A crowd of mostly Colgate students filled Flour & Salt on Friday, Feb. 10, for a performance by the Colgate Resolutions. The Resolutions, Colgate’s oldest gender-inclusive a capella group, performed at 7 p.m. during the café’s extended hours. The Resos, as they’re more commonly known, drew an impressive audience of about 50 people, filling the venue.

As the sixteen students gathered to sing, the audience quickly fell silent in anticipation. After introducing the group, the Resolutions’ music director, senior Rachella Carlino, led the singers into an eleven-song set.

“Being the music director is an incredible opportunity. We basically have a running repertoire of 30 to 40 songs that we are able to pull for performances like this,” Carlino said. 

The first song they performed was “The Dog Days Are Over” by Florence and the Machine, which included a solo from first-year Reem Numan. The soloist’s fellow singers provided the harmony and backing vocals, creating a supporting wall of sound for the main performer, whose clear voice broke through the attentive silence of the café.

Later, junior Halley Goodrich sang “Rich Girl,” a classic 70s tune originally sung by the duo Hall and Oates. Goodrich’s voice seemed to blend perfectly with the other Resos who sang backup.

“It was super fun getting to [solo] early in the concert. It’s always pretty intimidating at these smaller concerts being able to actually see everybody there,” Goodrich said, continuing, “but it’s nice to get it over with and not be nervous for the rest of the concert.” 

The fourth number took a darker turn with “Back to Black,” a memorable piece from Amy Winehouse that was released in 2007. The group delivered a smooth rendition of the song that channeled the late singer’s sultry, blues-inspired energy. 

The Resolutions mingled with the crowd in a brief intermission that followed the sixth number, and students took the opportunity to excitedly share their praises with their friends in the group. The conversation mimicked that of a busy Saturday morning at Flour & Salt. The audience then quickly returned to their seats and fell to a hush as the singers resumed their concert at 7:30 p.m.

“Space Oddity” by David Bowie kicked off the second half of their set, and the Resos perfectly captured the song’s instrumentals, along with its iconic lyrics. The synchronized delivery of the line “planet Earth is blue and there’s nothing I can do” was particularly striking and encapsulated the haunting quality of the piece. Other songs in the set included “Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes, “A Little Tenderness” by Otis Redding, “Mad World” by Tears for Fears, “Georgia on My Mind” by Hoagy Carmichael and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” by Aretha Franklin. 

Sophomore Brett Lynott, who sang “Believe” by Mumford & Sons as a solo, commented on the setlist.

“We just came back from tour. […] We had a lot of songs in our repertoire that we wanted to show the Hamilton community, so bringing that back was awesome to showcase,” Lynott said. “We had classic songs from the Resos’ past and some new arrangements that we did this year, so it was super fun to show our friends those new songs and some of the older ones.”

When asked what she thought of the show, junior Caneel Young expressed her surprise at the Resos’ versions of familiar tunes.

“I heard a lot of songs that I already knew but had a new take on them and it was really nice,” Young said. “The group seemed really bonded too, they all seemed like they knew each other which was really cool.”

The night was a lively, entertaining one that showcased the talents and skills of the sixteen singers in a diverse setlist. The end of the Resolutions’ set, as well as the end of each individual piece, was met with energetic applause from the audience. Both audiences and performers alike seemed to enjoy the concert.

“Performing live is definitely a rush. I think we all get super excited and feed off of an audience’s energy, and it’s been so long since we’ve been able to have performances like this,” Carlino said. “A venue like this is amazing because all of our friends and people from town come – it’s incredible.”