Trench fans get to sing along — on stage
There’s a verse in the marianas Trench song Stutter that goes like this:
“Sing it back, oh oh, oh oh, oh oh oh, Sing it back to me.”
Those words will have special meaning for 18 Kamloops students when the Vancouver band performs at Interior Savings Centre on Saturday, Nov. 3.
They’ll be singing them back to the band.
The group of students from Beattie School of the Arts and South Kamloops secondary will share the stage with the band for two songs, Stutter and Fallout, both songs on the band’s album Ever After.
It’s a way to give back to fans and involve them in the shows, said Ian Cassleman, the band’s drummer.
“We try to get our fans involved as much as possible,” Casselman said, and, for this tour, that meant posting on its various social-media sites the opportunity for high school students to audition to perform.
“We got tons of submissions,” Casselman said and, after staff at the band’s record label narrowed them down to what they thought were the best, the band members had a listen and made the final decisions.
“Their submission was quite good,” he said of the Kamloops students.
“I remember theirs. There were two schools involved but it was obvious they both respected each other.”
The students who will be on the risers for their big moment include Paige Duncan, Katrina Ross, Moira Laidlaw, Julianna Bissonette, Brigit Broaders, Saidie Raine Keim, Justine Wild, Shanon Webster, Karla Kilmartin, Tylor Robinson, Damian Halvorsen, Caleb Levesque, Jovelyn Pascual, Adrianna Bissonette, Maia Walker, Anita Cross, Katjana Johnson and Brook McLean.
Brook said she started the Kamloops involvement when she saw the opportunity on the band’s website.
By then, it had been up for several days and the deadline for a submission was just four days away.
Brook asked other choir members at South Kamloops secondary and some were interested.
The school is next to Beattie School of the Arts and they share classes so she asked some Beattie students and, “we became our own little choir,” she said.
While she didn’t know everyone at the start, “we’re all friends now.
“Everybody helped everybody out with it,” Brook said, and, after an eight-hour practice at her house and some assistance from local musician Kris Ruston, the group had its video ready — complete with choreography to the song.
“We submitted it with just 15 minutes before the deadline,” Brook said.
“Then we had all that suspense for about a week.”
The waiting and wondering ended when the band’s record label emailed to tell her they had been chosen for the Kamloops show.
“I had tickets for the show already, so I gave them away,” Brook said.
“And, then I won tickets so I gave them away, too.”
The opportunity to share the stage with the band proved popular, Casselman said, with dozens of submissions coming in for the tour stops.
One Edmonton audition, for example, included 70 teens. The group was told to reduce it to no more than 40.
“We have safety issues to consider,” Casselman said. “We’re putting them on risers and you can’t do that with a big group.”
There’s more to the performance than just going on stage, singing along and then getting off the stage.
The teens will be required to show up at Interior Savings Centre in the afternoon on show day, where they’ll go over the songs with the band’s lead singer, Josh Ramsay, to ensure they know all the parts.
“But, obviously, they know the songs quite well,” Casselman said.
After they’ve gone through them, the group will be able to stay at the venue “and hang out with us,” Casselman said.
“We’ve found that to be exciting for the kids. They love music and we hope this is inspiring for them.
“We’re a band that loves music and loves to share it.”
This isn’t the first time Marianas Trench has done something to involve fans.
In a previous tour, the band ran a contest to identify a solo performer to go on stage and sing Good to You with Ramsay, a song that was a duet between him and American singer-actress Kate Voegele on the album Masterpiece Theatre.
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