The Barton Hills Choir (2023)

One Liner: The elementary school choir from the campus closest to Zilker Park.

Wikipedia Genre: Awesomeness (and no Wikipedia)
Home: Austin

Poster Position: Not on the poster
Both Weekends.  Saturday at 11:30am

Thoughts:  Like School of Rock, I'm pretty much just going to give you my review from last year.  It sounds like they are very much still into the Grateful Dead at all times.

Dammit.  I don't think we even had an elementary school choir when I was a kid, they were too busy bussing us all over town and spending all of their money on crazy ass bus drivers and diesel instead of innovative music programs and fancy microphones with pop filters. 

But this is freaking so awesome.  And it's actually good.  I've just let YouTube autoplay all morning despite being done with this post, because the tunes are legitimately enjoyable.
I just read an interview with the choir director, Gavin Tabone, and I couldn't love his attitude more.  Oh, and in case you aren't going to read the article, just know that he mentions that he has between 150 and 200 kids involved in the choir program at an elementary school with about 375 kids.  That is amazing.  And he's helping these kids find a real, deep love for music, something that will make them better people for the rest of their lives.  Because complete fanatics about music, like people who would write about 100+ bands in their spare time, are the best kind of people.  ;)

They appear to have been in this Dead phase since 2017.  Not sure why their director quit moving things around, but since I dig the Dead, I'm on board.  This year's new crop of videos appears to be for a concert they had in Berkeley, CA.  Here is "Cumberland Blues."

They're not all perfect by any means, but that is truly fun stuff.

2022's new addition was "Goin Down the Road Feelin' Bad/I Know You Rider."

Dig it.  I feel bad that they have to do those weird hand motions when they don't sing, but otherwise that sounds dope.

And here is "(You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman."  Why was I not allowed to be born in 2009?

Let's go back to last year and the awesome Dead stuff (and because I'm lazy, this commentary is all the same): "Ripple" is a jam anyway, and these kids do it up right.

I love that song anyway, but hearing a roomful of kids throwing down serious harmonies? Aw man. 51k views of that video (and I just added eight to the count).  "Cassidy" is also pretty solid, as is "Scarlet Begonias."  One more, let's get the whole choir involved. Here is "Touch of Grey."

SOMEONE BUILD ME A DAMN TIME MACHINE RIGHT NOW SO I CAN TELL MY PARENTS TO MOVE ME TO BARTON HILLS TO SING IN THIS CHOIR AND THEN JOIN SCHOOL OF ROCK SO THAT I COULD BE BIGGER THAN THE BEATLES TODAY!!!

Really cool deal, first that this choir director takes the time to make this a truly cool thing, and second that the ACL folks sign them up to come and perform on a real deal stage at the Festival.  Good stuff all around.  Hooray for humanity!