Singing together.

Lately I've had a few instances where I've realized that I love it when people, like large groups, sing together in public. I'm not talking about a band or a choir or anything like that, I'm talking about normal people, who all know the same song, and come together and sing it.

Last week I went to a concert of this brass band, The Dallas Brass, with my mom and cousin Dana in Liberal, KS. I'm not going to lie, when I walked in the door and saw hundreds of old people and then walked in the auditorium to hear this cheesy, brassy "jazz" CD playing as prelude music for the concert... I was a little nervous. The concert actually ended up being awesome. One part I loved is that they played a whole bunch of "America songs", and one was "My Country Tis of Thee." The main guy from the band encouraged the audience to sing along with that one, and because it was an audience of old people, no one held back (that's one of the many cool things about old people) and everyone was singing together and it was awesome. I got goosebumps.

For some reason it seems like young people don't sing in public as much. Let's use a high school football game for example... How many students do you think actually sing the National Anthem out loud? Very few. It's true that there are a some examples of when young people will sing together, and I experienced one the other night at a Sufjan Stevens concert (a what concert? He's a guy, he's kind of crazy, and you have to listen to his songs about 5 times before actually enjoying them, but he will for sure stimulate your brain if you give him a chance.) Anyway, the whole concert was pretty out there, but he finally played a song that everyone knew called Chicago and everyone sang along. It was pretty amazing.

Anyway... I love singing in large groups. I think we should all sing the National Anthem, or Take Me Out to the Ball Game, or whatever song you have the opportunity to sing a little bit louder next time. Deal? Deal.