Meeting With Pacific Coast Sound

On Friday June 9th The Wayfarers Chorus were invited to join the Liverpool Harmony Club in welcoming the Pacific Coast Sound on their visit to Liverpool, part of their ‘UK Barbershoppin’ Trip 2017‘.

Pacific Coast Sound are a mixed chorus, formed last year from 8 Canadian and American choruses spread along the West Coast of America and British Columbia, specifically for this UK trip.  They have met once a month for the past six months to rehearse and the Liverpool visit was only their third public ‘sing-out’.

Given this fact, the richness and quality of their singing is even more impressive!  Whether in full mixed chorus, male or female quartet or any other sub-division, their performances were met with rapturous applause.

The evening started with a brief, almost flash mob style, warm-up from Liverpool and Wayfarers, who then sung ‘Welcome As The Flowers In May’ to welcome our guests.  The Wayfarers Chorus then sung a selection of songs from our repertoire, conducted by Colin Wayte and Paul Smith.  Our songs were chosen to show our guests the variety of styles we perform, with favourites such as Georgia and Alexanders Ragtime Band featuring.

Following our set, Dennis conducted Liverpool Harmony Club in a number of their arrangements, sung with plenty of gusto, who were then joined by Wayfarers for a combined chorus.  This was occasionally a challenge due to slightly varying arrangements, but we got through it together and our guests appeared to thoroughly enjoy everything.

Amongst the songs performed by our guests were ‘Hallelujah’ and ‘Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond’, which were both beautifully arranged and performed.

During the evening there were performances by quartets from Pacific Coast (ladies), Wayfarers and Liverpool, plus octets and other combinations.  Wayfarers finished off a stint with ‘Sweet Gypsy Rose’, which went down extremely well and by special request we also performed ‘Battle Hymn’.

As the evening descended into good natured anarchy there were tag groups and ‘sing-offs’ competing for members and had it not been for train schedules we may still be there now.

After a friendly and extended good-bye, the Wayfarers Rail Entertainment Society continued a recent tradition of singing to the other passengers on the train home, at least until we lost all the basses at Crosby.

All in all, the evening was a spectacular success and emphasised the camaraderie which exists between barbershop choruses across the world.

A few images from the evening are showing below.  Apologies for the erratic quality, we were enjoying ourselves too much to concentrate on photos.  If anybody has any photos they want to have included in this slideshow please feel free to contact us via our contact form.

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