no red hankies here, please

Tuesday night the informal Bear Dinner Club that SHG and I sometimes go to went as a big group to the GMCH performance at Jones Hall. They met for dinner elsewhere, we went to Ferrago thinking it would be less goat rodeo and such. It was nice to have a nice dinner with SHG in a trendy place with nice wine glasses, and a menu that was sprinkled with pine nuts, apricot chutney, mushrooms, and all sorts of things that one would think tend to ruin perfectly good base dishes. Well, the food was good.

GMCH usually has two or three performances at Bering Methodist, but I guess it got so big, and with the debut of the BCWC I guess it was time to "move on up". I heard that the hall was either sold out or very close to it. It was definitely packed.

It was really, really good. There are several dinner club people in the chorus. It was fun to see them in their various roles, all enthusiastic and into it. GMHC is not professional, and thus I assume the guys have very little voice training. The director therefore has to work hard to find pieces that work with what they can do, and he does a pretty good job of it. Their voices are really, really good, but in my opinion need more power behind them. I am sure that many of the guys can really belt it out on command, but that's different than doing it as a group in a controlled, steady manner. The first piece, Gloria (not, not THAT Gloria) was very good, but needed more power.

Making the their world debut was the BCWC. They did three songs and then joined the guys at various points. They did a great job. And they have only been together for three or four months!! Excellent job!
After the performance, Bear Dinner Club sort of congregated to socialize and chat, and many to congregate to go to the bars. Now, I have to mention that this was not really a very formal event, as SHG and I were on the upper end of dress scale there wearing khakis. Lots of guys came in jeans. Well, one guy showed up with red his hankie, in the left pocket. Now THAT'S tacky.