Music Dream of Ever Vox

It was 8.00pm. Ever Vox, Sydney first mandarin busking band, was preparing to perform in China Town. Similar as other Chinese youths, the members of the band have a common dream of music, and they have been chasing the dream in their ways.

‘We met each other in a music competition held by TVB in Sydney, and found that we are both music lovers. To make more audiences to listen to us, we had tried many methods respectively. At last, we have decided to establish a band,’ said Leo, the leader of Ever Vox. In this way, the members have set foots on the trip of chasing music.

Ever Vox and The Members

Ever Vox established on August 2014, which consists of eight music lovers containing 1 keyboardist, 3 guitarists and 4 vocals who are originally from mainland China. Particularly, there are 2 members, Leo and Jeffery, who have been on the jobs. ‘Actually, we are busy on weekdays, but we are willing to spend time on the things that we like.’ said Leo. The band expresses emotion and stories via singing and performing, and they want to perform on a bigger stage.

It is interesting that the members selected the name of the band many times. Finally, they officially named the band ‘Ever Vox’. ‘Ever’ refers to the past time that the members have experienced, and ‘Vox’ is Spanish which means ‘vocal’ in English.

Members of Ever Vox, by Lan Yao, 31 May,2015

Busking Time in China Town

As usual, Ever Vox started to perform at 8.00 on Dixon Street in the region of China Town. In this week, the concert set up the theme of ‘To Cherish’, which highlighted the romantic atmosphere. Ever Vox performed Chinese pop music containing Mandarin and Cantonese songs like ‘Someone Special’, ‘The Moon Represents My Heart’, which gave an audio-visual feast to passersby and audiences.

Leo sang the intro named ‘For You’, which marked that the concert officially opened. Instantly, the warm song attracting audiences lit the atmosphere. A large number of passersby stopped to listen to the music. Some audiences who wanted to record the fantastic time of the performance also took out smart phone or camera to shoot videos and photographs. Subsequently, Ashley, one of the female vocals from Ever Vox, sang ‘The Most Important Decision’ and ‘Traveling is meaningful’ which are familiar to audiences due to the wide spread in the field of Chinese pop music. It aroused a strong reaction from audiences, because there are lots of Chinese visitors understanding the lyrics and prospects that the songs built up in China Town. Accompanying the melody, some were shaking bodies and waving hands, and some were excitedly humming with the vocals, which immediately made the block to become a big stage to ‘chorus’. Except the songs performed by the vocals, simultaneously, in the process of the theme live concert, Scott and Esther, the guitarist and the keyboardist of Ever Vox, also had a show time of solo respectively and ensembles of light music. When they had accomplished the performance, applause and hurrah from audiences rang out continuously. ‘That is marvelous! They are masters! The skills are so professional that I was really shocked,’ said a young lady. Particularly, to address the multicultural demands of the audiences from diverse regions, at the end of the theme concert, Ever Vox also sang a few English songs such as ‘When I Was Your Man’, ‘The Lazy Song’ and ‘Take Me to Church’. Those appealed to local passersby to interact with vocals – a female audience took another microphone to sing ‘You Are Beautiful’ together, and another two male audiences, the friends of that woman, used instruments like maracas and tambourine to accompany the song happily- which established a harmonious bond between the band and audiences.

Busking in China Town on Saturday night, by Lan Yao, 31 May, 2015

‘We are really delighted to hold a theme concert like that. It makes us to feel cheerful because we think that busking performance is a good platform to share experiences or comprehension of songs, and it is our pleasure to provide happiness for audiences,’ said Leo, ‘Actually, we will organise a concert lasting about four hours every Saturday night. On the one hand, we could practice singing skills and performing techniques via this method. On the other hand, it is an essential motivation that is from strangers’ appreciation and affirmation for us to produce more and better songs constantly.’

Rehearsal Time

It is difficult for a band to hold performances every week. Except the uncertainties like weather, the arrangement qualities of songs play vital role in busking. To overcome the difficulties, Ever Vox does rehearsal every Friday before performance on Saturday. In the process of rehearsal, many interesting anecdotes have happened.

‘Uncle Ben’ is the nickname of Ben, the master soul in Ever Vox. Due to the background of head of art troupe in university, Ben leads the band to do the arrangements of songs and rehearsals, which relies on his rich experiences on music. He often independently arranges many songs at the same time, which is to give suggestions to performances and other members timely. ‘To be honest, sometimes it is really hard for me to make a song that could satisfy us, because to arrange innovative songs is a creative challenge. You know, if it cannot touch ourselves, it is impossible to attract audiences,’ said Ben. To reward his contribution, other members gave the nickname that could express their trusts on Ben.

Rehearsal on Friday night, by Lan Yao, 15 May, 2015

Future Plans

Nowadays, increasing number of Chinese youths have lived in Australia. Among them, there are a group of youths who are pursuing their dreams. Ever Vox is the typical representative. Except the busking, they also perform for weddings, orientation weeks and other activities which are related to music. With the efforts, the members have already had fans and established the official pages on Facebook, Twitter and Weibo. Next steps of pursuing their music dream are recording original songs and organising activities interacting with the fans.

Performance in a wedding, by Ben, 2 May, 2015

Tags: Ever Vox, Band, Music, Music dream, Music lovers, Youths

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