The Sound of Glee

Penn Glee Club
Upstream Theater
St. Louis, MO
Friday, May 23rd, 2008
General Admission
$10

I've never had much school spirit. I'm certainly proud of where I went to college and made good use of my time there. I quickly found a home at the school's radio station. Most of my free time went to music and exploring the campus and downtown Philly. I never went to a sports event and I did few extracurricular activities. I never did see the Glee Club perform back then.

All of the people I still keep in touch with from that period are people I met at concerts or through WXPN, not any of the other students. I didn't quite fit in with the other students. I felt more mature in some ways and less mature in my social skills. Still, I loved being a part of Penn. When an alumni association formed here in St. Louis, I joined. At the first happy hour, I felt very out-classed. Everyone I spoke with was in academia, had multiple degrees, and one woman was even a published author. I enjoyed the structured activities like lectures and tours more than the happy hours.

We got an e-mail that the Penn Glee Club was going on a short tour and coming to St. Louis. This sounded like an event I'd like. The Glee Club goes on an annual tour, and this year, they were doing a series of towns in the midwest and down the Mississippi: Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis, and New Orleans. It was on a Friday night and only a mile and a half from our home. It was in a church right across the street from Forest Park.


We decided to walk. It was a little too warm for me to walk comfortably, so I was sweaty and icky feeling by the time we arrived. It was worth it, though, to be able to throw out "oh, this location is wonderful. We walked here." a couple times and show off what a cool area we live in. I recognized a few people from previous events.

I was expecting the church to be, like, a church. It was definitely a *former* church. A good half of the auditorium, length-wise, was now the stage. The pews were lined up facing the stage raised like bleachers. There were some uncomfortable looking chairs in front. We grabbed some seats in the front row of pews in the center. Kids were running around on the stage, and we watched them. People joked that the kids were the opening act. It was warm in there, no air conditioning or air movement.

The Glee Club had 28 members. There were 50 or 60 people in the audience. I had not expected the singers to all be men, but I found out that that is what a glee club usually denotes. (My elementary school had a glee club that was coed.) I thought they sounded really good and the place had good acoustics. There was no amplification needed. The only accompaniment was piano.

I was glad they did a few songs I recognized. Roy thought their version of Bridge over Troubled Water was imaginative. I'm not sure how well it worked. The arrangement was clever, but I think the strength of the song is one person singing it and really giving the lyrics meaning. Here, it seem more focused on the melodies than the words themselves.

In between songs, they did short skits and some choreography. Some of the foreign language songs were my favorite. Maybe it was because I didn't pay attention to the words and just focused on the sound of their voices.

This was Roy's first time hearing Penn's song "The Red and the Blue". I have to admit, I can't sing along to it. I never learned it as a student. The word Pennsylvania gets pronounced "Penn - syl - Vain - I - A". On our walk home, Roy teased me about how it sounds. I also think it's weird that Penn namechecks two other colleges in our song:

"Fair Harvard has her crimson
Old Yale her colors too,
But for dear Pennsylvania
We wear the Red and Blue."

I think it's Penn showing off an inferiority complex. "See, we're in league with those schools in our song!"

It cooled up a bit outside, so we all went outside for the intermission. Afterwards, there was a reception outside. It was not well lit, and we still had to walk home, so we just grabbed something to eat and headed off. Much nicer walking this time. We stopped at Ben and Jerry's to finish cooling off on the way home.