My son, the Teen Unit, has been in choir ever since he developed a crush on a girl in the 6th grade and she convinced him to join choir in 7th grade, and he discovered he loves singing and loves being on stage. The crush is long since over, but the love of music is lasting.
So he's a junior in HS now, and this year auditioned for and got into the elite "Ensemble" choir. The choirs put on their big fall fundraising concert each year in October. "Broadway Under The Stars", and it features all of the choirs doing mostly Broadway, off-Broadway, movie music and some popular rock tunes. The Ensemble choir, members pulled from the more talented among the advanced choirs, has the most music -- I counted four lengthy medleys. Each one is choreographed. So there was not just singing, but dancing and some theatrics. His regular choir also had a choreographed medley.
This is a high school, but the performing arts section of this school has always been excellent. The teachers are top-notch, and they take it all seriously. They instill this sense of serious professionalism in the students they teach, too. Each kid up there worked his and her butt off, and, while not quite professional grade, they acted like professionals.
The audience, however, is composed of parents, grandparents, and students.
The choir directors always make an announcement prior to curtain time concerning proper behavior at concerts. No, they don't expect us to wear concert black. But they do ask that we turn off cellphones, refrain from cat-calls, remove crying or fussy children, excuse ourselves quietly during coughing fits, refrain from using flash photography, making rude noises, or moving about during performances. No calling out of individual students' names. Keep yer feet off of the chair backs. Behave.
Last night, during the three hour long concert, the students and most of the adults behaved. The little kids behaved. The babies all behaved. No one coughed heavily.
Everyone was great.
Except for the family in the row behind us.
Grandma and Grandpa, hard of hearing, decided to have conversations during the performances. Vocal Ease, the a cappella jazz group was doing their number and Grams and Gramps were chatting away. Gramps paused momentarily to notice that Sonny Boy was singing, so he whipped out his camera and fired off a few flash photographs, then went back to answering his wife's querelous questions.
"WHICH ONE'S SONNY BOY? I CAN'T SEE THROUGH THE GLARE!"
"HE'S SECOND FROM THE RIGHT. WITH THE CUTE YOUNG LADY IN THE RED SKIRT."
"IS HE SINGING? I CAN'T HEAR HIS VOICE!"
I refrained from turning around and saying "That's because you're fucking talking, you wind bag, now shut the fuck up and let them sing."
I don't know why I refrained from it.
Perhaps I should have worn a little badge that said, "Hi, my name is gekko" and then I would have been emboldened enough to ram Gramps's camera down his throat.
We did quiet them down by turning around and glaring at them a few times.
I heard Grams say that the concert was wonderful, except for the rude woman who kept shushing them.
