference rooms, it was so nice to rehearse without the pressure of a day’s
work behind us or the prospect of having to rush home to cook dinner.
We then rehearsed daily from 8 am to11 am in order to prepare for our performance
at the World Harmony Jamboree Show on Friday.
On
Thursday afternoon Cambridge Chord had organised a ‘Brit
Show’ held at an open air venue, central Montreal. There
was a good turnout and we sang 3 songs: Short People, Candle on
the Water and Lover Come Back. Caboodle also sang and we
both received a huge reception from the audience despite conditions
being quite difficult with sudden gusts of wind which interfered
with the sound system and our hair!
The Big Day has now arrived – Friday – 1-1/2 years of anticipation
and months of planning and rehearsing. We started our rehearsal at 8
am as usual, which was watched by many members of Male US Barbershop Groups
(staying at our Hotel) and several British supporters also stopped by to wish
us luck.
We broke off rehearsal at 11 in order to have our hair and make-up done by
our fantastic ‘beauty’ teams and were all dressed and ready to
go in the Hotel Foyer by 1.30pm. A fleet of taxis, organised by the efficient
Chris Wilkin, collected and transported the group to the neighbouring Marriott
Hotel where we joined ‘the system’.
Waiting back-stage was nerve racking as well as being extremely hot and we
feared our makeup would completely run off our faces by the time we came to
go on stage!
The Bell Centre is an ice hockey stadium and holds thousands of spectators
in its three tiered seating. We had been shocked in previous shows to
see that there were gigantic screens either side of the stage which could be
showing a picture of YOU at any one time! I think this thought remained
with all of us throughout our performance.
The next 9 minutes was the quickest of our lives. The stage felt fantastic
and the lighting was superb and we received a very warm welcome from our audience
before we launched into our first song, Red Head.
Next Sue Armstrong Brown and Maggi Cheshire introduced us and our songs to
the audience and told them how pleased we were to be performing – Sue
did this in French and English much to the delight of the audience judging
by their thunderous applause.
We then sang our new ballad, How Deep is the Ocean, which is very moving and
Lynda went on to introduce our new song, Man I Feel Like A Women (Shania Twain)
which has been arranged by our Louise Bainbridge. This went down a storm,
particularly as Shania is Canadian and we do have some rather sexy moves, our
supporters reported back that we had received a standing ovation!
Our male supporters (made up of husbands and partners of our ladies) had somehow
managed to obtain back-stage passes to the World Harmony Jamboree Show so were
able to film our entire performance from just in front of the stage! Good
on them!
Following the success of the Show, Phoenix were invited to take part in that
evening’s Chorditorium at the Sheraton Hotel, again we received a standing
ovation.
Well, reading our news I am sure you will think that Phoenix didn’t need
an aircraft to fly them home, they were already floating on cloud nine! We
had a fantastic time, it was a delight to see Cambridge Chord do so well in
the Chorus Competition, to support Matrix and LICS in the Quartet Competition
and share the WHJ stage with EU4IA and Matrix.
We were all flying the British flag last week for UK Barbershop and we have
really raised the profile for both LABBS and BABBS which will benefit any future
British contingent to International Competition
|
|
|
|
|
|
