The choir sang Don't Look Back in Anger by Oasis
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A group of singers from Lancashire have made it through to the live shows of ITV's Britain's Got Talent.
Rossendale Male Voice Choir appeared on the spin-off Britain’s Got Talent show ‘BGT Unseen’, which aired on ITVX last weekend, with their performance securing four votes of yes from judges Amanda Holden, Alesha Dixon, KSI and Bruno Tonioli.
More than 40 of the now 65-strong choir made the coach trip to Blackpool, where they were met by the BGT Production Team and chatted with Ant and Dec backstage.
The choir were whisked onto the big stage for a sound check and once the spotlights were shone on them they performed their favourite contemporary piece, “Don’t Look Back In Anger” by Oasis.
Musical Director, Matthew Thomas, said: “The arrangement was done specially for us just before our centenary year by good friend Ian Crawford.
“The audience absolutely loved it, standing, swaying, arms waving, clapping in the right places, even the judges were on their feet for the standing ovation.
“I couldn’t have asked for more from the men, who created such an electric atmosphere that everyone in the theatre felt.”
Amanda asked ‘who is this unruly bunch?’ to which Matthew replied ‘This is The Rossendale Male Voice Choir’. The actress asked the choir how long they had been established and there was surprise and delight from the audience and judges when Matthew explained it was the group’s centenary year.
She then asked who was the oldest in the choir and Matthew pointed out Owen Stanton who was just approaching his 90th birthday.
Amanda had a chat with Owen and wanted to know if the choir went to the pub after rehearsals and then she promised if they got through to the next round she would join them. The judges comments were full of praise with Bruno commenting he was ‘loving the silver foxes’.
Alesha Dixon said: “You’re just a great group of guys getting together doing something you absolutely love and that’s made us all feel great today, so thank you so much for coming on our show.”
KSI added: “As someone from the social media world, you don’t really see a choir like this online a lot and I feel like we need to see more of this, one hundred percent.”
The choir were thrilled as one by one the judges delivered their “yes” verdicts, putting them through to the next round.
Choir Secretary, Peter Beetham, said: “We were approached by a BGT Producer last autumn and asked if we’d go on the show and we decided to go for it.
“We had a lot of work to do in a short time to provide all the information they needed, paperwork, videos, song choice and so on. But with just days to spare they confirmed that we had a place in the audition at the Winter Gardens on October 19 last year.”
Chairman, Charles Crowley, says the choir felt appearing on the show would be a great way to pay tribute to the men of the choir, who, throughout its celebrated history, have achieved so much.
He added: “Having our audition shown on BGT Unseen is just amazing, and even more incredibly it’ll soon be released on BGT’s YouTube channel which has 22 million worldwide subscribers.
“That’s a massive audience for any choir and a great way to promote male voice choirs in particular, how great they sound and how much fun they are to be part of.”
Treasurer, Paul Heaton, commented: “It all felt a bit surreal, one minute I was enjoying a chat on the coach with my choir buddies and just a few minutes later I was on a massive stage, looking out at a 3,000 seater auditorium into dazzling lights with the BGT crew buzzing around doing tech stuff as we sang our piece through twice.
The team who edited our appearance on BGT Unseen did a great job. They had us opening the show as Lancashire poster boys, then coming on stage to old-timer backing music, and really bringing out the joyous atmosphere of the performance itself.
“The only bit they missed out was when the audience were chanting “press the gold, press the gold” as the judges were making their deliberations.”
