Straight No Chaser at the Temple Theater...

Some are used to music that cuts your throat with Les Paul guitars and Fender Strats. Last night the Angelina Arts Alliance featured the a capella group Straight No Chaser and their dynamic performance had all the energy you might expect of any rock show. It was another top notch event for Lufkin in the fine Temple Theater. 

SNC has it's origins as a student group formed in 1996 at Indiana University. In 1998 they recorded a video of their 12 Days of Christmas which had 24 million youtube views and led to a record deal. 

This was a cheerful energetic performance. The jokes and group interplay is humorous and they made quite a few references to their families and the impact the pandemic had on their lives as musicians. 

The last act we saw in this series was the Gatlin Brothers and while the music was great there were a few offhand remarks made by the the brothers that made light of Covid 19.  I don't think that's a good message and while you couldn't classify SNC as having a socially important thing to say they did share their experience. I've had people share with me that the pandemic has not much affected their lives. Like SNC, that has not been what I have personally seen in my life but then I probably just go to different places.   

Instead of instruments SNC has tenor, baritone and bass voices. They also do mouth percussion that would have you swear there was a recorded beat track being played. 

The Rolling Stones, they have made some great music, God bless them and they are out on tour now at an average age of 76 years old. I showed my wife Cathy (a fine singer) a video of guitarist Keith Richards singing at a recent concert. She said, "he sounds just like you do, he's hitting the notes he can." 

Go see SNC. They hit all the notes.