Have Fun with Sounds Fun
- 4ToTheBar From the Left..Peter-Tenor Paul-Lead Paul-Bass John Baritone
The Quartet Four To The Bar are entering the national Preliminaries and the Seniors competition, and are hoping to do well for Preston on the 20th November 2011 at Birmingham conservatoire.
Best Wishes to:-
Paul, Norman, John and Pete.
Note:- Norman has taken over the BASS part as Paul Walters has work commitements that have made it impossible to continue. We wish him well in his ‘Horus Birds of Pray’ venture.
Limerick Convention 2010.
Bernard Davis expresses the joy and fun that a quartet can have on a weekend trip to Ireland
Harmony Express Trip Resumé
On Thursday morning Sept 30th, Barry Nowell our lead singer from Lytham, called for me and my luggage and drove to Euxton to collect Norman Ambrose and his luggage then motored on to Bryn near Wigan to meet our tenor Jim Dennett.
Once everyone was checked aboard we drove through England and Wales to Holyhead to catch the ferry to Dublin, Ireland. After arriving at Dublin, Barry continued to drive us all the way across Ireland to Limerick where we were booked in to the Travelodge for Thursday Friday and Saturday night.
Our destination was first to the Irish Convention hotel to book in and pick up our registration pack and Convention badge. Friday was the contest day for International Category quartets and although things started at 2-30pm we were on last and had to wait our turn!
We sang our two songs in the University concert hall, ‘When you and I were young Maggie’ and ‘Nice work if you can get it.’ After the contest was over, the BABS judges Paul Davis and Pat Deeble plus Bill Rashleigh from USA arrived at the order of success. The cups and trophies were handed out but Harmony Express were not mentioned. The list of results were not published until the following morning when we discovered we were FIFTH IN THE INTERNATIONAL.
Friday night was also another contest to be judged solely on entertainment value, no prizes and no marks! We were entered and sang ‘Ain’t misbehavin’ and ‘Side by side’. We could tell from the audience reaction that they loved our performance. The score sheet listed us as THIRD. We were over the moon! Dinner that night was at Piccola Italia in O’Connell Street, Limerick. Our sweatshirts logo attracted attention and we were asked for a song. We were told later that one of the staff had relayed our songs to her son in Chicago. Other diners were spellbound and we were bought drinks of our choice.
Most of our Saturday was spent visiting the Shannon area which included Ennis, Ennistymon, Lisdoonvarna and the Cliffs of Moher where had a terrific view of the boiling Atlantic Ocean crashing against the 150 ft cliffs. It was an area with coach party visitors and we got chatting to an elderly couple from New Zealand. The husband was (you’ve guessed) another barbershop singer. We showed him our pitch pipe list of our repertoire so he could choose a song.
We were astounded when our final notes received applause from a crowd of at least 200 visitors. Our final stop on the day was at Kilkee in County Clare for fish and chips. Saturday night we saw the show and adjourned after to the Convention hotel for more tag and gang singing with a Swedish Chorus until the early hours.
Afterwards Barry Nowell, our driver from leaving Preston told us that we had clocked up 808 miles ….not bad for 4 Grand-dads!
After a rest and some more adjustments to our songs after some coaching from Nikkie Williams, we are entered at the Northern Prelims Seniors quartet contest at Birmingham Conservatoire on Sunday 21st November 2010.