Voca People performance out of this world

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Last Saturday, Voca People performed live at the Palladium. It was my first time seeing the group and by the time the hour-and-a-half long performance ended, I was completely blown away. The group blends a cappella singing, beat boxing and physical comedy into one stunning performance that features little more than eight people standing onstage, but at times, manages to feel like you are listening to a full orchestra.

The show began with eight humanoid creatures in white suits with white faces and bright red lips, the people from a planet named Voca, greeting the audience after their space ship crashed nearby. From here, audience members were called to participate in the show, a style somewhat similar to performance groups like the Blue Man Group. The aliens pulled our language and musical history from the brains of audience members and began to break into song, working their way through a history of, mostly European, music. This medley strung together the Evening Birds’ “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” (as if sung by cavemen), iconic pieces of classical music, and moved all the way up to Reel 2 Reel’s “I Like to Move It.”

Voca People first gained popularity in 2009 when a video of a performance went viral online throughout Europe. It is easy to see why so many people were amazed by the video and had to show their friends. The sounds the group are able to recreate are simply stunning.

The bass singer, known in the show as “Tuba,” showed off his unbelievably low range near the beginning of the show, and it was staggering. I can easily say that I have never heard a human being produce sounds as low as Tuba produced with great effect throughout the evening. I could feel the rumble of his voice deep in my chest. It was moments like this, which were frequent, that simply cannot be recreated well in video as the performance used every bit of the Palladium’s stellar sound system.

The Voca People went on to explain that, “Music is life, and life is music.” The aliens needed to produce enough music to energize their spaceship and return home.

Renditions of “We Are the World” and Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” were heartfelt and moving, while a medley of modern popular music including Lady Gaga, Gangnam Style and more was humorous and fun. The entire performance was constantly moved back and forth from moving vocal solos to funny and lighthearted songs in a way that kept the performance from feeling like too much of either. In the end, I found myself having a completely fun but uniquely moving experience.

By the time the performance was finished, the entire theatre was teaming with energy, surely enough to power the Voca People’s spaceship home. I was sad to see the performance end so soon, but was certainly amazed by what I had seen.

For more performances coming to the Center for the Performing Arts, visit www.thecenterfortheperformingarts.org or call 843-3800.

See the video

To check out the video that made Voca People famous, visit www.youtube/N6EYrqIn0yI.


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