When a Group Defies What You’d Expect By Looking at Them
For the uninitiated, it can be difficult to understand why people love a cappella. Heck, even for those of us who do actively enjoy it, it can be difficult to put into words why we enjoy this art form so. While we’ll never have a truly comprehensive list of everything cool about a cappella, 200 Reasons to Love A Cappella is our best attempt at assembling a list of what makes it great.
Reason #142: When a Group Defies What You’d Expect By Looking at Them
Many of us grow up hearing that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover—and yet how many of us honestly heed that advice? One of my truest pleasures as an a cappella fan has long been watching a group take the stage—a bunch guys dressed like scrubs, timid-looking young women, , people who otherwise look as though they’re not truly ready for performance—hand having them prove me dead wrong by knocking their performance out o the park.
One of my favorite examples is Reverb, an ostensibly nerdy group of guys in powder blue bow ties who look about as cool or threatening as a pastel teddy bear and yet for every performance I’ve heard from them, demonstrate ambition in their song selection and a level of attitude and energy that’s nearly without peer in the contemporary a cappella landscape. Their brand of entertainment and undermining expectations was, perhaps, nowhere more evident than in their 2013 ICCA Finals run when they made it all the way to NYC and stunned the crowd with the highest of caliber mashups, slamming home a “Bad” and “This Is How We Do It.”
I love it!