Whatever your hobby or sport, how many of us ever get to perform alongside our heroes? For Dave Potts, who sings with Portsmouth’s Solent City Chorus, the dream became a reality in Bournemouth last weekend during the UK’s national barbershop competition.
The heroes in question were four guys from St Charles, Missouri in the USA, known as “Vocal Spectrum”. Their quartet – former world champions - is generally regarded as one of the greatest ever and a little while back was inducted into the Barbershop Hall of Fame.
Dave takes up the story: “The Vocal Spectrum guys had been invited to come over and headline the concert at the UK convention. But while here, they’d also offered to give a few British singers the opportunity to sing with them at a side event. I entered the ballot….and got lucky. I didn’t know whether to be thrilled at my luck, or terrified at the prospect of going on stage with them.”
When the day came, the quartet’s regular bass was still in the USA and had been replaced by another American, Jim Henry, a legendary singer and conductor. So as Dave confesses: “I wasn’t just going out front to sing with one of the greatest quartets ever, but I was replacing one of the absolute giants of the genre. I’ve never been so nervous.”
Despite his nerves Dave gave a great performance. Singing “Lullabye”, a Billy Joel number, Dave more than held his own with the American guys, got all the notes and words in the right order (as Morecambe and Wise might have said), and got a terrific ovation from both the audience and the rest of the quartet. As Dave says: “It was a once-in-a- lifetime experience. And after that, I don’t think I’ll ever be nervous going on stage again.”