Singing with stars
Toronto’s Choir! Choir! Choir! leads a celebrity singalong in honour of David Bowie
Nobu Adilman and Daveed Goldman, founders of Toronto’s Choir! Choir! Choir!, were invited to participate in two star-studded nights of David Bowie tributes in New York this week. The Star asked Adilman to provide a diary of the surreal experience of leading the musicians and audience in a singalong at a hallowed music venue.
Tuesday Normally we come to New York to attend shows; this time we’re here to participate in a big one — two in fact — at the world’s most venerable music institutions, Carnegie Hall and Radio City Music Hall, for a massive tribute to David Bowie called “Music Of,” also a charity, which raises piles of cash for music-related organizations.
Our video of 550 people singing “Space Oddity” at the Art Gallery of Ontario caught the attention of Michael Dorf, owner of City Winery and “Music Of’s” producer. Our job is to get thousands of people in the audience, along with the evening’s featured performers — Michael Stipe, The Flaming Lips, Cat Power and others — plus members of our choir and singers from the New York City Children’s Chorus to join us for a singalong of “Space Oddity.” To say we’re on edge is an understatement. Usually we have a couple hours to teach our arrangements; each night we’ll have less than 10 minutes.
It’s Tuesday evening. Daveed and I — with Russ and Daughters’ smoked fish in our bellies — walk into the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church to rehearse with the kids who will join our choir to sing the harmonies. We have a tiny window to go through the arrangement and it’s a challenge: we’re used to teaching adults by ear in a bar; the kids normally sing from a classical repertoire and learn by reading sheet music. They’re young pros — so fresh-faced, talented and excited — but, unlike us, they haven’t been obsessively listening to Bowie for 30 years. It’s tough and we leave a bit nervous. Will this work?
Wednesday
It’s nighttime and we’re at City Winery, Dorf’s HQ, for a live rehearsal with well-heeled New Yorkers paying top dollar to get closer to the stars. Without our choir in tow, we’ve been asked to close the night and get the room of about 400 to sing “Space Oddity.” We’re expecting a glitzy star-studded event but it’s all super casual. Thankfully, the room has a celebratory air. There are fewer stars than expected but a few heavies mill about. Holy Holy, the house band led by Tony Visconti, Bowie’s longtime producer, organize themselves on stage; Rickie Lee Jones and Ann Wilson are tucked away downstairs behind closed doors; Robyn Hitchcock jokes with his friends at the table next to ours.
I want to see Cat Power — I love her! — but she’s a no-show. Rickie Lee Jones quietly strums through “All the Young Dudes” a couple of times and it’s both dreamy and fragile. Wilson, lead singer of Heart, wows the crowd with her cover of “Let’s Dance.” Her voice is as powerful as ever with dance moves that can only be described as funky mama gyrations.
We order drinks to calm the nerves. It doesn’t work but once we hit the stage, Daveed and I launch into our shtick, get the crowd laughing, up on their feet, and singing “Space Oddity.” It’s a hit! To celebrate, we head to Sid Gold’s Request Room, a live-piano karaoke bar featuring Joe McGinty (Psychedelic Furs) on keys. Daveed demolishes “Careless Whisper” and we do a duet of Big Star’s “Thirteen.” It feels good to belt it out. Hitchcock waltzes in and sings “The Ghost in You.” Daveed is a huge fan of the song and quietly sings harmonies off to the side.
Thursday
I’m putting on my socks and have a bizarre thought: “Tonight we sing at Carnegie Hall!” It’s surreal but we know it’s happening. Our choir members are flying in. We pop out of the car at the stage entrance in the afternoon for sound check and are met by paparazzi that fire off a flurry of snaps despite having no idea who we are.
We head backstage and drift into the Isaac Stern Auditorium/Ronald O. Perelman stage, which held its first concert in 1891. It is simply breathtaking: tastefully ornate, plush, warm seats as far as the eye can see, yet entirely intimate. Oxygen is pumped into the room so instantly we feel lifted.
Up in the green room on the sixth floor, we amalgamate our choirs and rehearse while the Flaming Lips, J Mascis + Sean Ono Lennon do their sound checks. The kids have practised their guts out. Everyone’s voices blend perfectly. All our anxiety shifts to confidence. This is going to work, maybe even rule! We do our sound check with the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne watching in the wings. He’s into it and questions members of our choir about how the encore will go down.
The show starts. It’s a mob scene of celebrities watching from side stage. They’re all nervous and excited, like us! Tears come to my eyes watching Stipe delicately cover “Ashes to Ashes.”
At one point, Debbie Harry is standing directly behind me in a silver boxing robe — 12-year-old me is freaking out. Perry Farrell mills around with a woman wearing a chain-link miniskirt, five-inch-tall stilettos and crutches. There are so many faces I don’t recognize. There are times you wish there was a Shazam app for people.
Time creeps on and eventually the silky voice of Rita Houston, the show’s Voice of God, introduces us by name and explains the group singing that’s about to go down. The crowd is really into it. There isn’t an empty seat in the house.
It’s surreal but it feels great walking to centre stage. I look to the upper levels and then realize I have to look even farther up to see everyone. The choir assembles behind us. We are now all totally calm — or at least pretending to be!
When I ask the audience if they’re ready to take the lead, their response is emphatically yes. Daveed leads them on a warm-up call and response of “Can you heaaaaarrrrrrr,” a line from “Space Oddity.” Each time they sing it, their voices get progressively stronger.
The choir starts us off with some oohs, and when it’s time for the audience to join, they don’t hesitate for a second. The night’s featured performers then amble on the stage and the mega-epic Choir! Choir! Choir! singalong tribute to Bowie begins.
At the end of the song, everyone in the hall does those trademark handclaps and the stage lights cut out.
Nothing could be finer, except that we get to do it all over again the next night!