To kick off Parents’ Weekend here at Puget Sound, on Friday Oct. 8 the male a cappella quartet The Blanks blew away a nearly full house of music-loving Loggers and Logger parents in the Fieldhouse.
Famed for their appearance as Ted’s band on NBC’s hospital-themed sitcom “Scrubs,” The Blanks utilize a variety of entertainment techniques to ensure that their audience enjoys every minute of their show.
Throughout the course of their set, The Blanks featured Three Stooges-esque slapstick comedy, 50s doo-wop singing and Hanna-Barbera cartoon theme songs, using talking toys as major components of a song and basic choreography, the kind which, as they describe on their website, “a 5-year-old could memorize.”
The Blanks were proceeded by two of Puget Sound’s own a cappella groups. Although they didn’t headline the show, both groups certainly deserve a lot of credit for their excellent opening performances. Garden Level, our all-male a cappella group, did a fantastic rendition of “Time of the Season.” The echo and reverb in the Fieldhouse complemented this song especially well.
What She Said, our all-female a cappella group, also did a solid set of two songs. “Mama Who Bore Me” from the Broadway musical “Spring Awakening” was especially amazing. They worked choreography, loud stomps and their gorgeous voices into their cover, which made it a standout song of the night. I was left wanting more from both groups when they finished their sets.
After the two Puget Sound choirs finished, there was a lot of build-up as the crowd waited for The Blanks to come onstage. Using an over-dramatic announcer voice over the PA to signal their entrance, it was clear that the spectators were in for quite the show.
And by the end of The Blanks’ rendition of the Underdog theme song that they opened with, it was also clear that we were about to watch a show put on by some class-A dweebs.
The plot of the show was that they were trying to impress a record producer who was apparently seated in the first row, according to criteria she had written out on a sheet of toilet paper.
It was quite clear that there was very little that could be taken seriously in this show. Throughout the rest of the night, they sang more cartoon theme songs, the “Scrubs” theme song, had dramatic moments within the group “where the stakes couldn’t be higher,” used a talking action figure of Major Chip Hazard from the film, “Small Soldiers”, as part of a song and made heart-to-heart confessions to the audience — one of the weaker parts of the show.
Other than a minor drag where each member essentially told a revealing story about their childhood, The Blanks had an excellent set. In my opinion, their best songs were their last two — “Over the Rainbow” and “Hey Ya.”
The Blanks originally met in college when two of them happened to be roommates and another lived in the same dorm at Syracuse University, and they later ended up working together in L.A. It was clear that not only was this quartet of music dorks great live, but The Blanks also had a genuine love for music that you couldn’t help but want to share.