On Saturday, April 4th in Riley Commons at 7pm the third Acappelafest was held. This was presented by WPI's own Simple Harmonic Motion. There were 4 groups present, and they represented 3 schools. There was, of course, WPI's Simple Harmonic Motion, WPI's Interstate 8 the No Fella Acappella, Renesselear's Renesselyrics and The Clark Counterpoints.
When the show finally started at 7:20 p.m., the MC's Issac Ruttel and Jeff Haynes, told us the reason the show started late was because Gabe Flores had to go around to everyone in the audience and shake their hands. Since there were around 330 guests there it was bound to take Gabe a while.
The first group to perform was WPI's own Interstate 8 the No Fella Acappella. The group was directed by Julie Roberts, and consisted of 8 females. This was the very first show they had ever performed. The way they set up their performance was by explaining how the group was first formed and some other interesting facts. Interstate 8 performed a variety of songs, and in the end they had performed a total of seven songs.
The next group to perform was Renesselear Renesselyrics. The group traveled all the way from Troy, New York. The group consisted of 22 members, which were both male and female. Unlike Interstate 8, which had only been established this year, the Renesselyrics have been around for over 150 years. They performed a total of seven songs, including "Only One" by James Taylor and "Plush" by Stone Temple Pilots. Their skits were based around not exactly knowing about how to perform in front of many people, singing up beat music.
The third group was the Clark Counterpoints. They had performed 7 songs. The Counterpoints consisted of 9 female members. The Counterpoints are a familiar group to many at WPI because they were here for the last Acappelafest, and they also do many shows in conjunction with SHM.
The final group to sing had one major problem. One of the disgruntled members of SHM, Alan Head, had gotten mad at one of the other members that was trying to sing "In the Jungle" by Elton John. This SHM member was shot repeatedly was Brandon Gaylord and was pronounced dead at the scene. Simple Harmonic Motion consisted of 12 male members. They sang a total of eight songs. Some of the songs they performed were "Africa" by Toto, Flood, "Conjunction Junction", "Istanbul" by They Might Be Giants and "Change in my Life" from the Leap of Faith Soundtrack. They performed many skits throughout the show. The major skit the groups preformed as a whole was a reenactment of George Lucas's "Star Wars" in 3 minutes and 6 seconds.
After the show when I asked different audience member what they thought of the show they told me, "It was great!". When I spoke with the musical director of SHM, Mike Driscoll, he told me the show was much better than the last Acappelafest. Finally when I asked the Business Manager of SHM, Jon Reynolds, what he thought of the show, he said, "It is cheap clean fun for all ages and Acappella just rocks". Acappellafest 3 was arranged by the Business manger Jon Reynolds and SHM member Jason LeBlanc. One final note to all readers in the show no one actually got killed. The murder of one of the SHM members was a skit.