Singers thrilled to be in the chorus line

Kiwis (left to right) Nola Neas, Syd Dowling, Bill Yates, David Johnston and Eileen Evans were talent-scouted by choir director Bob Cilman. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Syd Dowling may need sedating next week.

"I'm excited as hell," says the 73-year-old at the prospect of singing I Wanna Be Sedated by the Ramones. "That song is great. It's just good fun. Awfully good fun, really."

Dowling, and four other elderly Kiwi singers, Eileen Evans, 80, Nola Neas, 74, Bill Yates, 78, and David Johnston, 78, will join American chorus Young @ Heart for shows next week, including Monday and Tuesday night at the Civic.

The group from Massachusetts are best known as the stars of the touching and funny 2008 film Young@Heart, which documents rehearsals leading up to a triumphant hometown performance.

In it they do their own unique versions of songs like Should I Stay Or Should I Go by the Clash, Outkast's Hey Ya, and Sonic Youth's strange and twisted beauty Schizophrenia.

And next week, as well as Sedated, Mr Dowling is also looking forward to singing Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze and Talking Heads' Road To Nowhere.

They will be performing some local songs too, which are being kept under wraps, but hearing the Americans get their tongues around Poi E by the Patea Maori Club could be interesting.

At 73, Mr Dowling is the young buck of the chorus whose oldest member is 89.

He started singing in his mid- 50s and decided to audition for the chorus after his wife heard choir director Bob Cilman on the radio when he was in New Zealand a few months ago talent scouting.

At the audition he impressed Cilman with his version of Sunrise, Sunset from Fiddler On the Roof.

"Once you get into your 70s you begin to realise that you're pushing it a little bit but older people shouldn't be put to the side. We can enjoy ourselves just as much and have a hell of a good time and Young @ Heart reinforces all that to the extreme."

Cilman says they try to avoid "obvious" songs because the beauty of the chorus is that the majority of the time the members don't know the song and can put an intriguing new spin on it.

"The problem with songs they know is they always sing them the way they heard them. So it became much more interesting to do songs that they had to come to kicking and screaming.

"Sonic Youth's Schizophrenia is not an obvious song for a senior chorus to be doing. The band loved our version of the song and had it up on their website for years."

In the film, Cilman, who started the chorus in 1982, is supportive and sympathetic and a hard taskmaster.

"You know what? Here's the thing: it's not a social service," he says.

"We're not in this to create a feelgood opportunity for people. We're in it to create art. You don't want it to be some sort of hokey thing, you want it to be tight, and I don't think anyone gets too pissed off with me."

But then there's the sad side to the job of seeing his chorus members die. "But you understand that it's part of the process and ultimately what makes it easier is that these people got to do something really cool on the way out."