Sing It! with Trevor Jones, part of the Bread and Circus – World Buskers Festival takes a Sunday singalong in church to a whole new level. The Church Pub is packed with an audience eager to get up to sing and dance.

I arrive 20 minutes before the show starts and there’s very few tables free, so I grab a low table near the entrance with a nice breeze but not a very clear view of the stage. Thanks to The Church’s mobile ordering system, I’m able to order a drink and pizza without leaving my table (a definite perk of this venue!)

The crowd is excited as Trevor Jones takes the stage, accompanied by local musicians Cat Wall (drums), Clayton Hiku (bass) and Rosanna Harvey (guitar). Launching straight into Elton John’s ‘I’m Still Standing’, the audience is already onboard, not hesitating to get up and sing along. I’m impressed, as Christchurch audiences can be a little timid, but the crowd at Sing It! knew what they’d signed up for.

From where I’m sitting, the sound is a bit muffled and unclear, but this issue is fixed by the tech crew before the first song even ends. Trevor chats with the crowd, reminding us the night is “all about you singing along”. Prior to the show, audience members could vote for their top singalong songs of all time, with the top 10 forming the setlist for the performance.

The first few songs are a warm up ahead of the top 10 countdown and Trevor introduces guest vocalists Lily Bourne and Courtenay Washington. Lily takes the lead on ‘Flowers’ by Miley Cyrus (the most recent release track of the evening) before Courtenay and Trevor have the audience quite literally turning around for ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’. Disappointed no Kiwi songs have made the top 10, Trevor closes the first set with Crowded House’s ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’.

After a short break, we are into the top 10 singalong tracks. A projector screen displays the lyrics along with clips and GIFs from the original artist or iconic pop culture moments relating to the song. The music in the top 10 is varied from Tina Turner to millennial classic ‘Mr Brightside’, ‘Mamma Mia’ to Bon Jovi.

‘This is Me’ from The Greatest Showman comes in at number seven, surprising me the most of the top 10. Lily Bourne sings powerful lead vocals; this song sits beautifully in her voice.

The performers make their way through the countdown, interwoven with chatter from Trevor including a key change drinking game, discussion of songs cover bands hate to play (‘Sweet Caroline’) and a very passionate case about how there’s far too much harmonica in a song quite literally called ‘Piano Man’.

Trevor shares the addiction he had to watching the votes roll in, seeing which position songs were sitting in and how only a handful of votes changed the shape of the top 10. He also credits the hard work of the musicians, having only a few days to prepare after the votes closed.

Anticipation builds for the reveal of the top three songs; we (the audience) are all very invested at this point. Number three is Journey’s classic ‘Don’t Stop Believing’, an intergenerational hit due to its resurgence on Glee. Number two is Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’, a slightly surprising choice, but we are in a church after all. It’s not often the band asks the audience for an encore, but Trevor gets his phone out to record us singing the chorus, having described our new choir as “terrifyingly in tune” earlier.

It’s time for the Number One song. I convince myself I know what it’s going to be, and I’m right – it doesn’t get any more iconic than ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. The evening ends on an electric high, headbanging encouraged and a smashing guitar solo from Rosanna.

The band are all fantastic throughout, but I have to give special mention to Rosanna Harvey for absolutely shredding the guitar solos in ‘Don’t Stop Believing’, ‘Hallelujah’ and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. She’s a phenomenal young talent to watch.

What’s fun about Sing It!, is that it’s totally unique to the audience’s vote, no two shows are exactly the same, and there are enthusiastic cheers from the crowd at the suggestion they come again next week.

It’s a joy to see a room full of people getting unashamedly in the spirit of a singalong and I would love to see Sing It! back on the festival line up in the future.

++A second show of Sing It! has recently been added (28 January) to the Festival schedule.++

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