Power to the People – An Emotional Rollercoaster!!!!

Wow! What a term? It’s so hard to know where to start the story of an amazing term in so many ways. Following the success of River’s Pride was always going to be a tall order. From the perfect setting of our al fresco performance at Tynemouth Priory to show day at the beautiful Discovery Museum. But this term certainly didn’t disappoint.

The meticulous planning and relentless hard work from Mark and Angela at the helm of Sing United was in abundance again. Show day came round alarmingly quickly on Sunday 18th November after a jam-packed term! Our new home performance venue, The People’s Theatre, was all ready for the Sing United massive to hit the stage! Only the second term in Sing United’s existence but it began feeling like a reunion of old friends. This time a little bigger than before with 140 smiling faces joining together to create a little more Sing United magic.

With our hearts firmly invested in giving back to the community, we knew we had a job on our hands to beat our previous efforts. Raising over £1,000 for the RNLI for the River’s Pride show was no mean feat! How could we top that???

Sing United Supports: The People’s Kitchen

In true Sing United style and spirit we set off the term like a rocket. What started as a warm hive of activity last term evolved into dozens of cottage industries springing into action! This term our focus for support switched to The People’s Kitchen in Newcastle, fitting perfectly with our Power to the People show theme. Generosity was in abundance and so many hidden Sing United talents unearthed! Singers and their family members baked, prepared, whilst furiously knitting, sewing, painting, making and raffling!!! Oh, we do love a raffle!!! And week after week our big hearted singing community dug deep not only into their pockets though. There was frantic rifling through cupboards for food and clothing donations each week. I’m surprised anyone had any food and clothes left in their homes! Piles of generous donations were bagged up and shipped back to the People’s Kitchen by our amazing volunteers.

The emotion behind the songs…

This term was different, almost impossible to describe, and special doesn’t even begin to cover it. From the moment we started to delve in to the carefully chosen songs and their lyrics we were all hooked. Connected. Moved.

Those connections were deepened by our Meet the Songs series. We really got under the skin of the stories behind the songs, performers and writers. This gave us an understanding that took our performances to another level. Our Meet the Singers series again gave members of the group a chance to share any connections they had to the theme of our Power to the People show and the songs within it. Not quite as many stories as last term due to there being less local connections. However, the singer connections we did have made up for that in impact! Some questioning whether their stories would be of interest to the rest of the group…. Hell yes!!!! We were all enthralled!

There really was a special atmosphere that grew as the weeks went past. The emotion in the songs as they became more familiar built up and bubbled over at times. A huge amount of words to learn with some challenging lyrics, not only how many but one in a foreign language to some!

Time to perform!

The time went by in a flash! One minute Mr Deeks was on tour with his band Winterfylleth and we all thought we had ages to learn it all. The next we were hurtling towards the band call! Such a treat to hear our incredible 5 piece band together again. Giving us a real sense of how special this show was going to be.

Soon after we gave passers by at Central Station and Haymarket a burst of our show with an emotional tribute to the suffragette movement and a few others. Polar opposite (literally) to singing in the sunshine at the mouth of the Tyne in the summer. We could see our own breath in the air as we sang outside on a cold, crisp day in the centre of the toon. The crowds gathered and our clever resident artist sketched a very special moment for us all to treasure. Sponsored by Primarni the Sing United winter wardrobe got its first airing and the #greenheartarmy were definitely on the march!

Power to the People Show Day:

There was a bit of a chill in the air – a cold November show day but that didn’t deter us! We soon got the temperature rising as we all descended on our new performance venue. Mark and Angela already there and making preparations for curtain up. Our solo production assistant from the summer show had turned into a team this time! Ready to capture the excitement and reactions of our bigger audience at The People’s Theatre. The fan base had more than doubled in size!

The set up at The People’s Theatre was a little different to our first show. As the singers gathered and chattered in the aptly named ‘Green Room’ all the magic happened behind the scenes! The band gathered, the production team were on point and it was time to get us all on stage!

Positions please!!!!

Our first peak out at 480 empty seats that would ALL be taken one by one that evening. Another SELL OUT performance – we couldn’t actually believe it??? It was a snug fit on stage, good job we’re all friends! With a bit of shuffling, switching and swapping back again we were ready to check out how we sounded! Acoustics were spot on, our incredible musicians so unassuming yet so talented, headed up Team Deeks we were ready to go!!!! Thrilled again to have Gavin Forster from Media Borne with us to capture some amazing footage of the day. He’s so good at what he does, you forget he’s actually there! Just time to have a quick break and we were all gathered raring to go for our very powerful concert.

Power to the People Show: What a ride!!!

It was time for the show! The audience arrived in their droves all clutching the requested food donations for the People’s Kitchen. The first half got underway with Jeff Buckley’s ‘Everyday People’. You could feel the excitement of the audience from the first moment. So thrilled to be joined once more by the amazing Cliff Lee who signed the lyrics of all our songs for our wonderful audience. How he does it is beyond most of us!!! So many favourites this term, some grew on us, some were so hard to learn but they all had a special place in the show. Our final pairing of the controversial ‘Strange Fruit’ followed by ‘We Shall Overcome’ to end the first half was oh so powerful. The audience and singers felt it alike.

We heard from one of the amazing People’s Kitchen volunteers on the night who spoke so passionately about the work they do. She told us how the money we were raising and the donations made such a huge difference to vulnerable people on our doorstep. Encouraging children to become involved in community singing in our region is an important feature for Sing United. The wonderful children of St Theresa’s, under the guidance of Tracey Allen Baker, kicked off the second half. The poems they had written to fit with our theme really added something truly unique and special to the show. This led us into the groove of ‘People Get Ready’ to start us off again followed by Stevie Wonder’s upbeat ‘Living for the City’.

More! More!!

The numbers flew past and all too soon we were at the climax of the show singing our encore, Nina Simone’s ‘I Wish I Knew How it Would Feel to be Free’. We sang this with an abundance and freedom that really showcased what the show was all about. The warmth from our growing following was tangible in the auditorium and the foyer on the way out. The reaction was wonderful as you can see in the video below…

The audience loved it. We loved it. Job done!

Power to the People was an epic hit. Followed by our round up of the People’s Kitchen fundraising which topped a jaw dropping £3,500. That didn’t include all the food and clothing donations throughout the term and on the night of the show. The term was fittingly closed off with a special performance at the People’s Kitchen in Newcastle last week. A small but perfectly formed band of Sing United singers performed for the volunteers and People’s Kitchen guests. An unforgettable, humbling experience.

Preparations are already underway for next terms show – keep your eyes peeled for the #greenheartarmy in 2019. Whatever we have in store we know it’ll be done with a lot of ?.