The first day of Spring is upon us, and there is less than two months before high schools around the county hold commencement exercises. My youngest daughter, Madison, is graduating this year and this past weekend we had another of many "lasts" in her high school career: the final show choir competition.

Hinton hosted their second annual Show Choir competition and did a fine job. I am always awestruck at the scale of everything, from planning and logistics of putting an event like this on, to all of the work the show choirs go to preparing performances and practices.

If you haven't been to one and enjoy music, I'd highly recommend attending. Both of my daughters were members of Crimson and Black, the LCHS show choir, so I had the privilege of seeing many fine performances.

Back in the day, I was in choir and we had a swing choir (sort of a Jurassic version of the show choirs of today). We sang on risers, maybe did some movement and, here's the cool part we had a drummer, electric guitar and electric bass as well as piano accompanist.

We were cool.

If we were to compete today, we'd be so lame we would have to be shot.

To say this activity has evolved would be an understatement.

At the competition on Saturday, the groups did so much movement it appeared at times that I was watching a cheerleading or dance competition. Costume changes, dry ice, lights, everything but lasers and holograms -- and I'd venture to guess that's being worked on as we speak.

Another observation: the songs that were performed were, for the most part, from the 1960s through the 1980s with a whole lotta 1970s inbetween. I wonder, is this because this was the music the parents grew up with? I think we sang Beach Boys songs in swing choir, not exactly the music of my parents generation. I believe my father's observation about the Beatles went something like this: "they pay them good money to do that?"

More than likely, the show choirs are singing songs from the 1970s because the music had melodies. At the risk of sounding like a old codger, up until 1976 or so, the music was pretty good. Then came disco, punk, new wave and the cycle began repeating. Don't even get me started on rap. I should live so long that rap would go the way of disco....

A couple of random thoughts came to mind watching these show choirs perform. I was wondering where my Styx albums were, because one school did a song from the Paradise Theater album from 1981. I remember buying that album, which was laser etched on one side as an anti-piracy device. Pretty cool. One school performed Lynyrd Skynrd's "Free Bird," complete with one of the singers doing a fair job on the guitar solo. I wonder what Ronnie Van Zandt would make of his song being performed at a show choir competition. The same group did Grand Funk Railroad's "We're an American Band." I found both songs more than a bit surreal in a show choir setting. And the group that did Wild Cherry's "Play That Funky Music White Boy," well, that's whole other trip...

As I left the competition with my wife and daughter, I wondered if I would be around when the next generation of my family performs. If I was around, I wondered what songs they would be performing and how much more would be done theatrically.

I'll bet they will still be singing songs from the 1970s. Maybe they will have holograms of Peter Frampton...

As always, I welcome your comments. You can reach me by email at tstangl@lemarscomm.net, telephone 712-546-7031, x40 or toll free 1-800-728-0066 x40.

Thanks for reading, I'll keep in touch. Feel free to do the same.