[Contest has ended: Charlotte is the winner!}
Straight No Chaser and I connected at the perfect time. Perfect for me, that is. I met the group in 2009 and have seen them every time they’ve performed in Atlanta, from Center Stage (twice) to the Cobb Energy Center to the Atlanta Civic Center to Chastain Amphitheater and now—to the Fabulous Fox!
Leave a comment at the bottom of this post for your chance to win tickets for two to see Straight No Chaser at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre on Friday, November 14!
Straight No Chaser, a men’s a cappella group founded in 1996 at Indiana University, reunited to perform at their 10 year reunion. Afterward founding member Randy Stine posted a 1998 video of their adaptation of the 12 Days of Christmas to YouTube. It created a stir online—currently exceeding 17 million views—that lead to a recording contract with Atlantic Records.
SNC held a blogger meet & greet when they first visited Atlanta in December of 2009 and thankfully, I was on the guest list. They were relatively unknown at the time: although everyone had seen the YouTube video, it took time before people connected it with the group or knew that they’d reunited and gone on tour.
Getting downtown on a weekday afternoon isn’t easy and the members of the group outnumbered the bloggers; I think there were three of us. But they fed us, invited us on stage, sang to us, and asked about us and our blogs. I was impressed. After hearing and meeting them, I knew I wanted to come back that evening for the concert, but I had a girls’ night out scheduled with my three best friends.
I couldn’t convince my girlfriends to change our plans and go to the concert, so I ate appetizers with them and then my husband picked me up and took me to see the show. I haven’t missed SNC in Atlanta since that night.
Straight No Chaser unites our family. Sometimes my kids and I barely tolerate each other’s music, but SNC appeals to us all in a roll-down-the-windows-and-sing-loudly kind of way. They perform covers of songs both old and new and I often prefer their renditions to the originals.
Because the group performed (and still performs, now under another name) for years at Indiana University, enough original members exist to replenish the group when marriage, parenthood, or change of career reduces its numbers. I’ve watched Dan Ponce leave for a career in journalism; “liked” SNC members’ wedding photos on Facebook; and cheered Ryan Ahlwardt as he and his wife decided to devote their lives to mentoring teens through Young Life and gave birth to a precious baby girl.
Straight No Chaser establishes a rapport with their audience and loyal fans are called Chasers. During concerts, the group takes pictures of the audience to post to Facebook, inviting fans to tag themselves. Even when they play venues that ordinarily prohibit photography and video, SNC allows it. After all, they were discovered on YouTube.
Here’s a video I took (while juggling my camera in the other hand) at the 2009 blogger meet & greet when I first met SNC. [Email subscribers click over to the blog for video content.]
What started it all—the 1998 video of the 12 Days of Christmas:
Find shows and tickets to Straight No Chaser’s current tour here.
See Straight No Chaser in Atlanta!
What a great time of year to hear Straight No Chaser—they’ve recorded three Christmas albums!
Leave a comment for your chance to win tickets for two to See Straight No Chaser in Atlanta on Friday, November 14! What’s your favorite Christmas song?
12 Days of Christmas
O come all ye faithful…really I like all of them…thanks for the contest
I LOVE this group!! Oh Holy Night
ihopeiwinhopeiwinhopeiwin…..
We love them! They are so talented!
LOVE this wonderfully talented group!
please come home for Christmas by The Eagles
Yah
This would be the best, most awsomerest and FUNtabulous Thanksgiving ever if I could win these tickets!!!!!!!! #pickmeplease THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!
We Three Kings 🙂
Yay for free tickets!!
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
Yay! I hope I win!
Awesome! Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas 🙂
First, I have to say how lucky you are that you’ve had a chance to meet SNC. They’re so fun and lively, and even listening to them do the “I’m Yours” song, wish I had been there listening to them and snapping my fingers right along with them. They’re incredibly talented, and on the weekly a cappella music show I host on an internet radio station called The Bell, I get a lot of requests for their music. Would love the chance to get them on my show for a recorded or live interview, cause I think their story of how they got together and have stayed together as a group is pretty cool. Their Under The Influence album is still one of my favorites of theirs. Would love a chance to fly to Atlanta to see them if I could. It would make for a great coverage of an a cappella show for the radio program, and it would be great to see them perform live too. Lucky you that you got to see them more than once. Anyway, thanks for sharing your personal story of how you got to see them live. Take care and good luck! I know it’s early, but happy holidays to you and your family too!
That would be so fun! And on weekend I don’t have to travel! Pick me…b and I would love that date night!
Love, love, love this group! So many favorite Christmas songs……on my mind this morning is Celebrate Me Home.
i’ll Be Home For Christmas.
Hope I win
“We wish you a Merry Christmas” and “Silent Night”- hard to choose just one! What a great giveaway! I, like the others, would love this date night!
I would love to win these tickets as a birthday gift to my amazing sister, Katy Cook!
My favorite Christmas song: ummmmmmm “Mary Did You Know” or would it be White Christmas, or could it be , gee, I love them all!!!!! All I want for Christmas is snow and my kiddos with me. Oh, you didn’t ask. Oh well.
Such a talented group of guys! I’d love to see them in concert. Thank you for the post!
Oh, my favorite Christmas song is O Holy Night 🙂
My favorite Christmas song is Silent Night.
My family has been loving SNC for years now, but have never gotten lucky enough to see them live. My boys absolutely LOVE their version of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”. We would love to win tickets!!!
Love these guys. I can only image how awesome they sound in person. The Fox Theater would have great acoustics for their harmonies . I love their sound!
Me!
Thank you for the contest, great story, pictures and introduction. Never seen them until now. Of course, (now) I would love to see them.? Love, love their singing! This would be a great surprise for my hubby who have never been to the Fox and would love these guys, SNC.. His favorite would be “You”re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” and mine would be “Mary Did You Know”..
ops! Should not be a question mark there, but an exclamation mark. LOL
Would make a great girls night out!
You know I’m going to win..so you might as well put everyone else out of their misery and send me the tickets 🙂
Thought the family was getting me a ticket for my birthday; alas no; saw this and will await random pick; been a favorite group of mine for years.
They are so AWESOME!!!! I’d love to see them live!!! 😀
Silent Night is my favorite Christmas song!
I love Francesca Battistelli’s song from “The Story”–Be Born in Me.
O Holy Night! But really you know me well enough to know that there’s not a Christmas song I don’t like.
I’m not sure if you picked a winner yet but I found this post via a Google search for straight no chaser in Atlanta because I live right next to Fox theatre and love them so much and really want to see them perform! That aside, my favorite Christmas song is ‘baby it’s cold outside’ and I thank the movie Elf for that.
Wow! Thank you for introducing me to this amazing sounding group. It would be wonderful to hear them in person at the Fox. A “Date Night” with my hubby is long overdue!