By Bruce Karnick

Things are slowly returning to normal for everyone, including the students at Hastings High School. The HHS Show Choir put on a show at the Rotary Pavilion for friends and family Saturday that wowed the audience. The show was not advertised to the public because there are still some restrictions in place, but many folks out enjoying the day stopped by to watch the show.

The show featured all three parts of the Hastings Show Choir along with a large group of band members as the house band. Upstage Revolution, Dynamic Edition and Riverside Company had their share of 15 different songs. Upstage performed; Crusin’ for a Bruisin’, Roads, and Rock and Roll Never Forgets. Dynamic performed; Absolutely Not, Paint it Black, Diamonds, and A little Party. Riverside had the biggest list performing; Stressed Out/Finale B/ Could Have been M, Blue Collar Man/Too Much Time, Let’s get away from it all/ Runaway, Bird Set Free, Feel Good, Takin’ it to the Streets/ Wild in the Streets/Dancing in the Streets, and the ‘house band’ played two pieces of their own.

Junior Gabe Tribe connected with The Journal after Saturday’s performances to lend a helping hand with the specifics of the story and to tell us how the day was.

“It was very hot yesterday, so it was [a mix of] kind of fun, and kind of painful to do performances throughout the entire day,” explained Tribe. “From my personal point of view, it was so much fun performing and actually putting a show out this year, and overall is just a fun experience to have.”

The outside of the Rotary Pavilion was packed with family and friends of the 100+ singers enjoying a beautiful day in the park even though it was a little on the hot side. Of course, Choir Director Luke Warren paused the show to showcase his 20+ Seniors.

“Most years there’s like a theme to it but this year there was none. So, it’s kind of like all over the place. I know for upstage they performed a song from Teen Beach Movie. Then, Riverside did something by Bon Jovi and some, British rock music. The Ballad was from Sia so like that’s pop. It’s kind of just all over the place,” explained Tribe.

Tribe also spoke about the difficulties in rehearsals this year. Between streams glitching out during a key piece of choreography to learning the moves at home from the screen of a phone or tablet, to figuring out how to put the moves all together as a group in two short weeks, was a huge challenge. The younger groups struggled more with not bumping into each other than the older groups that had been there before.

What did Mr. Warren say to the kids before the show?

“Oh, so one quote that I love about [Mr.] Warren saying the most is, ‘Let’s go do a thing,’ because that’s what he says before every choir concert, every show choir performance is, just go out there and do a thing. But yeah, besides that he always has a speech, like very proud of the work & effort we’ve put in this year, and even talked about all the challenges and how we’ve had to persevere through online learning, being at home trying to learn a whole dance and songs and whatnot,” Tribe said.

The performances were high energy, and the kids were extremely excited to be on stage again. All the competitions they normally go to each year were cancelled. To go from 5-8 competitions a year to only one show is tough, but the kids handled it well.

Local photographer, Jeannie Tribe captured over 500 pictures of the show. The photos here are courtesy of Jeannie Tribe Photography LLC. Scrolling through the images, you can see the sheer joy on the faces of the kids performing, a joy that needs to be shared in those 500+ images. Find the link on our Facebook Page www.facebook. com/HastingsJournal.

A huge thank you to the Tribe family for taking the time for the assist on this story and great job doing a thing kids!

TOP: Upstage Revolution MIDDLE TOP: Dynamic Edition MIDDLE BOTTOM: Riverside Company BOTTOM: HHS Choir Director Luke Warren talks about his graduating seniors from all three of his groups. Photos Courtesy of Jeannie Tribe Photography, LLC