Performance: Harlem Gospel Choir

Holy Trinity Cathedral

Review: Heath Lees


Gridlock traffic around the cathedral meant that the large audience was still piling in way after the stated starting time.

Still, it was comfortable inside. The lights had been dimmed and Fats Domino's early hit I'm Walkin' played amiably through the speakers, reminding everyone how to avoid parking hassles in the future.

Most of those who came to the performance were clearly fully paid-up, hallelujah-brother gospel fans already.

They were quickly swaying, clapping and shouting to this music that whispers self-abasement on the ground one moment, then leaps up loudly to the skies the next.

Up front, the choir numbers five sisters, three brothers, a fabulous quartet of instrumentalists and a preacher-man, who asks us at the end of every song if we're having a good time.

Yes, we say.

He mentions Jesus and New Zealand, and off we go into the next song.

Of course, what we've come for is the music, and they know how to serve it up.

From the opening, bouncy This Little Light of Mine through the frantic joy of He Lifted Me to a sweet, impressionistic version of the world's most famous spiritual, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, the music blessed itself and danced with huge energy and 200 per cent commitment.

Even Shenandoah got the gospel treatment, making a sea-song sound like a prayer.

One of the sisters could hold a coloratura top F without apoplexy (the power of the Spirit) and the keyboards player moved behind a microphone to throw a long, introductory cadenza to Sing Hallelujah that had everyone in the audience spellbound.

The message may have been old-time religion, but the repertoire had been spruced up for the new age. Even John Lennon was deified in All You Need is Love.

And no one could resist tapping a secular foot or two in I Believe I Can Fly.

Predictably, the show-stopper was Amazing Grace, which fitted the evening superbly.

Gospel singing may not be traditionally graceful, or even subtle but, brother, its energy is truly amazing.