It was sequins, wigs and sparkly (reading) glasses to the fore for the newest incarnation of Battle Chorus on Saturday night. I figured I needed to go with someone with no holds barred when it came to dancing, so my date was my irrepressible friend Tess, who is also a far better singer than me. My singing ability has suffered from lack of maintenance since my school choir days but I still love a good singalong, so Battle Chorus: Disco Inferno seemed just the ticket.

The brainchild of Tuatara Collective (Jason Te Mete and Rutene Spooner), Battle Chorus takes the pub choir phenomenon and adds an additional competition element. By the time Tess and I had traversed the glittering Civic foyer and made it down to the Wintergarden, Jason Te Mete was already patrolling the floor and nabbing new arrivals. In the blink of an eye and almost before I could say ‘Tess can sing’, Te Mete had recruited us to Team Silver, directed us how to download the songbook via QR code, and sent us off to the bar to redeem our drinks vouchers.

Both Tess and I are teetotallers but a lady we struck up an instant relationship with at the bar (she is tall + we are short = something to chat about) seemed appalled that we would ‘waste’ our vouchers on soft drinks. She offered to relieve us of those to use for extra Prosecco and paid for our drinks (sprite and water) herself. Drinks dutifully in hand, we went to sit down and look through the song book but there were barely any tables and even less chairs – most of them had been bagged by people saving chairs for their groups. Eventually we were beckoned over to share a table with some lovely ladies who shared that they’d just bought tickets expecting a show but were in shock on realising they were the show.

Te Mete and his co-host/adversary Jodie Langdon (Team Gold) soon made it clear they had no intention of letting us sit – the reason for the dearth of chairs and tables. With a wave we were all summoned onto the area in front of the stage. The rules were explained: after 20 minutes practise, we would form two opposing choir armies and battle it out for song supremacy in front of the judges, over three rounds.

From there things seemed to go very quickly. With Team Silver sent off upstairs to practise, Team Silver with Te Mete at the piano were coached at a cracking pace through verse and chorus of the

prescribed songs: think disco standards like ‘Blame it on the Boogie’ (Jackson Five), ‘Boogie

Wonderland’ (Earth, Wind and Fire) and ‘Shake Your Groove Thing’ (Peaches and Herb). As Te Mete said, the disco era wasn’t known for cerebral lyrics. Although Te Mete worked hard to get energy and dance moves, I felt uncomfortable that there was no attempt at vocal warm up. But, I guess that was one of many things that fell victim to the cracking pace of the event.

Speaking of fast, although we were supposed to practice all ten songs (group songs plus three songs per round), after only ten minutes Team Gold returned, and we had to abort after only running through three. A friend who had been to previous Battle Choruses whispered that wasn’t how it was supposed to go and that we would normally get to sing through everything once. Later I heard that Team Silver’s practice was short because they didn’t have a private space: they were in the upstairs Civic Bar, and every time they sang the bar drinkers talked louder over them.

Langdon and Te Mete worked hard: they played accompaniment on piano and guitar, encouraged us, and provided backing vocals all at the same time. It must have been exhausting. It was tiring for us too: we never got off our feet or managed to return to our drinks after that initial summons.

Instead, we belted hits at the top of our voices, squinting at the words and awkward-dancing, alternating turns between teams. I found myself wishing to reach the end of each round so I could stop singing at such high energy. It wasn’t much rest though: we only stopped for a few minutes between rounds while the ‘judges’ (the attractive, feather boa-encrusted Cabaret hosts roaming the Civic) deliberated.

It felt pretty rushed, and I wondered why there wasn’t an interval so we could buy more drinks (more money for the Festival! it was that type of show) and also rest our strained vocal cords. Just over an hour after starting we were done with the ‘battle’ (it was a draw, but the win isn’t the point of course). Almost as soon as we found our seats and got back to our neglected, warm drinks we were being shooed out by Wintergarden hosts who seemed in a hurry to close. This was pretty weird as more (free) events were advertised in the Civic until midnight and surely they wanted us to stay and spend more money at the bar? One of several odd producing decisions I encountered through the Cabaret Festival shows I attended.

Overall, this is a fun format, but I was surprised that not more time was given to build team spirit and get all of us more in the mood. (That’s what warmups are for, as well as being good vocal practice I thought?) Yes, there was dancing (Tess won kudos for our team for a particularly spirited dance-off) and we were there to sing and we did, but the rushed format felt like a missed opportunity. Te Mete said further iterations are in the works, with topics like Greatest Kiwi Hits and The 80’s (my era).

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