'We're all needing connection': TikTok videos show mass singalong on Vancouver transit

Jill Samycia started a singalong on the Burrard Chinook SeaBus route last weekend and a couple videos showing passengers harmonizing to Adele's "Someone Like You" has since garnered thousands of views online (Photo: @SingWithJill/TikTok).

A Vancouver vocal coach enjoys bringing joy to people through music, she just didn't expect to do it in quite this way.

Jill Samycia started a singalong on the Burrard Chinook SeaBus route last weekend and a couple videos showing passengers harmonizing to Adele's "Someone Like You" has since garnered thousands of views online.

Metro Vancouver's transit provider, TransLink, posted two videos on TikTok, where a crowd of seated passengers can be heard singing along to the heartfelt ballad.

Samycia also posted a video to her TikTok "SingWithJill," where she describes the moment from her perspective.

"Not to sound cliché, but I'm still riding the high of it," she tells CTV News. "A singalong is just so pure and this was next level because I feel like we're all needing connection."

Like many things, TransLink's busker program was put on hold during the pandemic. But now it's back, with the main goal of entertaining transit users at various locations across Metro Vancouver.

"There has never been anything done on a SeaBus before so my nerves were pretty high, but it was amazing," says Samycia.

"Just to be able to see people's facial expressions…even with masks on, everybody was singing and it was just beautiful."

Samycia says initially she was a little worried that some commuters might not be happy about the singalong but the response took her by surprise.

"I was expecting some people to be not into it but there wasn't one grumpy person," she says.

Samycia came prepared with a list of eight songs to perform, kicking things off with "Happy" by Pharrell Williams and then moving on to tunes by Brian Adams, Dua Lipa and Carly Rae Jepsen.

But the Adele song was definitely the showstopper, she says.

"We did that (song) every run and I think I'm just now getting my voice back."

Samycia says she also placed lyric sheets on the seats so that even people who didn't know the lyrics would be able to follow along.

"We were just rocking it out," she says. "There were some older couples and you could see them following along together and kids and families and people running off to work…it was just magical."

As a vocal coach for 16 years, Samycia says this moment will stand out to her as one of the many highlights of her career, especially after a difficult couple of years.

"With the pandemic and not knowing what the landscape of arts and music was going to look like…I feel like there's now this sense of lightness and joy," she says.

"This is what I love to do and to be able to share that with people again and get that kind of response is amazing."

Samycia says some passengers didn't even want to get off the SeaBus once they arrived to their destination and ended up riding it back and forth.

"They had to get security guards to shuffle passengers off. People were wanting to stay on and they're not allowed to, so we were seeing them running back around and paying a second time just to ride it again," she says.

Some people even showed appreciation for the impromptu singalong by giving Samycia flowers.

"I got flowers and I even had some teenage boys coming up to me fist bumping me," she says.

Samycia hopes to perform on the SeaBus again.

"I've been getting messages on social media from people asking when it will happen again, so I'm hoping it could be something that can happen regularly."

 

@translink The cutest thing you’ll see all week 🥺 #seabus #vancouverbc #northvan ♬ original sound - TransLink