CMU A capella group Fish N' Chips to host Winter concert Saturday with MSU's Capital Green

Central Michigan University's all-male A capella Fish N' Chips will be performing their winter concert Saturday at Plachta Auditorium.

Michigan State University's co-ed A capella group Capital Green will open the event, which begins at 7 p.m. with a ticket price of $6 at the door or $5 from a Fish N' Chips member.

The event, which has been going on for nearly a decade, will feature a mix of popular and contemporary songs, Christmas songs and a few older songs.

"We're doing 'Pumped Up Kicks' by Foster the People," Fish N' Chips president Josh Lee said. "We're going to be featuring a mashup of songs."

The Troy senior said the songs will be ones people will recognize and will get people to sing along to.

"People always sing along and it's awesome when they do," he said. "That's what is great about being a performer: when people appreciate what you do enough to sing a long with you."

Capital Green has performed with the CMU group in the past and the groups have developed a friendship, even partnering on a song or two at past winter concerts.

"It was cool to perform for a sold out crowd, which we don't normally get at MSU," said Capital Green singer and Michigan State University student Maddie Hopkins. "It was cool to open for them."

She said she and the 15 other members of the group like performing in a different college town for a different audience.

"CMU is a much smaller school than MSU, so it's a lot easier to get the word out," she said. "They're an all-guy group. It draws a lot of women."

The 14 member all-male group has to adapt their music to the female voices heard in Capital Green, Wixom senior and Fish N' Chips Vice President Ryan Anderson said.

"They have different arrangements than ours because they have girls," Anderson said. "It's a different dynamic having a co-ed group instead of solely an all-male group."

He said the concert being held at Plachta Auditorium will be special.

"It's a really great venue," he said. "It allows a larger crowd, because it's more accessible to more people on campus."

The concert in the past has attracted nearly 1,000 people and the respective groups hope for the same turnout.

"It's kind of like our capstone," Lee said.

Lee is the highest tenor voice in Fish N' Chips, called the Tenor One.

"We rehearse three times a week for the entire semester," he said. "We keep memorizing new music and learning choreography."

Hopkins, an Alto voice in the East Lansing-based A capella group, said the group wants to get students and community members out to see them who might have missed the opportunity last time.

"I think we get more excited to perform it for people who might have never heard us," she said. "What we get the most out of it is showcasing our sound to people who don't always hear us"