St. Louis hot is the donÌt-leave-your-house kind of hot, but some things are important enough to risk temporary physical discomfort. HereÌs one: the last concert of a group you love.
Random Access performed one final time last Sunday in the air-conditioned luxury of the First Unitarian Church at Waterman and Kingshighway. This was a local, mostly a cappella band of ten voicesÛboth men and womenÛwho after almost ten years and 160 performances decided to call it quits. (I never quite found out why. One member, Clay Cromley, was moving to Pennsylvania, but there have been lineup changes in Random Access in the past, so his departure may not have been the only motivation.)
ItÌs rare to see a Ïfinal concert.Ó Bands break up, implode, drift apart, but most of the time they donÌt say goodbye. Random Access said goodbye, to us and to each other, with 24 songs and little speeches by the band members between performances. They talked about rehearsing every week and the food theyÌd always eat afterward; about one having a baby and making all nine other Random Accessers the collective godparents; about how much they appreciated their families understanding the time demands of rehearsals and performances; about how they loved everything about singing these songs for us.
The program listed the 116 songs of their Ïplaylist.Ó Surely the toughest part of preparing for this concert was choosing which to sing. They started with ÏO Come All Ye FaithfulÓÛhey, Christmas songs were an important part of their repertoire, it only made sense to include them on the hottest day in June! They sang socially conscious Sweet Honey in the Rock, swinging jazz, and a madrigal setting of The DoorsÌ ÏLight My Fire.Ó There were originals by alto Melinda Ohlemiller and baritone/arranger Ken Dodds. Four alums of the group who had traveled from across the country to attend came up at one point to sing and strum guitars, and afterwards they, too, took the mikes to say it had all been a joy and a privilege and an experience of abiding friendship.
Early in the concert they sang a setting of the ÏAve MariaÓ whose ending is a heaven-reaching ÏAmen.Ó As they sang there came a moment where it all came togetherÛthe exquisite harmony, the talent and hard work of the singers, their love for each other and what they were doing, our love for them.
Their penultimate song was ÏLean on Me,Ó and here the emotion was almost too overwhelming. The man next to me, who had spontaneously gifted me with two butterscotch candies at the start of the show, hummed along like the tune was bubbling up out of him and had to escape. ÏOne more little one,Ó the singers begged at the end, as unwilling to leave the stage as we were to let them go. Random Access ended with a ÏHearty AmenÓ and walked out through the crowd to the church hall. We all became like bandmembers then, because just like at their rehearsals there was food for everyone.