By Al Ronberg

It is truly an honour to know that you have done something incredibly significant with your life. Last evening was my moment to SIGNIFICANTLY LOWER the average age of the audience at The Song Company's performance at the Town Hall. As the lights dimmed at the beginning of the show, the crowd anxiously waited for an Aussie Sextet who, it seems, was also waiting to give everyone a very nice surprise by starting the concert from the BACK of the Town Hall. As they entered the room and sang their way around the circle, you could hear pins dropping and hearts melting at the sound of their song about Cuckoos. We were seated up in the circle and it was absolutely the coolest thing to have the singers come within arms reach as they made their way to the stage...

The Song Company are very good. I closed my eyes and imagined myself in distant places as they sang their way through Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter... I also couldn't help thinking that the guys looked remarkably like some teachers I had at High School. There was the Bespectacled Bearded Bass who was the spitting image of my maths teacher at Palmy Boys... and the shaved-headed Economics teacher and his Harry-Potter-with-a-beard tenor-singing IT guy... Not that describing how people look helps you understand how awesome they sounded though... But it is important to note that I was not expecting a flashback to Fourth Form when I headed out last night!

The songs were often in Exotic languages like French and German... the kind of songs you would whisper in your loved-one's ear if you had been naughty and needed to up your game in the romance stakes... not that I would know about these things... but learning songs in other languages could save a large number of relationships I am sure... I imagine though that the songs in German could be a little tricky to whisper. At one stage I thought that they were singing "Oh Bieber Feeling" which was very much fuel for a wandering mind like mine... It seems that seasons change much more nicely in other languages it has to be said!

There was a song which brought a teeny-tiny touch of humour to the performance where the boys were to-ing and fro-ing with the ladies with sounds from the school yard... the kind of sounds that boys make at girls during a particularly one-sided game of catch and kiss. I am not a fan of toilet-talk in general, but two blokes who were ok with it were having discussions in the loos about their being a touch of medieval in the first half... I will have to take their word for it as I am not one to clarify such thoughts in such a location.

Over all I enjoyed the concert. There were times though where I felt like a fish out of water. I think the show could have benefitted greatly by more engagement with the audience. There were times where Poetry was read aloud to the Audience, but no-one even introduced themselves or greeted the audience at the beginning which, as a highly relational individual, I found a bit snobby... It was almost as if I was supposed to KNOW who they were and find out more from the programme.

The songs on offer weren't really my flavour, but they were performed with a high-level of excellence. These people are very good and I give them big-ups for holding a whole evening of fantastic singing and keeping on tune without any musicians to blend with.