Gas House Gang
The wife of a family friend took sick, so an extra ticket became available to an eclectic concert last night. Having nothing better to do, I decided I’d give it shot, since I had actually heard of the special guests, Tingstad and Rumbel, whose Christmas Album The Gift is one of my favorites. What it turned out to be was an evening of close harmony with primarily three barbershop quartets, the Renton Valley Harmonizers putting on a production of “The Seven Deadly Sins,” a fun and well-made production, and then of course Tingstad and Rumbel. The choreographed music of the Seven Deadly sins was well-sung and quite fun, and the first two barbershop quartets were quite good – each had either won or placed second in the Evergreen district in the past couple of years – and the Evergreen district covers from Oregon to Alaska to Montana, so we are talking some seriously good singing. When Tingstad and Rumbel began, however, they easily outshined everything that had happened up to that point. The virtuosity of each musician was amazing; Tingstad has complete control over the guitar, and Rumbel is a magician with the Oboe and an assortment of Flutes. They got a standing ovation and performed an encore, but little did I know that the best was yet to come.
The Gas House Gang won the international barbershop quartet competition in 1993, and believe me that it is no slight to the others to say that the Gas House Gang was an order of magnitude better than the other quartets. Even missing one of their original members (replaced by a member of another international-winning quartet for this concert), the sound of the group was cleaner, brighter, and noticeably better than any of the others. And the chemistry between the three original members was fantastic. I can only imagine what the group must have been like with the original baritone, who died in 2003 of cancer, an event which has now culiminated in the group’s decision to retire. After 18 years of what can only be described as amazing music and showmanship, even though this was my first real exposure to them (I had heard of the Gang before, but not heard their stuff), I can say with conviction that the musical community is loosing something special in the Gas House Gang. Bravo!