Revered composer, arranger, multi-instrumentalist, and bandleader Jacob Collier had a special project in the works throughout his 2022 North American tour. Thanks to a carefully orchestrated campaign of fan video submissions and crowd participation at his live shows, Collier managed to string an audience choir more than 100,000 strong to render Elvis Presley‘s “Can’t Help Falling In Love” like you’ve never heard it before.
“This year, on my North American tour, I asked the audience at each show to film themselves singing a word from this Elvis song—a different word in every city,” the mastermind behind the ambitious project explains in the text accompanying the finished product. “31 Cities. 10,000+ video submissions. 100,000+ voices. This is how it turned out!”
Related: Jacob Collier Brings ‘Djesse’ World Tour To Brooklyn [Photos/Videos]
During the encore of each concert on the U.S. leg of his recent Djesse world tour, Collier would return alone to the stage and proceed to conduct the entire audience through multi-part harmonies. Alongside these nightly mass singalongs, audience members in each city were asked to collectively film themselves singing a different word from the Elvis Presley song “Can’t Help Falling In Love” and to upload their recording using a special QR code. Using the full-audience recordings for harmony, Collier assembled submissions word by word, city by city, into a truly impressive take on the classic song.
As Jacob Collier said of wrangling a six-figure lineup for the project, “To bring 100,000 voices together in harmony has been a dream of mine for so long! What began as an experiment evolved into a fully-fledged extravaganza—to record every word in a different city and piece them all together, using encore-based audience choir videos as the harmonic backdrop. The wild thing to me is that it sounds like the same group of people singing the whole song—one big choir. I will treasure this video for the rest of my life.”
Watch Jacob Collier and the 100,000 voices of his “audience choir” perform Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling In Love” in the video below.
Jacob Collier & The Audience Choir – “Can’t Help Falling In Love”
The audience choir project is one of several creative pots Collier currently has on the stove. On Friday, he also shared a video of his recent performance of “Never Gonna Be Alone” featuring John Mayer and Lizzy McAlpine, both of whom appeared on the studio track via remote collaboration. The live rendition, which took place during McAlpine’s show at L.A.’s The Troubadour on October 7th, 2022, marked Collier’s first time performing the track its featured guests. Watch the performance below.
Jacob Collier, Lizzy McAlpine, John Mayer – “Never Gonna Be Alone” – 10/7/22
Jacob Collier continues his global Djesse tour this fall with a busy run of European shows. For a complete list of upcoming dates, head here.
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