I feel like not much has changed.

On a chilly Saturday afternoon, Bwog baby Jenny Zhu decided to break out of Butler for once, brave the first flurries of the Columbia school year, and stop by the Kingsmen K’winter concert.

As winter approaches, some inevitable markers of the annual seasons come with it: swaths of new wintry snow, the impending doom of finals season, the tarps, and the many, many end-of-year concerts held by acapella groups on campus.

The Kingsmen were no different, holding their Kingsmen K’winter concert this past Saturday afternoon in Furnald Lounge – a really unfortunate venue, as residents trying to leave would find and have to trudge through 10 oddly blazer-clad men, singing their hearts out about impotence in the throes of the most uncomfortable hip gyrations potentially imaginable.

Indeed, the performance began 8 minutes late. One of the Kingsmen was wearing literal basketball shorts. The tomfoolery didn’t end there.

Opening the concert with a song centered around one repetitive lyric (“That girl Jane, I did her in McBain”), the Kingsmen demonstrated their knack for slapstick humor, with that token reference to relatable Columbia content (McBain, ha ha ha) – but somehow it didn’t work on the comic side for me.

They recovered from this questionably funny opener with more songs featuring soloists, who were surprisingly not bad at, y’know, actual singing. In particular, Lorenzo Talbot-Foote shined in a very-serious, very-good rendition of “In the Still of the Night,” nearly resuscitating the performance with his runs and vocal talent. John Hui in a version of “Build Me Up Buttercup” and Vincent Le in “How Deep is your Love” also showcased their musical skills during the performance.

While the vocal talent was consistently above par, I found the humorous elements to be quite hit or miss. A Kingsman later admitted to me that many of their comic acts during the concert were improv – I could tell. In the performance “Build me up Buttercup” referenced earlier, poetic references such as a “waterfall of addy” got the crowd laughing, while other performances such as a song about male impotence turned out to be, well, alright. Mid-way through the concert, the Kingsmen also attempted to do a bit about Rupi Kaur poetry. While the basis for the joke was great, the execution was lacking.

Near the end, they sang some classic holiday jingle-jangles like “White Christmas” and “Santa Baby,” while also inviting Kingsmen alumni in the audience for a self-instigated encore-finale hybrid. This was a solid choice in programming, as it brought both classically humorous aspects (i.e. the Kingsmen singing “Santa Baby”) and some genial holiday cheer to the performance.

While the comedy bits were spotty at times, the performance was overall satisfying for its strong vocal performance, holiday-themed joviality, and well-intentioned humor – some trademark aspects you can expect from the Kingsmen.

the king’s men via Bwog Archives