At the last minute, before taking the stage at the International Competition of Collegiate A Capella (ICCA) in State College, PA, the Obertones zipped up their jumpsuits — covering the tee-shirts some of them wore that read, “A Capella Sucks.”
“[There were] groups from big scary state schools with big scary blue-blooded glee club traditions,” Obertone musical director, senior Jacob Adams said.
Junior and returning Obertone Benjamin Shirley-Quirk added, “There were girl groups who wore pink, tight, sparkly, cleavage inducing shirts. And they bounced around a lot.”
Against such a backdrop, one judge described the Oberlin delegation’s appearance as, “drab, but fitting.”
“We are a very different kind of group,” said senior Obertone Jason Goss, “We went into the competition with the idea that we were going to rock the boat a bit, which is what motivated the shirts. Some people just didn’t get the irony and looked at us like we were criminals. It was really funny.”
This year’s trip, though, was perhaps less eventful than last year’s, when the group advanced to the semi-finals and won awards for best soloist and best arrangement.
“We were not chosen to advance this year,” senior Jacob Adams, musical director for the Obertones, said, “but that’s how competitions are. We felt much better prepared this year as compared with last year, yet last year we advanced and this year we didn’t. That’s the way it goes.”
The performance consisted of four songs — “No Surprises” (originally by Radiohead), “Pink Triangle” (a Weezer song), “Africa” (one of the group’s standard features) and “Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?” (a Moby song for which the group won an award for best arrangement). One of the judges said, “You guys are doing the music that scares the shit out of most collegiate groups.”
Like true Oberlin students, the Obertones pride themselves on being different from these other “preppy” groups.
“Truthfully, no one in our group likes a capella music very much,” Adams said, “which is why with everything we do, we work tirelessly to be original and different from what people expect of an all-male singing group — be it song choices, skits, or wardrobe.
“Sadly, our intensity and dark horse quality were not enough to spearhead us past our show-choir, wholesome, music-loving colleagues from the University of Michigan,” he said.
The group’s failure to advance in the competition does not seem to have hurt their morale. “We’re very excited for the spring semester,” Adams said, “We should be singing around campus several times in March, then we go to California for our annual spring break tour, have our big Oberlin spring show and lay down tracks for a brand spanking new album.”
The Obertones have a number of new songs in the works. “One thing that has really been of note this year is how much arranging is going on,” Goss said, “Songs are coming in quicker than we can learn them.”
In addition to a forthcoming new album the group has added three new members this semester. Sophomores Andrew Caprariello and Andrew Maciver as well as 1st-year Peter Sherman “represent a new infusion of personality and good looks,” Shirley-Quirk said.
Though the Obertones were not semi-finalists in this year’s ICCA, they said performing there helped remind them not to take themselves too seriously.
“Some groups take this competition way too seriously, while we try to take it as another step in the group’s steady improvement throughout the year. We’re always at our tightest musically and performance-wise late in the spring.”