Choir! Choir! Choir! sinks its musical hooks into the masses
With Choir! Choir! Choir! rehearsals almost ready to begin, the excitement among the pop collective’s members is rising by the minute.
About 150 people have squeezed into the back room of Clinton’s Tavern, a bar in downtown Toronto, on this chilly night in late November. They’re about to sing Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer,” and many are whispering the 1970s classic under their breath, reading a lyric sheet they were handed with their $5 admission at the door.
Judging by the energy pulsing throughout the crowd, tonight’s performance could be huge - but it’s not going to be easy. In under three hours, they’ll learn how to perform John’s six-minute song in harmony, under the guidance of Choir! Choir! Choir! founders Nobu Adilman and Daveed Goldman.
Once it’s ready, the amateur singers will launch into a final performance uploaded to YouTube. It might even become their latest viral video.
The whole experience would’ve been unimaginable eight years ago when the creators of Choir! Choir! Choir! began drop-in sessions at a Toronto real estate office.
But over the past few years their simple idea has grown into a cultural movement.
Whether it was tributes to the late David Bowie, Prince and Gord Downie, or the recent heart-pumping collaboration with Rick Astley on “Never Gonna Give You Up,” each video showcases a sea of anonymous strangers living out their jukebox glory.
Yet there’s a mystery as to why Choir! Choir! Choir! keeps getting bigger.
“I love that there’s so much mystique around what is, at its core, probably one of the most simple things,” says Adilman, 46.
“People have been doing this for hundreds of years. We’ve just packaged it up in a different way.”
This year, the choir defied critics who dismissed it as a cheeseball fad by drawing some of their biggest names yet, including musician David Byrne.
The creators have more ambitious plans, including a tour where they’ll use ABBA songs to recruit local choirs for shows in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Ottawa and other cities. They’re fully invested in the project, with corporate gigs helping to pay the bills.
None of this seemed possible in 2008 when Adilman, a one-time CBC host, was stewing in an artistic funk at his Toronto home.
He’d just moved back from Halifax, a place where the arts community had welcomed him with open arms, and was having trouble finding his place in Toronto’s creative world.
With spare time on his hands, he agreed to host a small choir for a friend’s birthday party. It was there he became acquainted with Goldman, who joined him in leading the group in a cover of Pilot’s 1974 pop hit “Magic.”
The night was a success, and Adilman and Goldman became fast friends.
With Goldman working days at a Toronto brunch hotspot, he wasn’t in any rush to launch a singing career, but he couldn’t stop thinking about that night. Every so often the two men would grab a bite and talk about making it happen again.
Two years later, they created a Facebook event titled “Choir! Choir! Choir!” - a filler title they deemed a beckoning call to prospective singers.
Word got around fast.
On the first night in February 2011, the duo gathered 25 people inside the Bosley Real Estate office. A photographer at a Toronto weekly snapped photos of the event, billing it a “rogue choir practice,” which drew more interest.
“We had so much fun that we told our friends we’d do it again sometime - and everyone was like, ‘Tomorrow, let’s do it tomorrow,”’ Adilman remembers.
“And from that moment it was every Tuesday, every single week.”
Eventually, a second weekly session was added.
Even the most obscure songs were drawing a good 60 people, Goldman says. Elliott Smith’s “Needle in the Hay” and Counting Crows’ “The Ballad of El Goodo” might’ve been strange choices, but they were meaningful to the duo, so they sang them anyway.
“We could’ve been doing ‘Ring Around the Rosie,’ and they would’ve come,” Goldman, 42, adds.
Letters began to pile up from choir members, another reassurance they were doing something right.
Adilman remembers the first one he received, written by a woman whose husband died from an illness. She described grieving mostly in isolation with her son before deciding to attend one of the sessions in hopes of reconnecting with a community.