California A Cappella Festival: Groups hit varied notes in night show

Saturday night, the stage of Ackerman Grand Ballroom was graced with the talents of nine vocal groups from across California for the evening portion of the 13th annual California A Cappella Festival. Song choices ranged from current radio-play juggernaut “Pompeii” by Bastille to a medley featuring Ray Charles’ classic “Hit the Road Jack.”

The night featured a wide array of groups, all of varying genders, sizes and purposes on stage. This is not to say that there were any poor acts; the night can only be said to have had lows when compared to its highs. Some groups sought simply to recreate popular songs solely using voices, a perfectly viable definition of a cappella, while others took more liberties with their arrangements, making the songs their own.

A prime example of this was ScatterTones’ performance of “Stop This Train.” Soloist and third-year vocal performance student India Carney, who also arranged the song for the group, provided a feminine, yet powerful primary voice for the John Mayer track, slowing it down to take on the pacing of a lullaby. The slight rasp of her voice came on like a whisper at times, a tenderness that she accented well in the chorus with a more dominant yet equally impressive vocal. The group operated like a well-oiled machine both vocally, as well as choreographically. The group will be competing again this year in the ICCA Finals in New York, and its competitive nature came through in its evening performance.

UC Irvine’s Circle of Fifths, an all-male group, found mixed reception during its performance with the UCLA home crowd. The group performed three songs, the second of which was a fairly stock version of “Pusher Love Girl,” off of Justin Timberlake’s 2013 release “The 20/20 Experience.” The group attempted to stay true to Timberlake’s continual quest to bring “sexy back” and keep it around, but had a bit of trouble drawing the line. The group’s soloist Taylor Bergerot took license with the word “Pusher,” and chose to accentuate the bridge with pelvic thrusts and gyrating.

“I liked his falsetto; he just had a helter-skelter, “American Psycho” look in his eyes when he was dancing,” said Sebastian Milla, a recent UCLA graduate.

Third-year English student and friend of Milla, Alex Beaulieu agreed, but was a bit more understanding in his judgment of the performance.

“I feel like sometimes men’s a cappella groups like to push the sexuality part. He just maybe didn’t push it enough to make it funny.”

While a tricky line to toe, comedy can add to an a cappella performance as well. UCLA’s Bruin Harmony seems to have perfected the art of adding comedy to its performances. Through the group’s performance of 2014 smash hit “Timber” by Pitbull featuring Ke$ha, it was made very clear that the boys had no intention of coming across as serious. That said, the performance was well arranged and Bruin Harmony was the first act of the night to get the crowd clapping along with a song.

“What you’re seeing up there is just us having a good time. We like being up there with each other and the result is that our personalities all come out. We like being goofy. We’re having fun,” said third-year neuroscience student Lucas Cabantac, who provided the soloist vocal for the group’s second song, “So Far Away” by Carole King.

The boys were all smiles, even stopping between songs for a little self promotion; beer koozies were thrown out to the crowd.

Another highlight of the night was UC Berkeley’s co-ed group DeCadence’s rendition of Grace Potter and the Nocturnals’ 2012 release “The Lion The Beast The Beat.” Once again, the crowd was wowed by a fantastic lead female vocal provided by Hannah Glass. Glass’ voice had just the right amount of rasp, giving the song a jazzy feel, as if it was being sung in an old school club, invoking images of hazy lighting and the dancing of blue cigarette smoke. Glass’ performance was transfixing, and the group’s choreography was able to stay light and at times humorous without violating the song’s aesthetic.

The night was finished off by Random Voices. The ladies started with a sultry cover of “Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye, led by soloist first-year musical theater student Olivia London. London’s coy smile as she sang helped transition the song seamlessly from its typical male vibe to being playful and feminine. The final song of the night was a Justin Timberlake medley that saw most of the ladies of Random Voices stepping up for solos. Again the crowd was encouraged to clap, and many sang along. Better still was the fact that most of the groups stuck around, sitting in the back after their own performances and even staying after the show to talk to audience members.