Pub Choir founder and conductor Astrid Jorgensen promises something extra special when 1100 Sunshine Coast residents come together in one room and find their voice on July 12.
The wildly popular singing experience for everday Aussies is coming to Kings Theatre in The Events Centre, Caloundra, as part of the Can You Relax? national tour of 15 cities.
Pub Choir brings together all-comers across the vocal spectrum (usually with drinks in hand), creating musical magic in one night as a single song is deconstructed into three-part harmony and recreated into a unique choral performance.
But Astrid told Sunshine Coast News the national tour offered the opportunity to do something even more exciting with the concept that began with just 80 participants taking on Dave Dobbyn’s Slice of Heaven at The Bearded Lady bar in Brisbane’s West End in 2017.
To SUBSCRIBE to our Sunshine Coast News newsletter, enter your name and email at the bottom of this article.
“There is something special happening for this whole tour,” she said.
“Sometimes I feel constrained if I do too many shows. I have to arrange too many songs. It can feel overwhelming.
“So, this tour is going to be based around one song. I’m going to share one song in 15 locations across Australia.
“I’m going to teach a slightly different version at every single show. It will kind of be 15 different layers.
“So, if you come to the show, it takes the pressure off because you’re joining in with what we hope is around 20,000 people around Australia singing the same song.
“I’m going to compile quite a complex song so that, when the video finally comes together at the end of this whole tour, I’m hoping that every person who came to the show at Caloundra will be able to listen and go: ‘I remember that special little moment’.”
Astrid said the new spin on the Pub Choir format had been trialled on a small scale in December last year.
“It was so awesome to see that many people working together – not even in the same room,” she said.
“I can’t tell you the song. I want people to want to come to the show because they want to make something. The song is like a lovely bonus. But I promise you it’s a really epic one and I think it’s going to come together amazingly. I’m super excited about it.”
Astrid confessed she had lost track of how many performances the ever-changing Pub Choir had done, but it was “hundreds”.
“It was our actual sixth anniversary two days ago (April 11),” she said.
“I know in 2019, just before COVID, we did 70 shows that year. And then obviously we had a few years off, so it probably works out to be about 200 or something.”
Pub Choir’s only other performance on the Sunshine Coast was at Solbar in Maroochydore’s Ocean Street on May 24, 2018, when the packed house sang Vance Joy’s Riptide.
“It’s been a long time between drinks so it’s good to have a plan to come back,” Astrid said, with only 200 tickets remaining for the latest Coast gig.
“The venues have gotten bigger. ‘Pub’ Choir is the name of the business these days and not necessarily the location.
“It’s kind of outgrown pubs, which is awesome. It’s become like a bit of a theatre show. I’m stoked.
“I guess with a name like ‘Pub Choir’, it can be surprising to some people the scale of it.
“But the concept is the same, no matter what room you’re in. It’s just a bunch of people who don’t know each other trying to sing a song together and to have a nice time. It’s still the same show. It’s still really casual.
“Everyone’s welcome with the goal of making something feel nice and inclusive.”
The Pub Choir phenomenon unsurprisingly has caught the attention of global music stars and celebrities for its simplicity, energy, inclusivity and ability to offer a fresh take on some of the world’s most-popular hits.
Shortly after the death of lead singer Dolores O’Riordan, The Cranberries shared Pub Choir’s rendition of Zombie – sending it viral on the internet.
Praise has also come from artists as diverse as Kate Bush, Sir Barry Gibb, Mariah Carey, The Killers and Kiss, who have all shared with fans the Pub Choir’s performances of their most-loved songs.
“Those had the best results out in the world,” Astrid said.
“If a celebrity gets on board or sends a message, that (Pub Choir) video is elevated.
“But truly, the most amazing to me is the people. It’s always strangers – not necessarily famous people but just regular people – making stuff.
“When I’m feeling ‘Is this really worthwhile?’, I’ll go and watch Pub Choir’s performance of How Deep Is Your Love by the Bee Gees.
“That one was actually quite complex, and it gave me a shock on stage in real time.
“I was, like, ‘This is hard. This is dicey. I’m not just fussing about with people. This is actual complex music-making that we’re doing here tonight.’
“And then the end result: it came together at the very last second. We all felt it in the room. That was all beautiful and I kind of think that’s the goal: making regular people feel like they’ve done something really special.”
Whether conducting a Splendour In The Grass festival performance for about 5000 people, as she did in in 2019, or creating the ‘Couch Choir’ prime-time TV show during COVID when 200,000 people tuned in live from home in a “big national choir moment” (courtesy of SBS, under the name Australia’s Biggest Singalong!), it’s all in a night’s work for Astrid the choirmaster.
She jokes that “I feel like I might have been getting music lessons in the womb”.
“I was definitely musical (as a child),” she says.
“I had lots of piano and violin lessons as a kid. I’m the youngest of five, so all of my older siblings had music lessons ahead of me.
“I think I was kind of the beneficiary the most. Everyone is quite musical but I’m the one that’s continued on and making it their life.
“You can’t start too young with music. All of us are musical in some way. Music is everywhere in everyone’s life – even if it’s just casually.
“I realised I have a skill of hearing how it works and understanding how songs come together.
“I feel like my job is explaining that to people and letting them feel like they are experts, too.
“I try to pick songs that everyone might know or have heard before.
“I want people to come to the show and feel like, ‘Oh, I remember this bit. Oh, I can at least sing that little line there’.”
For Pub Choir ‘virgins’ contemplating heading along to the Caloundra show, Astrid stresses the experience may not be what you are expecting.
“It makes me laugh … sometimes people come to show and think they’re going to watch a choir perform. No, you’re the choir,” she said.
“And then sometimes people think they’re going to do a night of karaoke of many songs, singing them exactly the way that they’ve heard them before. No, this is deconstructing one song tonight and at the end of it, you will be the performer and it will be a totally new version.
“That’s a really cool thing to give to people. Singing is easy but deconstructing a song and working out harmonies is not. So, it’s nice to let people in and let them be the performer.”
Brisbane author Trent Dalton attended a performance and later sent Astrid a note, saying Pub Choir was “the sound of people agreeing”.
“That’s a very lovely way to think about it,” Astrid said.
“It’s the sound of people working in literal harmony with each other. It is impossible to hear one person’s voice when you’re in that big room.
“Think of 1100 people all singing really loudly. No one’s going to care what notes you miss and what notes you hit. It’s really just about contributing.
“You just have to rock up and try your best. That’s really freeing for a lot of people.
“It can be really stressful in life sometimes. We’re all hoping to be the best at something. But it’s really nice to be given permission to not worry about that for a couple of hours.
“Even the fact that we’re filming the show for the crowd. If you want, you can put your phone away, not worry about capturing (the performance), and just experience something that feels really good.
“I see that in the audience at the show as well and that tells me I’m doing the right thing.”
What starts with a warm-up of the vocal cords – perhaps the chorus of The Beatles’ Hey Jude – never fails to be, well, on song by the end of a couple of hours and perhaps a few beers.
SUBSCRIBE here now for our FREE news feed, direct to your inbox daily.
Even after six years, Astrid still feels the ‘goosebumps’ moments.
“I try to start the show as soon as possible – get people singing something that they know,” she said.
“If I can get them succeeding within the first couple of minutes of the show, people start to see what is possible.
“That’s always a nice moment when we get a harmony going immediately at the show.
“And then of course always at the end. Even though I’ve had a plan of how I want the song to come together, it’s always different with every single crowd.
“The result always sounds unique to that moment. That is always really exciting and kind of miraculous to me without fail.
“It’s been going for six years and I’ve done hundreds of shows but every time it comes together, it’s fresh and I know that it was real.”
Local journalists supporting local people. Help keep independent and fair Sunshine Coast news coming by subscribing to our FREE daily news feed. All it requires is your name and email at the bottom of this article.
