The Hopkins Mental Notes put on a joint concert with the Cleftomaniacs of The College of William and Mary and the Oxford Blues of Haverford College last Friday.
The painfully sexy Mental Notes, as they describe themselves, were founded in 1999 and are Hopkins’s only comedy a cappella group. They started the night by singing the song “She’s too Good for Everyone” with junior Malachy Duffy as the soloist.
Following that song, they handed the stage over to the Cleftomaniacs.
The Cleftomaniacs, who are on their fall tour, opened their set with a Tarzan medley that included strong vocals and an interesting arrangement.
The medley was made up of three popular songs from Disney’s Tarzan: “Trashin’ the Camp,” “Two Worlds” and “You’ll Be in My Heart”. While initially “You’ll Be in My Heart” seemed rushed, the fast tempo was explained when all three songs were performed at the same time. At that moment, the arranging skills of the group really stood out.
They closed their set with a strong performance of “Dancing in the Moonlight” and a beautiful rendition of “Cry Me a River”. The set was short, but their strong performances left quite an impression.
Following the Cleftomaniacs, the Oxford Blues from Haverford took the stage.
The Oxford Blues is Haverford’s only all female a cappella group. In their set, they gave solid performances of “Hate on Me” by Jill Scott and “Sink or Swim” by Tyrone Wells.
However, the strongest performance of their set was the second song: “White Winter Hymnal” by Fleet Foxes. There was no soloist in this song, but that is the reason it was so strong.
In the other performances, there had been balance issues, and occasionally the voices of the soloists had been drowned out. In this song, though, the harmonies were spot on and their voices blended excellently. While an overall strong performance, the balance issues in the vocals during the first and last songs brought it down.
The Mental Notes closed the night with a three-song set, which included an original song, a medley of funny raps and a classic rock song.
They opened this set with “Everyday Normal Guy,” which is a medley of the Jon Lajoie “regular erryday” raps, with senior Nick Moutsakis providing the vocals.
The Mental Notes had the audience laughing from the start, especially when the song changed briefly to Celine Dion’s “My Heart will Go on” and two of the members of the group started miming the scene from Titanic where Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet were on the railing of the ship.
The next song was the classic “Son of a Preacher Man” with senior Oona Bernhardt as the soloist. Vocally strong, Bernhardt’s performance of the song beyond the vocals made it even stronger. Occasionally, it was hard to hear her because of the strong backup vocals, but for the most part, the balance was good.
The Mental Notes closed their set with an original piece called “Your Kind of Pretty but You’ve Got a Weird Face,” written and performed by senior Andy Weld. The song even referred to Taylor Swift’s new song “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.”
The audience once again was laughing from the beginning of the performance, and it only stopped when the clapping and cheering began at the end of the set.
The concert on a whole was a great showcase of different a cappella groups and styles.
The Mental Notes will be back on Dec. 8 with their end of the semester concert.
