The stakes aren’t high, but that isn’t stopping 55 amateur singers from giving it all they’ve got in a sing-off event this weekend.
The Big Rock Singers are partaking in a music showdown featuring rock, Broadway, pop and British Invasion tunes in It’s a Sing Off event May 4 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. in the Foothills Centennial Centre.
“We have the whole group in one song and the next song might be a smaller group or it might be the same group singing again,” said Big Rock Singers member and dance captain Amy Lowe. “You’re either a glutton for punishment and singing 22 songs or wanting to be more chilled out and singing seven. If you’re like myself and insist on being in everything, you have 21 numbers.”
Lowe said the audience serves as a television studio while the Big Rock Singers compete with each other to win the grand prize of fame and fortune in this mock competition that deviates from the group’s usual fare.
“We typically hang our hat in doing medleys of film and Broadway and specific genres, that’s the arena that we play in, but this season it’s not that at all,” she said. “It’s all kinds of different and it’s going to be really good for an audience that wants to hear songs that they know really well and sing along and have a good time. We have a lot of really iconic songs in this season that everybody’s going to know, so that’s great.”
This musical twist has been a challenge for Lowe, who joined the group three years ago with a background in musical theatre in the United Kingdom.
“I’ve been on the stage since I was four years old when my parents put me in a musical theatre program in the town I grew up in,” she said. “They needed something for me to do on a Saturday morning. I progressed into doing things at my local theatre.”
With this weekend’s show more like a choir than a Broadway performance, Lowe had her work cut out for her but said it’s been a fun experience learning new genres.
“It’s fun for us to be able to do these rock and roll numbers and well-known songs that the audience is going to have a really good time watching,” she said. “It’s really fun to take a Queen song and sing it in a six-part harmony you might not have heard before.”
To accomplish that, Lowe ignored everything she’s learned from listening to these hit songs all her life.
“When you’re not singing the melody and you all of a sudden have to sing in a harmony line it’s not easy - it’s fun, it’s a good challenge, but it’s not easy,” she said.
“One song in the country set, Heartache Tonight, mashed up with How Long by the Eagles, that one has everyone on stage so it’s really nice to have a good time with everybody on that one.”
The most challenging song for Lowe was Queen’s Somebody to Love because of the arrangement they’re doing and how demanding it is on soloists to try to recreate British singer-songwriter Freddie Mercury.
Tickets to see the show can be purchased at bigrocksingers.com. Baking will be available for purchase during the shows.
