Rossface kicks us off with a quick intro and thanking the crowd for being there. But really, we barely notice this because the bass line is insane. Completely nuts. This is definitely one where, once we started viewing these videos on our TVs with our sound systems (instead of inadequate computer speakers), we were all “Oh hi, Robert.”  Maybe it’s not that hard. Maybe it’s the bass equivalent of quantum physics. We don’t really know. Doesn’t really matter to us either way. Still sounds awesome.

Then the guys get right into their first variation on step-touches.  This performance is kind of all about the step-touches, so we hope y’all are fans of them.  Then at :27, the whole group leans towards stage right, creating a pretty cool angle.  Except… oh Jake.

Humans don’t lean like that.

Then we get a nice close-up Rossface with the added bonus of some accidental close-up Bassmaster Robert.  Next up on the docket at :45 is the groovin’ version of the step-touch.  Just look at Tanner and Robert feelin’ it.  Just look at Ben looking like… a tall Jake.  Wow, that’s pretty awkward.  Is it possible that Ben might actually be just as bad of a dancer as Jake, but without the Creepy Jake faces, he flies under the radar more?  We can’t even figure out how to describe what’s off about it  — it’s like he has no concept of moving through the beat, but instead is just trying to randomly land in the right spot at the right time.  This may prove to be nickname-worthy.  But before we can decide on what that might be, we get distracted by… A group version of the LSR!

This is so exciting!  Keith is (of course) the best.  It’s his signature move after all, and the rest of them just have tourist visas for awesome-town.

We also notice that Ross appears to be suffering from some back pain, a fact which is made more obvious at 1:16.  Poor guy, trying to sell the song for all it’s worth while under such duress.

What was that?  You say that’s actually a cool rock star move?  For real?  Our bad.  We do sort of love the fact that it seems like Ross learned how to be a rock star from watching clips of the greats — there’s a little bit of Mick influence, some Steven Tyler, and maybe a smidgen of Bon Jovi or something.

While Ross heads to the side to put on some Icy Hot, Jake and McButters come to the foreground for a fun little section.  After they finish, Jake carefully scoots around like he’s on a minefield in order to get back to where he belongs.

Then Rossface grits through the pain (like a boss!) and gives each guy an individual intro.  Tanner and Robert each go with a quick wave to the crowd after being introduced.  Keith forgoes the wave but gives a spunky little eyebrow raise.  Tyler and Michael only exist in the disappointment we have that Papa Sterling didn’t film this performance.

Before their intro, McKay puts a hand on Jake to ensure that the stage left group moves forward in unison.  Which, was this some sort of test for McButters?  Giving him Jake and Ben to wrangle?  But he handles it like a pro and even manages a little hand raise of acknowledgement to the audience.  Ross intros himself and then moves into the song quickly with a little rock star move that makes his tie try to escape from his shirt. Which sort of begs the question: Why don’t men wear tie tacks anymore?

And as he continues we get two completely amazing things.  First up, there’s a great little McRoomie cross-stage connection.

Bonded pair.

Then everyone is doing some little improv moves, and McCrockett stumbles upon this masterpiece:

Well hi there, Mr. McRightAngle.

And now they finally move into the final step-touch variation.  This is the most complicated of all of the step-touches seen thus far.  It’s the staggered start, swagger lean step-touch.  Ross gets it started like a champ and then Tanner and Robert hop on in.  At 2:06 we can see that Ben looks terrified of screwing up.  He keeps checking in on Keith to make sure he joins in at the right time, and manages to time his entry into the move correctly.  Yay for Ben!  Jake checks in once on his partner, Tyler, and the two of them nicely back up in unison into the step-touches.  Then Michael (oh hey there, buddy! Haven’t seen much of ya in this video) and McKay move to the ends to solidify the formation with their competence.

But these are not men who will be satisfied with merely achieving the most challenging of all step-touches.  Oh no.  This song is “Hip to be Square.”  You know what that means, right?  Oh yes.  Jazz squares.  You guys just couldn’t resist, could you?  That’s okay, everyone loves a good jazz square.

Unfortunately, Jake appears to blow the first jazz square at 2:16.  But then it looks like he gets it together.  However, it doesn’t really matter, because he’s mostly covered by Ben’s awkwardness anyway.  But perhaps these are just early-in-the-year performance nerves.  Alright Ben, here’s what we’ve decided… we’re not going to give you a nickname for this just yet.  Your dance skills have been placed on notice, though.  Meanwhile, McButters is trying to compensate by just selling it for all it’s worth on the end.  Stage right, on the other hand, is killing it.  Those boys are jazz square pros (hope that’s included in the special skills section of your resumes!).  Then Rossface’s Icy Hot wears off and his back starts acting up again.

Kevin and Robert try to distract the audience from Ross’ obvious discomfort by getting them to clap along to the end of the song.  Rossface manages to fight through the pain to wail all the way to the end.  And then the guys group together upstage and end the song in one of their favorite ways, with a little hop into the air in unison.  Unlike “Jump Jive” they don’t all fall to the ground, but instead most of them manage to stay upright.

Except for Tyler, who falls out of the frame.  And Michael, who leans over, perhaps to check on him.  And Jake, who’s all “What up?”  And, of course, the Kevin-ball.  Oh guys… never change.

-Troi and Crusher

(captures from mrduckbear11's youtube)

Tyler’s clearly spent time working on this Herkie effort (go team!) and Jake manages to curl himself up into almost a perfect ball mid-air (seriously, how does he bend that way?).

Keith’s long limbs work to his advantage and he gets some serious air (and hey, another decent outfit! You’re on a roll, buddy!) while Mikey looks like he might be auditioning for a fabric softener ad or something else involving sunshine and happiness.

Ross goes with the leaping functional equivalent of Rossface, and McCrockett’s initial spring up into the air is all McStartledBunny in all the best ways.

Robert’s kind of a mix between Kevin and Mikey (and is the foot grab thing a snow boarding reference?  Is this what happens in Utah?).  And as best we can figure out, Ben is just trying to survive having to jump between Keith’s limbs and Jake-a-clease Jakeicles.

Those are our current thoughts on the leap, but please let us know if we missed something or if you have an alternative analysis.

-Troi and Crusher

As usual, thanks to mrduckbear11 for having a kick-awesome Youtube channel. We’d be lost without you (video and all pics — unless otherwise noted — came from here).

The lights come up on Jake as he smiles his way into the opening line with the guys chillin’ in the background. The costumes are decent, basic black suits with not really the best fit. But then there’s the hats. Ohhhh… the hats. Y’all know how we feel about the mismatched hats. Especially the McLadyHat.

While the rest of them are standing, kinda looking all laid back, McButters and Mikey are camped out on the ground, probably because they’re the two who can most quickly go from “chilling at a picnic” to “seamlessly into the choreography.” The guys also all mime some big band instruments.

(from fschnell's youtube)

Robert’s on sort of a pointer-finger bass instead of a full-on stand-up bass and Ross is great on the trombone. Oddly, however, Tyler again appears to be eating a sandwich, this time one made out of Kevin’s brains.  Seriously, what instrument is that supposed to be?

But then Jake gives some great swank face to the camera to distract us and the groove picks up right around :29. The guys move into a new formation while Jake strolls across the stage, but we never really get a clear shot of this little bit of choreography, as the camera’s trained pretty heavily on Jake. And we totally understand why: he’s killing. this. song. In all the right and best ways. Not only does he just dominate this song, he makes it look completely effortless. Can you imagine what it would be like if Jake were like this all the time? Kinda scary, right? Almost makes you thankful for the endearingly awkward Creepy Jake moments in the other numbers, doesn’t it?

Aaaaaaand back on topic… at :49 we’re all invited to hop aboard the VP Express as the guys do another one of those little moves that looks way cooler than it should (come on ride the train! and ride it!).

(from fschnell's youtube)

And props to Tyler for a thoroughly convincing train face.  Which, really, guys? You couldn’t have thrown in a little Quad City DJs action for us?  Of course, incorporating pop culture train references is a slippery slope.  One minute, you’re inviting “Michelle, Tamika, and Tonya” to dance with you, and the next thing you know, the costumers have you dressed like the cast of Starlight Express.

(from fritz51117's youtube)

So we guess we should be grateful for the minimal and tasteful train action we get.

And then, what is this? A conga line? We’re so in. Between that and the train we totally flashed back to some terrifying middle school dances. Thanks, guys.

What’s better than a VP conga line? A VP can-can line/Monkees walk. When the guys bust out the big band sound at 1:10, they also bring out this charming bit of charm (go with us) and the audience just loses their minds. And then there’s this like, hop-shuffle-shimmy business that, again, looks way cooler than it should.

(from fschnell's youtube)

Wait a minute, that might actually be just a legitimately cool move!  Even better!  It looks like there’s more awesome dancing going on at 1:18, but it’s hard to tell, because the screen is full of Jake’s face. Which is totally fine. This is his moment of epic cool, and he’s certainly earned it. At 1:26 there’s a great shot of Tanner keeping the beat going while fully participating in the choreography. We were gonna give y’all a screen cap of that, but he honestly looks a little goofy when you pause it, and we’re totally saving up our goofy Tanner material for the post about his hair.

The guys do a little pointing thing when they “bow!” at the end. Except for Tyler. Who’s ready to rumble.

Jake nails the last note of the song, the guys jump in the air with glee, and then it’s time for judging!

Sara and Shawn are on their feet, along with most of the audience and the other groups while Jake and McKay have a sweet McHuggy moment.

Sara declares herself to be swooning, and really, can you blame her? It’s a really great performance. She gives them some serious praise about how polished the performance is, and how theatrical it is without being over the top. Of course, as she is wont to do, she almost blows it when she calls them “a cute little rat pack.” She kind of redeems herself by saying Jake’s name and then just asking for the screaming teenage girls in the audience to fill in the rest for her.  She then says that it’s like Jake knows something they don’t. Which we would generally consider to be code for “sometimes you look like Creepy Jake,” but here we’re pretty sure it’s just a straight-up compliment. And did Jake actually blush there? It kinda looks like he might have.

And then McKay again tries to thank her into a muted mic.  Not gonna happen, McCrockett.  And then Tyler’s all “hey girl” with a little wave to Sara.

Honestly, it’s probably more of a “thank you” wave, but that’s not nearly as funny as a mackin’ “hey girl” wave.

Shawn tells them that it was really (to the fourth power) good. After using “swanky” and “smooth” he almost seems at a loss to come up for more superlatives to describe Jake’s solo.

Señor Folds compliments the variety of styles they worked into the arrangement, and especially hearts their samba. McButters looks so thrilled that the arrangement he and James worked on went over so well.  Ben even goes so far as to call it “a quite sick performance.” That’s pretty high praise there, Benny-boy. High praise indeed.

This is probably one of the most polished and yes, swanky, performances we’ve seen from Vocal Point. They’re always pros, and always bring it, but this is just an effortlessly cool performance.

-Troi and Crusher

So, McButters and the Tan-man actually did a super-cool arrangement, one that we feels improves upon the original.  It’s sort of too bad this song was already done on the Sing-off last season and this season was actually a bit of a Bruno Mars-fest, thus reducing the likelihood of VP doing it on the show down to about zero.  But anyway, let’s appreciate the video we do have, and go on and dive into the actual performance.

As Tanner introduces the song by dedicating it “to all the ladies in the audience,” the guys start the opening groove.  Meanwhile, McKay bounces up and down, barely able to contain his excitement, like a child genius who knows he’s about to kill it at the spelling bee.   Then at :21 the staging highlights the front group of Tanner, Rossface, Kevin, Michael the Mysterious (magician adjectives, remember?), and McPrecious.  The other guys get to chill in the back for a bit.  Except for Jake, who loses his equilibrium briefly from :23-:24.

Human balance is hard.

But we’ll move right along, and at :38 everyone joins in on the fun.  Eventually they all line up, and we have to say, we really enjoy Michael the Echo’s part in this section of the song.

And then at 1:15 we get a massive “Tanner, stop being so awesome!” moment.  Now, we don’t know much about vocal percussion, well, at all.  But what Tanner is doing right here?  It sounds INSANE.  Just… glorious madness.  While that beat is being dropped (like it’s hot), we also see some general Robert grooving going on, with some Rossface thrown in for good measure.

At 1:36 we get the aforementioned “good job” pat on the back from Michael the Encourager to Jake, while Keith and Ben exchange a “you-must-be-at-least-this-tall-to-participate” high-five.  Then they’re split up into their groups again, before joining forces (look at the cute little “we’re-having-so-much-fun-onstage!” smile Keith and McBestie share as the group comes together).  And then we get… a LSR sighting!  We love those!

Ah, fun times.

Keith follows up that signature move with a very Brian-Littrell-from-BSB point out to the crowd at 2:30, and then we get some downright fantastic Rossface.

It’s like there are now three things you can count on in life: death, taxes, and Rossface.  That boy always delivers.

Then we move into the group sing-along part of the performance, and Ben! What are you doing? You can’t just walk away! At least pretend like you care! Show some commitment!… oh wait.  You were supposed to do that.  Everyone is leaving their place on a delay and you just happened to be first up.  Our bad.  Continue on.  Oh, and hi there, girls in the up left wing.

And photographer in the down left wing, we see you too.  What up?

Anyway, the guys all continue their pre-planned delayed position shift (sorry again for going off on you, Ben), and then we hear McHumblePie lie to the audience and say they sound better than him, which, just… not possible.  He’s killing this song.

This seems like as good a point as any to mention that while our family didn’t know about the blog, we did, in fact, make them all watch VP videos during the holidays.  We started with Sing-off videos and then the playlist made its way into some of these (you don’t even want to know just how many total videos were on that playlist).  It was while McButters was singing in this video that our mother quietly said, almost to herself, “I just love everything about him.”  It was just so guileless and sincere (hey, just like McPrecious and our mom!).  When Crusher stopped giggling and asked for further clarification, Big Mama explained, “I love his voice.  I love his name.  I love what he says when he speaks in the interview segments.  And I really just love how you can tell how much he loves singing.”  Fair enough.  Of course, our mother also called after New Year’s Eve to ask who it was that was singing in Times Square.  “I want to say it was something like Pitbull, but that doesn’t seem like it could be right.”  “No Mom, there’s definitely someone called Pitbull.”  “He really worked the crowd well.”  So, McButters and Pitbull, two of our mom’s favorite performers.

Anyway, back to the performance.  At around 3:00, all of the guys line up in preparation for the group smolder walk.  Tyler in a power stance, as per the usual.  Before we get the walk, McButters is going to blow us away one more time, though — at 3:19, on the “And” in “And when you smile,” he puts a little bit of a growl into his voice and actually manages to make what he sings sound like a smile.  It’s pretty impressive.  And then it’s smolder time!

Let’s take a trip down the line.

Keith fully commits to going for the smolder, and pulls off a pretty convincing, though slightly sweet smoldering effect.

Michael the Kind is actually just too darn sweet to smolder, but he looks nice and earnest and all of the things we want and expect from him.

Tanner’s all, “I’m done, y’all, my killer beat ended a while ago.  I’m just straight up chillin’ now.”

Robert actually pulls off the smolder.  Legitimately.  Yay for him!

McCrockett’s in full-on McSoulful mode, just selling it for all it’s worth.  Not a smolder, but awesome nonetheless.

Rossface is in a serious mood, sort of a thinking man’s smolder.

Tyler kicks off his smolder walk with an eyebrow raise and smile (3:21), and maintains his epic power stance throughout the completion of the move.

Jake carefully measures his steps and seems to be thinking, “Did I just make it through a whole song without running into anything?  I win!”

And finally, Ben’s in his usual casual, laid back mode.  A surfer-smolder, if you will.

Then we get a nice view of all of them lined up at the end.  Except for Kevin.

Because clearly is was more important to get the edge of the proscenium and the light boom in the shot rather than all of the group members.  Ugh, so very wrong.

The song ends with some lovely singing and a group mic-lower (which we later saw used at the end of “Never Say Never“).

And now we’re going to stop right here at 3:44, because otherwise we’d have to continue on past to when McKay gets his props and address Kevin again blowing his cool (and this time it was smolder-cool!  That’s like double points!) with a big ol’ point and then pump of the pointer finger in McCrockett’s direction.  We know it’s a survival technique.  We get it.  So we just aren’t even going to go there, okay?  We’re just going to end the performance analysis here. When everyone is still cool.

-Troi and Crusher

(from nbc.com)

From taking-a-bite-out-of-life McButters to taking-a-bite-out-of-a-tasty-snack Jake, this photo is just loaded with goodness.

Our favorite part?  Tyler, apparently trying to hide a food baby.  Dude, been there, done that.  Doesn’t work.  FYI, the next step is to hug a pillow while you sit.  Or maybe he was just trying to make his arms look bigger.  Still makes us chuckle.

Anyone else have a favorite bit from this photo?

-Troi and Crusher

• Lots of “totally missing the point,” “totallymissingthepoint.wordpress.com,” “totallymissingthepoint wordpress,” etc. Apparently one of you thought you’d be cute and go with “missing the point wordpress totally.” And you still found us. Congrats, we think.
• “blog for vocal point by 2 sisters” came up again. Kinda curious how far down the search it was this time. Mikey the Inquisitive? How many pages?  Also of note: “blog of 2 vocal point sisters” and “blog for vocal poin by 2 sisters” — we’re kind of proud that the last one found us, even with the spelling error.
• “dear keith” got a hit… we kind of assume Keith was googling himself that day.
• “robert seely vocal point,” “ben murphy vocal point,” “tyler sterling vocal point,” “vocal point jake hunsaker,” and “tanner nilsson” managed to get people here. We repeat all apologies from last week. To each of you.  Except maybe Tanner… a searcher would probably just think you’re pretty cool if they found this blog.  So, we apologize in advance for the future post we have planned to discuss your lack of a hairstyle with you.

(from byuvocalpoint.com)

Seriously, it’s not like it’s bad hairstyle… it’s like a number 7 clipper cut? We’d just like to see you aim a little higher. Kthx.

• And more apologies to Jake for all the “creepy jake” related searches that led people here, including “vocal point byu blog creepy jake,” “creepy jake vocal point,” and “creepy jake t shirt.”
  Our bad. Seriously.  Although we’re pretty sure it was either some of the regulars being funny… or Jake himself, sadly checking each day to see if our blog still existed.  We’re still here, buddy… and we still love ya!
• A few more searches came in for “fred and ben savage” and “the savage brothers” Really hope you enjoyed the Jakebert pic. It’s still funny to us.  And we’re wondering if the Savage brothers know just how much people still think about them… hmm… perhaps a spin-off blog in our future?
• Whoever searched for “baby signing,” we’re pretty sure this was not at ALL what you were hoping for (which was… baby ASL? maybe?).

• Same goes to the searcher of “baby seals to sketch.” Ummm… if you decide to sketch what you found, please share it.

Whichever example you went with.  We’ll post it.

• “byu vocal point mckay crockett wife”… now, that’s some pretty specific information you’re looking for! Since we don’t typically get into the guys’ personal lives (boundaries, people! boundaries!) we’re pretty sure this blog is just a big ol’ disappointment for you.
• However, we feel pretty confident in saying that whoever searched for “missing the point khakis flatter” found EXACTLY what they were looking for.   The answer is of course: no one.

Now, next up on the blog business docket (somehow it now feels like we’re having a parliamentary meeting… hold on, give us a second to go grab our Robert’s Rules of Order): results from the poll we put up.

Y’all were overwhelmingly in favor of us going to Provo to blog about the March concert.  The ending percentages were:

97% for “Sure, I’d enjoy reading about the shenanigans you two would get into!”

3% for “No, that’s too creepy.”

0% for “No, and I’m a member of Vocal Point so my opinion should really count.”

There were also two write-ins who complained about a lack of a fourth option, “Yes, and I’m a former member of Vocal Point so my opinion should really count.”

All of that leads us to an announcement of sorts.

…

<Tanner, drum roll please?>

…

We just booked our flights to come to Provo in March.

It’s happening.

What have we done???

We’ll share more details as we figure them out.  (Anyone have recommendations on good hotels?  Is the La Quinta bed-bug free?  How about this place?)

-Troi and Crusher

We’re going to stick with what works and use video (and pics) from mrduckbear11 again, and here it is:

After the Nick Lachey voice over recapping the awesome Elvis medley from the week prior, we get into the pre-performance package. In a very human moment, Jake shares that the guys will have to go to Provo for one day each week for classes, and that they’re going to now have show commitments as well as school commitments. Sleep? Not so much. Also, we get to see just how many of the boys actually wear glasses on a semi-regular basis.

Why do they never wear them on stage? We have our suspicions about a certain person who may or may not have thrown down a McMandate that he be the only one to wear glasses onstage, but until we can gather more evidence, we’ll just keep those to ourselves. Shout out to Rossface for giving a shout out to his girlfriend, who is now Mrs. Rossface.

Okay, perf review time. So, since it’s a song consisting of two lines, repeated over and over, that’s what you’re going to get for a review:

Rossface is awesome! So are Vocal Point guys playing air instruments! Rossface is awesome! So are Vocal Point guys playing air instruments! Rossface is awesome! So are Vocal Point guys playing air instruments! Rossface is awesome! So are Vocal Point guys playing air instruments! Rossface is awesome! So are Vocal Point guys playing air instruments! Rossface is awesome! So are Vocal Point guys playing air instruments! Rossface is awesome! So are Vocal Point guys playing air instruments! Rossface is awesome! So are Vocal Point guys playing air instruments!

Just kidding, y’all. The guys put more work than that into their performance, so we’ll put more work into the analysis. The lights come up and we get a decent look at some epic ruffled shirts and collar jewels (Bedazzled?) on the guys. The first noteworthy moment is at 1:56 when Robert plugs in / switches on his air bass. Now, we’ve pretty familiar with the air instrument thing, but this might have been the first time either of us had seen a guy plug in his bass. Definitely gave us a case of the McGiggles. The camera manages to catch Kevin making an awkward, but necessary face (seriously, he can’t catch a break) at 2:01.

But it’s okay, because he looks pretty cool right after that, see:

Okay, so it’s a little like a baby seal clubbing a baby seal, but still kinda cool, right?

As the tempo picks up, the lights pulse and quicken to the beat Tanner’s dropping (gotta love modern technology, right?).

And then, then Ross just goes for it.

It’s full-on rock star mode and he’s all over the place. Back and forth across the stage, up and down off the risers. We’re exhausted on his behalf.  We hear chords that those more musically intelligent than us refer to as “crunchy” and we like them so much that we’ll call them Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunchy.  (Seriously… we know next-to-nothing about a cappella, we’re basically computer illiterate… what level of irony are we operating on by having our very own blog about a cappella?)

At 2:37ish we get a killer breakdown that Tanner absolutely, um, kills on the air drums. Meanwhile, Rossface executes a textbook smolder walk which culminates with him jumping down and getting all up in the camera’s grill.

Tyler and Ben have a fun little moment at 3:05, while Mike manages to stay on task in front of them, and then Ross wails on the last notes and throws down the mic stand. (That poor mic stand! Treat your sound equipment better!  Okay, treating your sound equipment well isn’t very rock star-ish, and at least Rossface didn’t drop the mic like he had just finished a rap battle, but abuse of stage equipment makes us twitchy.) The whole thing ends in a fit of rock star glory and then BAM! We’re done.

The audience shows their appreciation, and we learn that, apparently, Vocal Point is the (glittery?) bomb, and that Moi (hey, he was great!) dug the performance.

Then we get…

“How adorable are they?”

Really?  Okay, we know our feelings on Sara’s critiques of the guys are pretty well established at this point, so we’re going to try to not re-re-hash old grievances.  And we get it… she’s a woman trying to judge an all-male group without sounding like a fangirl or give off any inappropriate vibes.  However, there are ways to do that without referring to them in diminutive terms.  Especially given that this wasn’t an “adorable” performance. Let’s be real, this was one of the most legit rock performances on the show. But to Sara’s credit, she does give some spot-on props in terms of the effortless stage presence and confidence of the guys.

And then Shawn manages to say something similar to Sara’s first point, but does it in a more playful way.  Again, he seems to be able to include the guys in the joke in a way that doesn’t make them the “Other” in the conversation.  Heck, his comments even inspire Kevin to throw up a rock sign.

And Ben went with the awkward microphone-holding elbow clap.  To each his own.

Then Shawn calls Tanner “Big Baby” and Tanner just smiles like, “Yes, that is indeed what they call me on the streets.”  Finally Mr. Stockman wraps up by wisely noting the “Vocal Point stamp” they put on everything and their consistency in coming through every time.

Then Ben Folds once again proves that he only listens to the original recordings of songs, as he notes the hair metal influence, but does not place it as perhaps inspired by Van Halen’s super-popular cover of the song.  (Note: do not try to Youtube that one.  We cannot be held responsible for David Lee Roth’s stage outfits.  You have been warned.)  Ben acknowledges the merits of the performance, while saying that he personally would have gone “a little less hair metal, a little less Vegas.”

To which we say, a Vocal Point show in Vegas?  Yes, please!  Of course, we almost went to Vegas once solely to see some Russian acrobats we loved… no, not like Cirque Du Soleil.  Just one specific acrobat troupe.  Don’t judge us, they were awesome.  But then we realized that there was very little else in Vegas that appealed to us, so we went to a Stanley Cup Finals game instead (we have eclectic tastes?).  But if there was a 2010-2011 VP reunion show in Vegas, with Russian acrobats as the opening act… well sell us stock in that and call it a day!

-Troi and Crusher

(Just a heads up: we’ll be looking at a few short moments from several different videos for this analysis, and some of these videos are on the docket for full analyses later on.)

When we first see the wrangling take place, Jake has to be physically moved both out of harm’s way, and also pushed in the direction of his designated blocking.

Let’s start with a look at this performance of “Game Day” (Note: due to the Ross-centric nature of the videos from this performance, we can only assume that his family took them.  To which we say, thank you, but perhaps you should spend some time at the Papa Sterling School of Full-group Videography).

Anyway, at 3:13 we see Tanner unleash his inner b boy and set up for Tyler (of course it’s Tyler) to launch him into a back flip. This necessitates passing his microphone off to McMicStand and someone else (Michael?) picks up the beat. Meanwhile, Jake’s totally in the moment… and totally in the way. Just as Tanner’s getting ready to get all hood up in here, Mike gently reaches out and pulls Jake back out of the danger zone. Now, the question remains… had Tanner and Michael prearranged this? If not, would Tanner have just taken Jake out in a back flip of concussive glory? We kinda think so. Tanner would totally have just flipped right into him if necessary.  Tanner don’t care.  And then at 3:22, Mike again physically moves Jake, this time to center stage to set him up for the final formation. Mikey… always such a helper.

Next, we see ol’ Keith take a turn at making sure the Jakester is in place.  During this version of “Celebration,” Keith first tries to guide him into place at 1:56.  But Jake resists the suggestion, so at 2:01 Keith just softly takes him by the arm and slings him over by McButters.  Don’t worry, Kevin, it was a pretty smooth way to deal with it… but the camera happened to be focused directly on the two of you at the time.

When it became clear that this was going to be an on-going issue, at least one member of the the group attempted alternate training methods.  Tyler was a fan of negative reinforcement. We already looked at when Tyler the dinosaur(?) attacked destructive Fish Jake in “12 Days.” But here’s another example: Select Vocal Point: Jake tries to ripstick.  Now that’s just mean.  No wait, it’s funny too.  Mean and funny.  (And kind of unrelated, we admit.  But that’s comedy gold, right there.  It’s just so… premeditated.  And on target.  We just had to throw it in.)

But Michael the Kind continued on with positive reinforcement and the patience of a goldfish.  By which we mean, continually forcing himself to forget the repetitive nature of trying to help Jake with his blocking and choreography over and over and one more time again.  Here is a later example, this time from “Just the Way You Are.”  When Jake remembers where to go at 1:37, he gets positively reinforced with a pat on the back (it’s quick – don’t get distracted by the high-five also occurring).

However, from the beginning, it was evident that the progress wasn’t going to come quickly enough.  So what to do when you have a guy this crazy-talented but who seems to have no spatial or body awareness?  You need him to be able to deliver a competition solo without endangering himself or others.  Clearly relying on Mike and Keith to always be accountable for Jake’s physical well-being was not a long-term solution.  Other, more intensive forms of training were necessary.  So, Vocal Point turned to a classic technique: have the struggling student be responsible for teaching someone more novice than them.  In this case, you give Jake the task of leading another human being around the stage, in the hopes that it will distract him enough until the choreography is second nature.  Thus, we arrive at “Meglio Stasera.”  And the most epic Jake video ever.

Look at that.  He’s engaging.  Witty. A wee bit creepy, but in a charming way (We actually disagree on this a bit.  Troi thinks he is just straight up charming.  Crusher considers charming to be more of an insult than creepy.  Crusher hates charm.  If she were to meet Prince Charming, she’d likely end up kicking him in the shins for being a doorknob).

Jake banters, jokes, reassures. He is so busy making sure his partner gets to the right spot, that he forgets to spaz out and stop being human.  He doesn’t even flinch when Kevin clearly tries to sabotage him by getting all up in his way at 3:35. He just rolls with it. It’s fantastic.  Just great. He even manages to get her to sit on his knee while holding an insane note to end the song.  Kudos, sir.

And you know what?  It worked.  At ICCA finals, he was confident and purposeful and almost entirely human in his movements during “Meglio Stasera.”  And, as we all know, he took home the Best Soloist award for his efforts.

But that doesn’t mean dear Michael ever stopped worrying.  Notice in the “Footloose” intro how, after letting Ben fall down at 0:56, he strategically places himself between the tire and Jake (1:05) when Jake starts to move around. Jake, meanwhile, is blissfully unaware of Mikey’s precaution on his behalf.

Such a caretaker, that Michael.  Until he came on our blog and decided that Creepy Jake was funny whether Jake liked it or not.  Oh geez, does this mean that we have ruined earnest Mike?  Or did he just hide this hilarious side of himself so well on the Sing-off that we never saw it coming?

-Troi and Crusher

But we’re still good for now, so here’s the video we’ll be looking at (posted by BYUmusic on Youtube, all pictures and captures also from this video):

About two seconds in we get an annotation blurb that will let us click to skip to the song.  And miss all the McButtery goodness, Annotation Blurb? WE DON’T THINK SO.  So we open with McKay be-bopping through the library, somehow looking even more McPrecious than he appeared on the Sing-off.  He bumps into Scary Librarian Lady, who shushes him for being too loud.  Which begs the question, if he was being so loud, why didn’t she hear him before she bumped into him?  Shouldn’t he have gotten into trouble for being so McSpacey instead?

But McCrockett isn’t going to let that trip him up, so neither will we.  Instead he heads over to a table to pester a Dark-haired Leading Lady who really just wants to study but is about to be taken to an a cappella wonderland.  What follows is a session of pretty self-explanatory witty repartee, text-book style.  We’re a little dubious that they don’t get in trouble for slamming their books, but instead McActuallyPolite gets called out for what is truly a library-appropriate whisper.  Perhaps this a another sign that our dear SLL’s motives are not what they seem?  Hmm…

Anyway, the book-flirting isn’t going so well, and as he gets shot down by DhLL, McButters adorably turns into McRosyCheeks.

But don’t worry, he has a plan.  A plan to woo her heart through swing music, group dancing, and khaki pants.

At 1:01 the song starts (and we join up with all the lame-os who took Annotation Blurb’s advice).  There are some blocking choices here that make our heads hurt a bit.  We have Tyler, who doesn’t have vocals in the opening in the foreground of the shot, while Michael, who does have vocals, is in the background.  We can’t quite decide if this makes Michael look like he’s jumping the gun or if it makes Tyler look lazy, but it certainly seems… odd.

The guys then gather ’round as they all get into the song, to the bemusement of the DhLL.  As they start to circle the table (1:23), we get perhaps the most epic Rossface in the history of ever.

We then see Keith mixing up the dance groove a bit by doing a spin within the larger group spin.  It’s sort of like one of those fair rides designed to make eight year olds hurl.  Please never make Jake attempt this move.

Luckily, the only thing Keith hurls is himself into a killer solo, and he finally has to share the screen with someone who can give him a run for his money in the giving face department.

Apparently, she can’t be trusted to tell you the truth about whether she has a “Draw Four” card or not.

As Kevin solos on, the rest of the guys mime playing various instruments (Robert is a standout on the upright bass), except for Tyler, who appears to be eating a lopsided sandwich for a second.

Yeah, we’re not sure either.

Then at 1:55 they all pick a woman to escort to the “dance floor,” and McButters takes a detour through some stacks.  As we size up the dancing skills, we have to say, Jake is doing MUCH BETTER than we thought he would do.  So, yay for him!

At 2:18 we get a must-rewatch-to-see-how-awesome-they-are snippet of Michael and his wife being legitimately great dancers.  (Michael, that is your wife, right?  If not, well, your dancing partner here is great and we’re sure your wife is just as great and adorable as well.)

Then we move into the silly breakdown portion of the evening, which contains our absolutely favorite Ben moment ever.

We 100% endorse adults playing silly clap games.  There is no reason to think you have ever outgrown them.  Clap games can always make family gatherings more fun.  Especially when you’re in your twenties and still haven’t graduated to the “adult table.”

Then at 2:27 all of the extras are all, What’s going on?  Oh wait, this is our cue.  Look spontaneous!  Be orderly!  It’s a concert dance party in the library!  We’re conflicted!

The guys hop up on some tables and chairs and continue to groove, and at 2:51 we get a sight of that annoying child genius that every college has, the one who always threw off the curve for everyone else.

You better watch your back, McCrackerNotARacialSlur, that little one may give you a run for your adorable money.

Tanner then hops up to bang out a drum solo while the whole crowd of people dances.  We do have to say, our favorite dancer is the guy in green over McKay’s right shoulder.

After that, we get the cutest Tanner moment ever.  Normally Tanner moments are street, or cool, or legit, but this one is downright adorable.

Outside of performances, Tanner often seems like he’s a bit too cool for all of this wackiness, but then he has a moment of totally buying in, and we love it.  Vocal Point works because they all buy in.  It’s silly, sure, and goofy, yes, but ultimately, it’s fun.

Those fun times continue on to the end of the song, when everyone breaks out in applause.  We get some cute McFistPumping at 3:40 (he’s just so excited!) and then the party breaks up as Scary Librarian Lady comes back to lay the smack down.  Or does she?  Anyway, all of the guys have their, “Oh, snap!” moment of getting caught — we’ll leave it up to you to determine who has had a moment like that in their real lives.

And then at 3:51 we get a McButters moment so McEverything that we can’t even process it.

Too much.  Too much, good sir.  That is so stinkin’ adorable.  This, THIS, is why you will always be a shelf person, even though you blew a bell kick in “Let it Snow.”

And we think that Scary Librarian Lady is writing him up, but really, if you’ve been paying attention you know that she’s been hatching some other plan.  Unfortunately, SLL just passes McCrockett a note and we’ll never know how this story ends.  But then, wait a minute!  Oh, we are such very lucky viewers.  Thankfully for us, McButters likes to read the blank side of notes as well.  Now we can all rest easy knowing that even though Dark-haired Leading Lady left when things got sketchy, all of that musical goodness was not for naught, as McCrockett still managed to swing a date out of it.

And then he bounds away like a happy puppy.

The end.

-Troi and Crusher

Now, obviously most of you found us through the Vocal Point facebook page.  That was made completely obvious by the massive spike in views we got (thanks for that, guys!).  And we just have to say — new readers, we love y’all and think you’re fantastic, but we’re kind of upset that none of you are stepping up and telling us that going on a blogging vacation to Provo is a bad idea.

However, there were some people who actually put search terms into Google and found our blog.  Here are some of those searches from the past week.  We’ve left out anything that seemed like a direct hit (“totallymissingthepoint wordpress,” for example). As a bonus, for some of these, we’ll do our best to give the searcher what they were looking for.

• mcbutters – So that happened.  Someone actually searched for that.  McButters > Fetch.

• savage brothers and savage brothers 2011 – For these searches, we truly hope that you were grateful for and inspired by the story of how Fred and Ben Savage found their long lost brother, Jakebert, in 2011.

• mckay crockett  and vocal point mckay crockett – Oh, McPrecious.  We’re sorry that people Googling you have been led to this mess.  If you happened to get here by searching for accurate information about him, please know that the entirety of the McButters’ Conspiracy is 100% true.

• what happened to ben murphy from vocal point – We don’t know.

• jake hunsaker’s height – As far as we can tell, he is somewhere between hobbit- and McCrockett- sized.

• missingthepoint.blogspot vocal point – Ugh, wrong platform.  WordPress for the win.  (Note: in case you haven’t figured it out, we’re almost entirely computer illiterate. We totally picked WordPress on a whim.  Thank goodness, though.  We wandered over to tumblr and got so scared.  It was like Myspace exploded into an even more spangly and terrifying version of itself.  #SorryWeMustBeOld #HopeYouLikeTheBlogAnyway)

• thundercats – We probably weren’t what you were looking for either.  Enjoy Keith Bieber while you’re reading that post, though.

• blog about vocal point by 2 sisters – Hehe.  This one cracked us up.  Sure, it’s descriptive. But there’s no way we’d be anywhere near the top hits for this one, right?  So we checked. And we were shocked to see that we were the fourth link on the first page of results.

(from google... obviously)

But then we thought, “Hey, we should try that again in a browser we don’t use for blogging”.  That result?

(also from google)

Page 49.  Heh.  So, dear Searcher, we’re not sure how you found the blog by Googling that… maybe you were just really persistent. If so, yay for you!

• baby seal – Um… sorry.  We’re working with Kevin on dealing with his angry face.  Please don’t call PETA.

• ross welch vocal point – Again, sorry this blog is what people are finding when they look for legit information.  But, for you: bonus Rossface!

• sing off season 3 review – Again, we’re probably not what this searcher wanted.  But we’re helpers, so here’s our review: Vocal Point was awesome and some other stuff happened too.  And, we’re done.

• creepy jake – ::hang heads:: (whisper voices) We’re so sorry.

-Troi and Crusher

Here’s the reference video, courtesy of petitoiseau1 (all pics and captures from here as well):

So this video kicks right off with the performance (no rehearsal package), since it was the same week as “Every Little Step” (which we totally promise to get to when we feel like we can tackle that beast in all its awesome glory.  Even if we have to divide it up into multiple posts to contain all that epicness). Ben gives us a smooth opening line and then things really take off. Jake turns out to camera and BAM! It’s classic Creepy Jake. Eyes wide, knees bent just slightly askew. It’s okay, Jake, sometimes it’s hard for us to be human, too. McSoulful is next and shows us how it’s done.

The guys all turn and join in and then we really get a good look at what are probably our favorite outfits of the season. Black suits, white shirts, purple satin lapels and ties. Gotta say, gentlemen… Very. Sharp. They’re rocking some fancy footwork, too. Very reminiscent of some original performances from The Temptations but, you know… a little Vocal Pointified.  At 0:46 if you look quickly you can see Robert spot himself while he drops to his knees. Probably both to stay in sync with McCrockett and make sure he doesn’t bust a (knee) cap. And at 0:52 we get some fantastic Rossface. Way to bring it every time!

And then at 0:59 we get all happy because it looks like they’re setting up for the hip shake from the ICCAs version of Meglio Stasera (even though it doesn’t fit this song at all)… but then it’s not that. It’s subdued. And appropriate. Of course. 

When McWailingOnLead picks back up at 1:15 it’s a little exciting. Michael “bop-bops,” and then something scary, nay, frightening happens. Kevin steals Troi’s go-to silly dance groove. You guys always gripe about us knowing too much about you. Well, KEITH? Explain yourself! How is it that you knew Troi’s go-to silly dance groove that gets busted out at every awkward wedding reception and cheesy house party? It’s not just the moves, it’s the “werkin’ it” face that goes with them.

The other dudes are smiling and groovin’ (Tyler looks particularly relaxed and happy), and you’re giving face. This is why you’re awesome. Werk!

Creepy Jake hops on for a soulful (yay!) line at 1:22.  Then we’re back to Ben on lead. And really, the word that comes to mind most frequently when listening to Ben sing is “smooth.” He kinda sneaks up on you and you’re all like “Oh, yeah, that’s mellow. Hmm, yeah… it’s nice and easy-going. Oh wow, that’s really pretty.” Like a ninja, that one.

At around 1:47 the guys do a leg sweep thing and then stand kinda on one foot while tucking the toe of their other foot behind it… looks cool… like possibly preparing for a Kung Fu move. Except for Jake, who totters a smidge.  He’s like the best Weeble-Wobble ever.  And Keith may have forgotten to do it at first (it’s kind of hard to tell with the editing whether they’re doing it on a delay or if he just blacks out for a second).

The boys glide into the end of the song and then we get classic McPreciousface (like Rossface, but more McButtery) at 2:03. So happy, so earnest.

And then to judging, which we’re going to address in a bit more depth than usual to try to make sense of the judges’ later decision.  Sara kicks us off with “Aww, that was sweet. That was really sweet.” Okay, here’s the thing: this is not a 5th grade talent show. These are adults, and they gave you two awesome performances in one night. Pull. It. Together.  But, she goes on to give Ben props for his lead vocal before noting that the overall performance felt slightly disjointed. And then we’re back to “I love ya to pieces. I love ya and your purple ties.” ::facepalm::

Shawn gives Robert and Tanner some serious love for “keeping the groove” and gushes over Tanner’s “crazy” skills. He then calls Ben’s voice beautiful, but says something about wanting a sermon, not something pretty. (During this whole spiel, the camera pans over the guys, and around 3:51 we can see that McSlightlyUpset has figured out what’s up and knows where all of this is leading, as evidenced by the lack of McChuckles on his face.)

Folds basically says “ditto” to everything Shawn said. And then he goes off on this tangent about VP needing to take more risks musically. Yeah. The same night they did “Every Little Step.” Kevin has also figured out what’s up.

Folds keeps going, and the rest of them have clearly put it together:

Only Michael can manage anything remotely resembling a smile at this point.

Here’s the thing that killed us: The judges really didn’t have anything bad to say. They mumbled about playing it safe, it being too pretty, and the guys being sweet. And that was it.

That being said, we want this blog to remain a VP-loving place and not a judges-bashing place.  Also, the only conspiracies we acknowledge are of the McButters variety.  So, let’s all agree to not harp on what was clearly the injustice of the century, and instead have fun looking at this performance.  Of course, feel free to make fun of Kevin’s moves.  That’s always welcome here.

-Troi and Crusher

So, we know you’ve graduated.  The new guys were announced (whatever).  The official website is just itching to be updated.  But we’re still hoping you can help us out with this one little thing.  Please never let Vocal Point wear yellow suspenders with the standard look again.

(from Tantara's facebook)

We get it.  Kara Saun had a weird fascination with putting people in belts and suspenders on The Sing-off.  Heck, it almost worked for “Every Little Step.”  But those suspenders blended in and the pants were slim fit and it really was a whole different situation all around.

Here’s the thing: The yellow tie ensemble basically works because it is nostalgic. While we’re sure our feelings on khakis are pretty clear, the blue shirt and yellow ties take us back to Easter Sunday in the early ’90s. We’re totally fine with that. But the yellow suspenders jack up that retro-trip. All of a sudden it’s not Easter of ’94, we’re not in matching pastel dresses, and Ace of Base doesn’t have the #1 single in the US. The suspenders don’t make the look more hip or current, it just kills the nostalgia for us.  We’re not okay with that.

Here’s another point (groan) to consider: belt and suspenders? Same. Functional. Purpose. Not only that, but when worn off the shoulders, suspenders don’t actually serve a functional purpose. And they certainly aren’t serving a viable style purpose.  So really, you can totally ditch them. It’s safe, we promise. We’re telling you because we care.

Even though some of the other guys have found their way here, we really thought you would be the only one who could help us with this (Oh man, we hope the suspenders weren’t your idea. That would be so awkward right now. Or awesome. Same difference to us, really.). You might be far away enough from the problem to truly see it objectively. Maybe you can be the voice of reason to prevent this tragedy from occurring again.  Only you can prevent forest fires… or something.

Thanks,

-Troi and Crusher

So, obviously the first thing we notice is that the guys are not wearing matching outfits.  This is the look we dubbed “Boy Band Chic” earlier on, and we have to say, it kind of works for us.  I mean, some of them are wearing as many layers as a Lizzie McGuire episode, and you probably won’t ever convince us that vests are a smart fashion choice, but there are some winners (cardigans and hats are fun) and we applaud the overall effort.

Okay, this video dives right into the performance, and at :08 we get a cute little shoulder shake from Tyler.  We approve of this – Tyler needs more signature moves (and the shoulder shake is probably a better choice than the honking he does at :43).

Moving right along, at :38 we get to witness what is probably as close to a Vocal Point rumble as we will ever see.  Which is to say, they sort of form a jovial little mosh pit.  However, it is worth noting that Tanner stands.  His.  Ground.

Street.

Running with the whole, “Tanner stop being so awesome” theme for a second, we absolutely love his reaction after participating in the stage left group’s mocking “Here We Come A-wassailing.”

He’s just sort of like, “Yeah, I don’t even know.”

Next up is the “Carol of the Bells” section, where we see several of the guys cheat by rising up on their toes before their first descent.  Jake starts out fine, but as he squats, he loses the ability to maintain a human knee bend.  So he sort of scrunches funny and huddles down like a kicked puppy (Hey! Maybe this where we got that from!).

Even Tyler’s like, “Dude, how are you bending your legs like that?”

And then, as they prepare to start again, we get a great stealthy Robert move.  Something we are very familiar with, and will call the “bad actor facial re-grouping.”

So easy to miss, and yet so, so funny.

That’s followed up at 1:43 with some classic Kevin dorkiness, which somehow segues into what, we’re not gonna lie, is a fun little groovy bit (LSR sighting!).  At 1:54, as they’re wrapping up the snowman section, they all essentially drop it like it’s hot… except for Tyler, who kinda sashays his way into a squat. (Hey, if he doesn’t like the shoulder shake as a signature move, this gets our vote for runner-up.) “That’s called a remix” manages to be both funny and oddly cool, and then Keith is channeling Michael O-O during “The Club Can’t Handle Me” as he rejoins the group.

Now we start to move into the “Africa” section of the performance, which always reminds us of Jeffster (ugh, Mondays at 8pm on NBC… always such good programming, always such disappointing ratings).  At 2:21, everyone hits their marks, except for Jake, who adorably scooches his way into his place a couple of seconds later.  But this section really is about the very nice lead Michael is taking.  We love the way he sounds on this song.  And then everyone but the leading trio bows their heads at a dramatic moment.

Then we have a bit of a dance breakdown at 3:01, so let’s bust out the pause and rewind buttons and do a man-by-man roll call of their dancing choices.

Ross spends his time concentrating on the falsetto / belting.  Falsetto belting?  Is that a thing?  Anyway, not much to see in terms of sweet moves, here.

Ben first goes with a little bit of the Carlton, then a little bit of the running man.  He finishes up with some confused walking around.

McButters keeps it simple with just some casual grooving.

Keith goes for the always relevant disco moves and step-touches.

Robert does the robot.  We totally respect anyone whose default move is the robot.  Always a solid choice.

Tanner does a spinning-in-a-circle version of a duck walk (example of duck walk by Chuck Berry).

Michael starts by doing a super-smooth moonwalk until his groove is thrown off by Fish Jake.  Rather than go all Kuzco on him, he just smiles and then improvs with some disco.

Speaking of which, WHY IS JAKE A FISH? Is he “swimming” across the stage?  Really?  And “swimming” into everything in his path?  Most destructive fish ever.

But then Tyler’s some sort of dinosaur(?) that’s attacking Jake and you can briefly see the panic in Jake’s eyes as he realizes he may not make it to his mark on time.

All of that specialness leads to perhaps our most favorite moment EVER.  The look Jake and Tyler share at 3:17 is such an adorable little “I gotcha, dude” moment.

Love it.  So hard.

And then the performance gets kind of confusing.  We’re not sure what’s the point of McCrockett and Ben hopping.  Although, McButters’ hoodie flapping kind of makes it look like he’s got a renegade rat tail, which is amusing.  And then they all pull faces to end the number to big cheers.

Clearly, we really enjoy this performance.  In fact, this is probably our favorite version of this number (because of course we’ve seen a whole heap of them).  Just lots of fun and goofy energy with a real sense of camaraderie.

-Troi and Crusher

Here’s a pic of the 2008-2009 group.

(from generalstamantha's youtube)

Notice how easy it is to pick out McButters?  Everyone else is around Keith’s height or taller.

By the next year, this is how the group stacks up.

(from ssterling's youtube)

We can see know that there’s a whole little quintet of guys right around McKay’s height.  This includes those we know and love: Robert, Tanner, and Tyler.

Now, let’s move forward one year (into the best year ever).

(from ssterling's youtube)

See that?  Fully seven members of Vocal Point now inhabit the same height-range as McPrecious.

You may ask why we’re so sure that McCrockett is behind this plot and not Keith, and the answer to that is simple: if Keith’s goal was to end up being the tallest member of Vocal Point, there’s no way he would have gotten so close to the prize only to slip up and let Ben into the group.  Clearly (clearly) this must be the work of McDevious.

Now, why would McSneaky feel the need to decrease the height of the group?  We’re not sure, and it’s not really for us to judge.  Perhaps the burden of being the most adorable and the wee-est was too much to bear. Perhaps he got sick of always having to sit in the middle of the back seat of cars (trust us, that’s where those with short legs get stuck. All. The. Time.).  Whatever his reasons, McGetsMyWay managed quite the amazing feat.

Now you, dear reader (all two of you), may be saying to yourself, “Troi and Crusher, first of all, y’all cray-cray.  Second of all, just how would McKay go about achieving such a thing?”

Well, we’re glad you asked.  Now, we’re sure McNotToBeTrusted had many tricks and connivances throughout the years, but in just this one video (posted by glausigrl), we can see a number of them at work.  A microcosm of the whole plot, if you will.

So, this video is from 2009-2010, or, as we know it, the “Mid-Plot Year.”  The first thing you’ll notice is that McCrafty has already “taken care of” Lemon, who is nowhere to be seen.  We start off with Paul and Grant featured prominently, although Paul is suffering from a “mysterious ailment.”

(Side note: way to be a helper, Tyler, when that mic almost fell.)

Then we move into the second song of the set (ooh, “Accidently in Love” — we feel like we’ve hit upon the Vocal Point Deep Cuts Playlist).  For this, Paul and Grant get pushed to the side together.  Tyler, realizing that he’s now in the “danger zone” quickly moves over to be with the other shawties (under the pretense of needing to verify his pitch, but we know that it was really in fear).

(from glausigrl's youtube)

We’re not sure if Tanner knew of the McPlot or not, but in any case, you can virtually see him thinking to himself, “When I’m the top vocal percussionist, there’s no way I’ll move around that much.”

And now we finally have a solid reason for a previously inexplicable Kevin trend.  As the song builds, so does his coolness.  He’s genuinely grooving, happy-looking, it’s all working.  And then he undercuts it all by saying, “Big finish, ready?!”  At first, we thought that this must have been some self-imposed, self-depreciating maneuver orchestrated out of fear of being too cool (and thus having to give up the baggy polos).  Now, we see it for what it really was: a self-preservation survival technique.  As long as he manages to cut down his own coolness, he also prolongs his livelihood in the group, by instantly reducing the threat of pulling attention away from McMeMeMe.

After a brief cut in the video (presumably to avoid having the violence on film) we come back for the third song and find that Grant has been eliminated.  Paul, perhaps realizing his predicament, moves further to the side (not towards the stairs, you fool!), and Tyler again moves as far away from the target as possible.

(from glausigrl's youtube)

Tanner, always one to take advantage of a given situation, lays down the beat.  And true to his previously made promise to himself, he manages to keep his hands in his pockets for the entire first verse.  The light snapping that follows is merely to show McTerror that he’s willing to buy into the group choreography, so as not to stick out and draw attention.

Now, you may be asking yourself, but what of short, darling Doug?  How did he end up on the wrong side of McFury?  Well, just take a look at 7:43.  Fatal error, Doug.  You do NOT try to out-adorable McButters.  We’re afraid that sealed his fate right then and there.

So, what’s the moral of this horror story?  Well, Vocal Point noobs, if you are over 5’10″, do not trust this face:

(from petitoiseau1's youtube)

-Troi and Crusher

It all begins right there in Episode 1, when everyone else had the skinny ties that so excited McCrockett.  As Tyler rightly notes, however, his, “isn’t as skinny, it’s different.”  See:

(from nbc.com)

And then, as we’ve already addressed in a Dear Keith, all of the hats were different for “The Way You Look Tonight.”  And, while Kevin may have had the ugliest hat, Tyler’s was actually the most different, as it was gray instead of black.

(from nbc.com)

And finally, during “I’ll Be Missing You,” everyone else has rectangular belt buckles.  Tyler?  You guessed it – something completely different: a Superman-shaped buckle.  What?

(from nbc.com)

So, what does this all mean?  We have no idea.  Maybe the costumers just didn’t have enough multiples of the matching stuff and Tyler was deemed confident enough to rock the odd item.  But really?  You have a group of nine that you plan on dressing the same for every performance and yet you repeatedly buy only seven or eight matching items?  That seems sketch.  We’re certainly open to other, more plausible theories.  Oh, who are we kidding?  We’re open to much more out there, not-at-all plausible theories as well.

-Troi and Crusher

This is Tyler, Jake, Tanner, Ben, and Ross with a small child:

And this is Keith:

We know who we would trust with our hypothetical spawn.  We just wouldn’t let him take the kids to Sea World.

(They have baby seals there.)

-Troi and Crusher

At 2:16, we get an interview where you can see Creepy Jake transform into regular, delightful Jake over the course of a few sentences as he relaxes.  Just easing up on the intense gaze and incorporating some hand gestures does wonders for portraying a human-like quality.

Then, it’s time for some downright classic Rossface at 2:34.

(from nbc.com)

Just.  Love. The Face.

After that it segues into Tyler explaining more in depth how he’s dealing with the whole class situation.

“Yeah, last night I was up until like 12:30am emailing all of my professors again…”  Tyler, is that supposed to make us feel sorry for you?  You were up until 12:30? As we can remember, going to bed at 12:30 was an early night in undergrad.  Besides, we were up until 3am every night for the past two weeks watching a cappella videos!  Wait, what?

Moving right along, we get Tyler trying to nicely explain that only most of his professors have been understanding.  Luckily, Kevin’s a helper, as he snarkily adds: “They don’t think you can apply the stuff you’re learning here at the Sing-off in your engineering classes? What?“  And Tyler just smiles.  Way to rub in your alumnus status, Keith.

Then, we get a truly endearing Jake interview.  Like a reverse Twilight experience, it appears that the mere mention of dear Mrs. Jake makes him more human.

(from nbc.com)

Human Jake gives some great Rossface at 3:18 and then he adorably talks about how his wife is being “overly supportive.”  It’s really sweet to see Jake light up like that when he talks about his lady.

Skipping ahead to 4:17, we get the “grudge match” practice session between Vocal Point and Urban Method.  After Ozzie from UM does a cute Ben Folds impersonation, we get a bit of (what’s presumably) an inside joke at 4:55.

(from nbc.com)

Bonus points for Keith’s self-aware, “I don’t know what this means in this context.”  Then we get a big group hug with Tanner in the middle and lots of genuine smiles all around.

We sort of wish more footage like this had made it on the show, as it shows a more relaxed (and in Jake’s case, human), side to the process.

-Troi and Crusher

We don't know who those random guys in the photo are, or what they did with Creepy Jake, Mikey, and Ross. Just kidding, Grant, Paul, and Lemon... We're sure we would have loved you too, but just like Bethlehem, there's no room in our hearts' inns... blame Kevin's limbs, they take up a lot of space.

Oh, come on now.

Here’s the video we’ll use for reference. Many thanks again to mrduckbear11

After a quick recap of Week 1, we get into this week’s material and are first hit with the overwhelming, but not-at-all surprising news that McCrockett was in a boy band in Utah when he was fourteen and fifteen. And yes, there are pictures.

(from thaoriginal562's youtube)

McPrecious seemed to be very much into vests at the time. And he doesn’t seem to find the boy band thing to be all that humorous. At least, not in the same way we do. This little gem of information (which we’re going to treasure forever) is the perfect segue to introduce the next Vocal Point song: Never Say Never. The Biebs. Now, let’s take a time out here and try to imagine how that conversation went down, shall we?

Producers: “Okay, boys, since you’re all wholesome and stuff, we thought you could sing that Bieber song from The Karate Kid.”

Tanner: “You’re joking, right?”

McKay: “Awesome! I was in a boy band! I can’t wait to sing lea–”

Producers: “Actually, we think Kevin should sing lead on this one. We hear he’s got a great timbre.”

Keith: “Uh… It’s Keith… and really, it’s cool, McKay can do the lead.”

Producers: “Nope. You’re doing it.”

McKay: “But… oh, nevermind. It’s cool.”

Tyler: “This is gonna be awesome!”

Maybe that’s not how it actually happened, but it seems to be as good of an explanation as anything.  Okay, so, back to the video. It’s shared that Ben is still with his family, and his father has passed away. The boys express their concern for their friend; Keith does so a little more eloquently than Jake (human speech patterns are hard!), but the sentiment is the same. Then we see the guys practice a bit, and now, on to the performance!

The boys are in green blazers and stripey ties, some matching, some not. Kind of a go-to look for them, but they’ve certainly been shoved into worse, right? Keith starts us off and the boys get the choreography rolling, some of them (Michael) more naturally than others (Creepy Jake). At 2:16 we can see that everyone manages to drop down into a low squat except for Keith. Yeah, he’s singing lead, but Tanner’s droppin’ a beat and Robert’s carrying the bass line, and they still dropped it to the floor.

(from thaoriginal562's youtube)

Get with it, Kevin!

From 2:25 til 2:31 the men from Provo show us their mad karate skills. Some highlights? Rossface with Michael Jackson’s hand. McCrockett’s lack of irony. Tyler pointing at things. Creepy Jake’s awkwardly-bending, non-human limbs.

At 2:34 McButters’ boyhood dreams are realized and he gets to take the lead on a teen heartthrob pop single. Unfortunately, it’s only for nine seconds, and then we’re back to Keith. Sorry, McButters.  (This isn’t as bad as when McCrockett’s adulthood dreams get smashed a few weeks later when Kevin sounds legitimately country, but again, that’s a whole ‘nother post.)

At around 2:53 we get a beautiful swell of a cappella awesomeness. At 3:06 Ross hops on and gives Kevin an assist by singing what we like to refer to as “the gospel line.” (You know, the part that the awesome chick in the gospel choir always sings. Like an echo, but way cooler.) Ooh, and at 3:08 we get one of Robert’s signature cool moves where he points out at the audience, rock star style. At 3:16 Keith still can’t be bothered to kneel down as low as the other guys (maybe he’s got arthritis?)  but we’ll forgive him.

(from thaoriginal562's youtube)

He wraps up the song at 3:24 with some Blue Steel/Baby Seal Clubbing a Baby Seal action and then we’re off to judging! (Oh, but check out McCrockett’s face as they all lower their mics… he’s just so darn happy.)

Ben Folds is generally complimentary if slightly condescending, but you know, it’s Ben Folds. That’s his thing. Sara decides to just go for it and calls them “a bunch of wholesome thundercats, or something.” We’re sure they appreciated that, Sara. That’s exactly what every twenty-something man wants to be called.  Awesome.

(from thaoriginal562's youtube)

Yeah, those aren’t happy faces.

Shawn, however, acknowledges the ridiculousness of the situation, and gets the boys to all laugh about it, too. Shawn clearly gets that the guys are in on the joke and don’t take themselves so seriously that they can’t have fun with something like this. Probably because Tanner has so much street cred he can bank it for when something like this comes up and they need a little more to compensate.  And then the boys run offstage. Run. Where’s the fire?

Finally, at 5:56 we get some good old-fashioned Keith snark, when he comments on tackling such an “iconic” song, even without hair like Bieber. And because no one should have to try to imagine that alone, here… for you:

Heh. Not our finest work (it's no Jakebert), but gets the job done.

-Troi and Crusher

Okay, we’re not even going to touch the first part of the intro clip, because the whole Ben situation is something that should be respected, not analyzed for shiggles.  (Although, we do just have to throw this out there: Kevin, please stop dressing like an awkward tall guy.  No more baggy navy polos for you.  Own the lanky thing.  Get some well-tailored clothes, stand up straight, and embrace your inner awesome.)

Moving right along, we get into some warehouse rehearsal footage with Keith leading the guys through a new addition to the song in order to beef up their rep version.  We agree with Creepy Jake’s take on the new bit, “That’s good.”

At 1:11 we get to see Tyler’s only solo of the season.  Unfortunately, we don’t get to hear it, as the editors cut out the audio at that very moment and by the time the song got to the stage, the solo no longer belonged to Tyler.  Sorry dude.  You looked cool singing it, at least.

Immediately following that at 1:13 we see another thing that did not make it to the performance stage: bow ties!  Ah, well, maybe that was too much look when viewed with the AWESOME RED SHOES.  Those shoes are so much win.  We especially like how Jake’s and McButters’ appear to involve velcro.  It’s cute ’cause they’re little.

(from nbc.com)

Anyway, we start off with a fun little opening that leads right into Jake sounding a lot like Kenny Loggins.  At 1:56 Ross comes in with a different vocal spin on the song that also sounds good.  Then we hear the part we saw them practicing in the intro.  It’s just as cool here — such a fun little super-a cappella-y bit.

Next we have a sighting of two different signature moves.  First up is Keith’s go-to cool move (at 2:13).

(from fschnell's youtube)

Okay, this move definitely needs a name.  Lunge with shoulder rock thing does not suffice.  We’re open to taking suggestions, but that would mean that someone other than us would have to find and read this blog.  We’ll go with “LSR” until something better comes along.

After a brief glimpse of Robert being extra cool at 2:36, we get the snapping version of Tanner’s signature dropping it like it’s hot.

(from fschnell's youtube)

Yay for signature moves!

Unfortunately, Creepy Jake tends to have a signature as well, and it’s called “not quite moving like a human.”  Now, to be fair, being a human is hard, but still.  Take for example 2:56, where everyone else manages to pull off the hand movement, but Jake just looks… off.  His legs tend to splay at un-human-like angles, and a fun Sing-off watch game is to go through any given VP performance and yell out “Creepy Jake!” or “Being a human is hard!” when the sight arises.

If you haven’t read our first post, please go do that right now, before you determine that we’re total jerkwads (What the WHAT?).  We really do love Jake.  And we don’t think he’s a soulless twin (well, we don’t think that anymore… it was the going theory for a while — you know, that his twin got two souls and he got none).  Jake just comes off as awkward on TV.  It’s perfectly understandable.  He’s no more awkward doing choreography than Troi’s husband is playing Dance Central.  Which is to say, he’s incredibly awkward.  But again, seems to be a super-nice guy.  And dude can sang.

Anyway, moving forward with the performance, Ross hits some insanely fun notes and then all of the sudden Tanner’s flying through the air like a spider monkey and then everything goes crazy.  Mike’s killing it, Keith’s spinning, McCrockett’s kicking and karate chopping, and it all climaxes to the end with Ross wailing away.

Then we get to the judging, where Ben Folds once again has a man-crush on Kevin’s falsetto, and Sara is again slightly patronizing in her praise.  We get it – they’re adorable and most of them are pocket-sized, but they’re still actually grown men so please don’t act like you’re going to give them juice and cookies and a gold star.  And then Shawn references Hello Kitty and we’re confused and McKay’s trying to talk into a muted microphone and they’re all leaving the stage and then BELL KICK!  Keith does a perfect bell kick while running offstage at 6:16 (this is actually a recurring event in many of their run-offs).  Oh McButters, this makes your blown bell kick in “Let it Snow” even more shameful.  And to reiterate our point from above: Keith, if you are secure enough to do an impromptu bell kick on national TV, you are TOO COOL TO WEAR BAGGY NAVY POLOS.

-Troi and Crusher

That is all.

-Troi and Crusher

(credit to mrduckbear11 for the video)

First thing you’ll notice is that unfortunately, Ben and Tyler were unable to be there for taping. Something about finals for school or some other such responsible nonsense. Now then, could we just start off by saying how hilarious it is to watch Tanner shiver while dropping the beat? Seriously. Holding down the beat whilst doing his best to sell the bizarro staging. Which, really, why are they staged to be outside? Were the producers at all familiar with the song? Had they bothered to listen to it? Hint: first line is “The weather outside is frightful…” Out. Side. Thus implying the singer and his homies are inside. Which is why they are okay with it snowing.  Geez, get with it, producers.

At :13 we get to watch Jake stumble (stumble? too much scrumdiddlyumpious eggnog?) closer to center and take his solo. Creepy Jake might be Creepy Jake-ing all over the place, but the boy can croon his way into our jaded little hearts any day of the week.

We need to talk about the travesty that nearly ruins our faith in humanity at :48. McKay blows a bell kick. BLOWS A BELL KICK.

(captures from petitoiseau1's youtube)

McButters, this is not acceptable. The bell kick is one of the quintessential Shelf Person moves. We expect more from you and your adorableness! Robert managed the most technically perfect bell kick in the group and didn’t miss a beat of the bass line.

And then the whole thing goes to pot when, at 1:03, Nick Lachey feels the need to come on stage and remind everyone that he used to be a singer in a semi-popular boy band. We end up spending the entire time he’s singing wishing for Creepy Jake to come back and are more relieved than we should be when Jake hops back on lead vocals (even if he does have to share them with Nick) at the 1:30 mark.

A moment of adorable McAwesomeness pops up at 1:44 when McKay and Ross high-five each other as they cross the stage. We’re wondering if Keith felt a little snubbed here. That’s what happens when you steal all the Rascal Flatts’ glory, Kevin.  And then… then it starts snowing. Indoors. Onstage. When eight guys are all singing and two of them are seriously belting the last lines of the song. This is when the producers thought “Hey, you know what would be awesome? FAKE SNOW! Yeah, stuff’s great! Gets everywhere, makes the floor slippery, and burns like fire (retardant) if you inhale it on accident. Order a boatload of the stuff!”

But then again, if there were no snow, there would be no a cappella snow angels.  And we lurve the snow angels.

(from petitoiseau1's youtube)

So Nick goes to wrap up the little VP segment with a post-performance interview with Creepy Jake and judges’ comments. We’re sure he (foolishly) thought this would be quick and painless. He clearly underestimated Jake’s ability to say the most awkward and random string of words ever.

Nick: (regarding “Sinatra-style music”) “What is it that draws you guys to that style of music? What is it about that style of music?”

Creepy Jake: “Well, uh, I think we like it ’cause it’s fun. It’s a lot of fun. It’s fun to hear, it’s more fun to do. And another thing about it is that it’s timeless. It’s classic for a reason. (It’s right about this point – 3:05 – that McCrockett stops smiling in the background, and even sweet Michael starts to look a little concerned. We can only imagine that they must have known this was about to go horribly, horribly awry.) And after the bell bottoms and after the hair is gone, we’re going to keep singing it. So, we love this style.”

Nick: “Well one thing’s for sure, you can definitely hold a note a lot longer than I can.”

The bell bottoms and the hair? Jake! What decade were you born in, sweet pea? Oh well, whatever.

All in all, the guys put out a solid final performance, even if it was interrupted by a throwback solo for Nick.

-Troi and Crusher

Before we get into the performance proper, there are a couple of things from the opening package that are worth mentioning.  First up, at :42, we get a glimpse of Michael’s hair and make-up styling for this episode.  This is probably the best styling he had all season, and in fact it makes him look like a leading actor on a CW show or something.  Immediately after that styling win, we get Keith having to explain  “we need to avoid, it’s like, doing an impersonation of Elvis.”  Gee, who could he be talking to?  Well, we find out soon enough, as Creepy Jake delivers a downright classic interview soundbite (:47).  We’re starting to think that by this point, the producers were just trying to see what was the most ridiculous thing they could get Jake to do on camera.

Next, we get a quick glimpse of the guys with their lovely ladies.  Jake and his wife laugh together, Ben gets a kiss from his girl (who, side note, is totally gorgeous), and Keith… makes faces at his?  (Isn’t that the girl he was sharing with McKay in the first intro segment? When Michael was all sad bear without his wife?).  Then we get the adorableness of Tanner and his fiancée.  After some McPreciousness, we get a group leap into the air at 1:35.  Tanner’s “leap” is particularly awesome.

Alright, now we’re finally into the actual performance.  First notable thought: we would be willing to bet that Keith thought he would look a lot more cool saying “Please welcome the king (1:53),” than he actually looked.  However, that thought is quickly banished as the lights come up and the full horror of the costuming hits the senses.  What the what for real real?  Green slim-fit pants?  With, what… what are those?  Are those… LADY BLOUSES?  Oh, wait.  They are.

(from nbc.com)

Oh, Tyler and Ross.  Oh boys.  We’re so sorry.  That’s just wrong.

Thank goodness for the overwhelming sincerity of Michael on lead.  And all of that CW styling from the neck up really helps to pull focus from the lady blouse and green pants.

Then we move into the “Can’t Help Falling in Love” portion of the evening, and Creepy Jake comes to the foreground to deliver a fantastic vocal.  Hidden gem: at 2:46, Mike makes eyes at the camera.  Then we move to down center, and get into the step-touch choreography.  We’re also in the reggae groove that so perplexed Ben Folds.  Clearly, the man is not a fan of UB40.  Is this a generational thing?  Because we sort of feel like everyone our age would hear that and instantly know the inspiration.  The same way that if you put Robert’s hair on Jake’s head, everyone in our generation would know that the result would look like Fred and Ben Savage’s lost brother.

Ahem.

Anyway, after the feeling of superiority that comes from catching something Ben Folds doesn’t passes, we arrive at what very well may be Troi’s favorite moment of the season.  At 3:33, Tanner executes what can only be described as the Smolder Gaze Vocal Percussion.  See below:

(made with captures from petitoiseau1's youtube)

We are constantly amazed at how Tanner manages to blend into the choreography while doing all the crazy stuff he does.  We often exclaim, “Tanner, stop being so awesome!”  This may be the finest example of that from the Sing-off.  Way to nail it, dude.

Then we hit the home stretch, as we finally get to the song where the awful lady blouses fit the theme.  And you know what?  Still awful.  But McButters kills it anyway, because that’s what he does.  Tanner delivers one of his signature moves at 4:27, where he sort of drops it like it’s hot while snapping / whipping it / pumping up the jam.  Michael looks particularly cool moving into the group formation at 4:30.  And then we get one of those classic Vocal Point moments, where the choreography looks way cooler than it has any right to look.  If you were to describe a group of nine men hopping across the stage while alternating between being hunched over and leaning back and shaking their shoulders in the process, well… that would sound lame.  But in the performance, it looks legitimately cool.

We reach the end as Tanner once again drops it like it’s hot and Keith gets on his knees (Oh, you can kneel now but not in Every Little Step?  What’s the deal?).  The audience goes nuts and we get a Jake’s wife sighting. Overall, a strong performance.  We would’ve preferred a Michael Jackson medley, but that’s just because we saw how awesome “Beat It” was at ICCAs (Shout out to Papa Sterling for the nicely shot ICCA videos!).

There is one lingering question from this performance, though.  Why did Tanner’s lady blouse reappear during the “Boy Band Chic” portion of the fall Vocal Point concert?

(captured from mycroft16)

Did he lose a bet?  Think the shirt was so awful he stole it to wear ironically?  Please, just don’t tell us that he legit likes it.  It would so taint his awesome.

UPDATE: Well, this is a relief.  We’ve found new photographic evidence that Tanner is not, in fact, wearing the loathsome lady blouse.  His awesomeness remains intact.

We’ve never been so happy to see navy and gray horizontal stripes on a man before.  It’s not much of a look, but it beats a boat neck lady blouse.

-Troi and Crusher

(captured from the youtube account of CorinneRDavis)

To this:

(Horrible Paint "Photoshop")

Pretty similar, right?

Also, why on earth is there a close-up that gets THIS close to Keith in this “a cue pella” video?

(captured from the youtube account of CorinneRDavis)

I mean… awkward.

And Tyler totally almost falls in the beginning of that video.

-Crusher

(from nbc.com)

See?  Everyone else is nice smile happy.  McKay is open-mouth ready to take a big bite out of life happy.

Also, we’d like to imagine the following picture was the result of a conversation that went something like this:

McButters: Guys, I’ve got a really great idea.

Tyler: Awesome! I’m in.

McPrecious: Don’t you want to hear it first?

Tyler: I think I’m in either way.

McCrockett: …Okay.  Well.  I’ve never told anyone this, but I’ve always wanted to be in the center of a human pinwheel.

Tanner: …

Michael: Well, I could choreograph that.

Robert: …

(Rossface)

Tyler: Yup, still in.  Come on guys, it’ll be awesome.

And then… bam!

(from mycroft16's youtube account)

HUMAN PINWHEEL.

-Troi and Crusher

*Except for in the judging following Life is a Highway, but that’s a blog for another day.

Basically, we’re two sisters in our mid-and-late-twenties who spent much of the Thanksgiving holiday YouTubing The Sing-off.  Vocal Point and The Dartmouth Aires were our early favorites (even though Vocal Point had already been eliminated at that… point).  Now, we’re back together for Christmas, and VP has clearly risen to the top of our aca-pile.

So, why not blog about it?  This couldn’t possibly go horribly wrong, could it?  We have all kinds of grand ideas for blog posts: performance analysis (um… maybe frame-by-frame), group member profiles (at least how we imagine them to be), letters to Keith (semi-random questions that for some reason we think Keith would be most willing to answer), and all sorts of other things that seem like good ideas at 3am.

Of course, we can’t always focus on Vocal Point.  That would be creepy.  Well, creepier than we already are (which is the harmless, fun, we’ll-never-show-up-in-Provo kind of creepy).  So, we may need to take a Breath of Fresh Aires or get a little Melodore-matic up in here from time to time.

Okay, to kick us off, here’s a quick list of things we appreciate about each member of Vocal Point (the 2010-2011 group, or as we know them, The Only Line-up We Will Ever Acknowledge).  Remember, all of our opinions are based solely on YouTube and wild speculation:

1. McButters.  Seriously, McKay Crockett is an adorable little shelf person.  So earnest.  So energetic.  So McPrecious.  He’s like a grown up version of Butters.

2. Tanner is street.  Streets of Provo, maybe, but street nonetheless.  He doesn’t need to smile.  He doesn’t have to convulse on stage like other vocal percussionists – no, he can do the choreography better than half the group while dropping a hot beat.  He may be a honey badger.

3. Creepy Jake.  Now, we have done enough analyses of non-Sing-off YouTube clips to conclude that dear Jake is not actually creepy, and seems to be a legit, nice and well-humored guy.  He just came off a wee bit creepy on TV.  The factors that led to this?  Strong cheekbones, formal speech pattern, piercing eye stares, trying to banter with Nick Lachey, and a complete inability to groove naturally.  But in an endearing way.  Now that we’re not scared of him.

4. Tyler: totally the Captain Awesome of the group.  Our vote for most frequent hugger.  Would benefit most from the ditching of the horrible khaki pants.

5. Robert the impressive.  One of us may or may not have nicknamed our sub-woofer “Robert.”  He’s the most likely to make the choreography look cool.  And he’s Canadian.  Bonus points.

6. Michael: the complete embodiment of earnest kindness.  The guy oozes sincerity. Possibly the best all-around dancer in the group, certainly the best clogger.  Also appears to be Jake’s unofficial onstage wrangler (tag teams that responsibility with Keith).

7. Rossface.  Seriously, that boy gives great face.  All the time.  Somehow managed to not fall asleep onstage while being forced to sing a song that consists of about two lines.

8. Ben.  You know, he has an accent.  When in doubt, defaults to a joke in the individual-improv section of the choreography.

9.  Kevin.  Oh Keith.  His nickname is Kevin.  That is just win all day long.  Can generally be counted on to counter a compliment with self-mocking.  Probably has no concept of his own awesomeness.  Our unsung hero of the season  — always holding it down in the opening numbers, that Ben Folds-seducing timbre, the go-to “cool move” (it’s like a lunge with a shoulder rock at the same time?), and the unicorn of sugary reality competitions – the occasional stealthy sarcastic comment.

Well, it’s now almost 2am, and this is starting to seem like a better idea.  More to follow soon, because if we lose momentum, we’ll probably move on to the next silly idea and abandon this blog all together.

If you somehow stumbled upon this, feel free to say hey.  We’re pretty sure we’re the only ones in this niche audience, but you never know.

That’s it for now.

-Troi and Crusher

(In the interest of maintaining our real-world dignity, we will not be signing our real-world names.  Yes, we watched a lot of ST:NG growing up.)