Pub Choir, May 11 2026
- ladiesvoices
- 1 hour ago
- 4 min read
Francesca and I went to Pub Choir at Webster Hall on May 11, 2026. It wasn't so much a performance as an experience.
"Everybody can sing. Like, not well, but literally. Why should being average at something stop you from doing it!? It hasn’t yet… Singing is good for you, it’s EASY, and Pub Choir is here to show you how. Created and hosted by music witch, Astrid Jorgensen, Pub Choir is an ENTIRELY improvised, comedy music lesson. The show is a euphoric sensation that transforms a crowd of tipsy strangers into a legendary choir."
I knew Webster Hall by its reputation as a legendary rock venue but had never been there before. It's a smallish space - - the capacity is 1,400 and there were 1,200 people at our event. Most of the audience was on the floor where there are no seats while Francesca and I were in a pseudo VIP area which had couches. We stood when there was something going on and sat when there wasn't. Honestly, if we do this again (and I think we will) we're going to get tickets on the floor, it seemed like that was where the action was.
Astrid (I think she'll support me calling her by her first name) was amazing. She was inspiring, highly skilled in teaching us, and had that uniquely Australian way of taking the piss out of you but from a place of genuine affection, never from rudeness.
She started with an intro and some ground rules. She did a little call-and-response by singing a line of a song and asking us to sing the next line. The only one I remember is "Pave paradise / Put up a parking lot." She asked us to split ourselves into three groups: high (women who like singing the melody), middle (women who are better at harmony, she said these women are often in allied health jobs), and men (no explanation needed). Of course she said these gendered categories were fluid. She told us to move to the part of the room where our parts were being sung. She gave us a couple minutes to move and then said, "OK I think about six people actually moved. On to the next thing."
There was a big screen at the back of the stage showing us the lyrics and giving a sense, by the way the text was printed on the screen, of when your part goes up or down. The three parts were printed in three colors and laid out from top to bottom on the screen. There were also goofy videos embedded with the text, I didn't quite understand their purpose.
The song she taught us was "We Belong" by Pat Benatar.
I never realized how much I love that song! Astrid did a great job of teaching us our parts - - I was especially impressed at how she could be working with one voice part and yet keep the other two thirds of the audience engaged. The general vibe was celebratory and communal. She had a major support in her acoustic guitar player. I was amazed at how she followed to where Astrid was going without a lot of guidance.
I spent too much time fighting two conflicting urges:
1. I'm a classically trained musician and have read music since I was in fifth grade. My concept of music is generally tied to the notes on a page so it was unsettling to not always know what I was doing. There was one moment in each verse (always the same moment) when I could never quite find my note. It was a struggle to give that up, keep singing, and eventually arrive at a point when I was secure.
2. On the flip side, I fought my urge to assert myself in the parts when I absolutely knew what I was doing, to show the dudes around me not just that I was good but that they should follow me. It didn't take long for me to realize that those dudes weren't paying any attention to me.
We ran through it once or twice and we all felt pretty good. We took a little break to use the loo and/or get a drink. Francesca and I sat down. She told us before the break that we'd have a special guest for our final performance. The special guest was a fierce electric guitar player, a Brooklyn guy. Am I the only person who hoped the guest would be Pat Benetar...?
We finished the evening with two run-throughs which were filmed by a guy on her team. She made it clear from the start that she didn't want to see people using their phones and it looked like that was the case. I think we're all going to get an email with the video that was made, also some pictures that were taken.
Here's a video of a 2019 Pub Choir event in New York. It gives you a sense of the vibe and also the singing ability of much of the audience:
Like I said, I'm sure we'll be going back the next time she's in town. It felt good to sing in such a free, positive environment, to collaborate with a huge group of strangers, and to feel like you were seeing people at their best.
Our favorite part of the evening was when we were leaving. It was a slow descent down a staircase. Astrid put the original Benatar recording on the sound system and even though we'd just spent an hour and a half singing the song, many people were singing along. Adorable.
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