Twelve of the 14 members participated at ICCA: John Babbott '07, Andrew Rubenstein '07, Pat Savage '07, Chris Gillyard '08, Brendan Horton '08, Greg Curreri '09, Jimmy Laff '09, Tim Deary '09, Dave Wadden '10, Jake Reibel '10, Dean Chung '10 and Darryl Weimer '10. James Park '08 is presently studying abroad in Japan and Ben Babbott '10 has taken a semester off. Gillyard made it to the competition just in time-he drove up from Maryland the morning after he returned from studying abroad in Japan for a semester.
The championship marked the culmination of a series of regional tournaments taking place since January. The Zumbyes were named New England champions back in March at MIT.
The Zumbyes performed "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," "Blackbird" and "Thriller," complete with their characteristic skits and humor which have led The New York Times to call them "the most dangerous a cappella group on the planet." The Zumbyes were particularly pleased with their "Blackbird" performance, which received the most praise.
"I'm not sure it's possible for a group to take the stage with more energy than the New England champions Amherst Zumbyes," wrote a blogger of the Web site theacapellablog.com. "They came out running, jumping and rolling. And, to the delight of many (and the chagrin of a few), one member came clad in a banana suit."
According to a review from the prominent a cappella Web site casa.org, the Zumbyes "definitely brought the 'goof' factor." The review credits the Zumbyes' as having the audience "eating out of the palms of their hands," with their humor, but contends that the sound was compromised as a result.
The Zumbyes took criticism from both bloggers and judges in stride. "I think that the final placings were a pretty accurate reflection of the fact that we performed the hell out of our set but wobbled a little bit musically in the first and last songs," said Savage, noting, "Really, the idea of 'judging' music is very subjective."
"I'm sure we were all a little bit let down that we didn't win," said Curreri of the Zumbyes' ranking. "But that was quickly replaced with a great sense of pride and accomplishment for just placing, period. We had done something no one from Amherst has done before, and we are very proud to say that.
Many of the Zumbyes concede that they were nervous at the prospect of performing in front of 1,000 people. Their skittishness was compounding by the fact that two of the members had a close call arriving at the competition. "We all drove down there in a couple of cars, although John Babbott and I both had events at Williams that afternoon," said Savage, "and we had to book it down to NYC straight from John's track meet. We missed the preliminary meeting and the sound check."
It was the consensus of the group, however, that they had been prepared for the challenges ahead. "I felt pretty good about our preparation," said Savage. "Fortunately, the timing worked out nicely such that we had our big spring show the week before, which meant we rehearsed a lot for that, then got to 'taper' a little bit and rest up a little before the ICCA finals. However, we had almost no time to re-integrate Chris into our set, so that felt a little rushed, but awesome to have him back!"
"It was a phenomenal experience to be able to sing in such a venerable performance space in front of such a huge crowd," said Savage, voicing the sentiments of his fellow group members. "The feeling of being on that stage like some kind of legitimate professional musician, falling to the ground at the end of our final choreo song and hearing the roar of applause from the audience was one I'll never forget."