By Liam Macleod
SING officially broke last night at IHC and it was definitely one for the memory books.
After yesterdays Fake-out it wasn’t on anyones cards that we would break SING this early, especially before the 4th of July!
We started the night off with the Staff Talent Show in the Indoor Sports Complex. After getting everyone settled down on the turf we started the show with an opening performance that would not be out of place on Broadway. Our very own Theatre Director — and wonderful host — Becca, and her team (Charlotte, Niamh, & Leigh) kicked it all off with a Queen cover of Somebody to Love, as the performance drove forward their voices reverberated around the room to the perfect pitch, crescendoing to a climatic finish on the final note.
The crowds went wild.
It was a fitting start and a hard act to follow, but follow it we did.
Next up we had Kraidan, our Landsports coach, who to the soundtrack of Smash Mouths — ‘All Star’ shocked audiences by managing to fit an astonishing 25 Graham crackers into his mouth… that’s right, 25! Once again, this miraculously brought the audience to a standing ovation. Dave Tager is rumored to have said in his many years at summer camp he’s not witnessed such devotion, dedication or hunger towards a performance.
The third act of the evening was from Lydia, whose emotional, yet passionate and powerful performance of ‘Yours’ by Ella Henderson again demonstrated the immense talent we have here at IHC. The room was almost reduced to tears as her moving last note hovered in the air, lingering delicately, lightly… before disappearing gently into silence. Broken only by the sound of clapping and the exhaling of breathe.
The following act changed the tone completely, a wonderfully weird performance by CS staff Michael, Matthew and Connor actually leaves me struggling for words to describe it. Beatboxing, strange voices and Orkling?
Whatever it was, it worked.
Our next act was a short performance by our gymnastics specialists, Alexis and Charlotte that involved a lot of flipping, a waterbottle and some very impressive handstand walking. Bravo, Brava!
Bringing us back to the music we had the two coolest cats on camp perform. Pete and Chris from our music department casually strolled on stage with an acoustic guitar and a drum box, sang a song that Pete had wrote for the show, then when it was done they casually strolled back off and sat down. Nice one guys.
Next on deck we had Felix, our tennis coach (and all round good guy) who served us a comedy juggling act. It was an ace performance that had less words than a Charlie Chaplin movie but still had the same amount of wit thanks to his timing which he had down to a T(ennis). Not the first time Felix has smashed it.
The final act of the talent show was our very own Joey Program, who gave a musical performance of ‘Run Away with Me’. The vocals were strong enough to match our very own Theatre team.
And of course, being on program… and being Joey. He was able to schedule himself in as the final performance.
BUT WAIT, HE WASN’T THE FINAL ACT!?
Michael ‘The Magic Dude’ had spent the day hanging around IHC with campers of all ages, amazing them with some of his card tricks. Now Joey had just called him out to perform a magic trick in front of 1000 people!
No pressure Michael.
Michael took the stage as anticipation built… what was he going to do?!
He explained that he was going to do a trick that involved everyone, and it was going to be completely random… yet not random at all.
He asked the room to think of any destination in the US, any holiday in the calendar and any animal.. and he would predict it.
After his introduction he picked 3 CIT’s out from the crowd and brought them up onto stage. With the first CIT he introduced a stack of cards, each one with a different destination of somewhere in the US.
After shuffling them the CIT picked a card. She was asked once if she would like to change her mind, she was asked twice if she would like to change her mind.. she didn’t.
She stuck with the Las Vegas card.
Next Michael got a box of toys, he handed them out to the audience to prove they were all random and different. They were. After a few minutes the campers put all the toys back into the box and he gave it a good shake.
Blau then asked the second CIT to reach into the box and pick out one toy, any toy.
The CIT pulled out a dinosaur.
Next up, Blau asked the audience to shout out their favorite holidays in the calendar year. You could hear campers scream answers back like Easter, 4th of July, Christmas and so on.
The 3rd CIT was asked to pick a random holiday she had heard shouted out from the crowd.
She chose Halloween.
So we now had 3 answers.. Las Vegas, A Dinosaur and Halloween.
Was this Michael’s prediction?
It’s a bit ridiculous to think that would be the answer.
Through out the entire performance, there had been a microphone stand with a folder piece of paper attached to it. Written on the outside was IHC.
Michael now addressed this piece of paper for the first time. It hadn’t moved from the stand all night.
He took the paper, turned to the audience and as his fingers ran around the edges of the paper… the campers edged forward on their seats..
He unfolds it once.
Surely not…
He unfolds it twice.
No.
Stop it!
He unfolds it a third time.
WHAT?!
HOW?!
On the paper it said…
“Camp IHC will go to Las Vegas, with a Dinosaur on Halloween”
There was disbelief around the room. Confused campers, confused staff even confused parents at home watching it LIVE on Facebook.
But then it started to get really interesting.
Blau built off of the energy of the crowd and said, “I want you to close your eyes and imagine you’re in Las Vegas, on Halloween, with your dinosaur, I want you to imagine it. You, you, and you, close your eyes.. I want you to imagine you’re there, I want you to imagine it NOW”
As he clapped his hands the lights around the sports complex all went off at the same time. The room was plunged into darkness. There were screams, sounds erupted around the room from the speakers, you could hear slot machines, dinosaur roars, ghosts howling, a beautiful chaotic chorus of noise.
For the next 30 seconds or so the screams and sounds synchronized together. What was going on?!
Then in a big bang flash of light everything came flooding back.
The curtains behind the stage had been raised and where Blau had been 30 seconds ago now stood a single… solitary… sign.
SING 2018!
