They couldn’t decide on a name, so this collective of procrastinators decided on the obvious: The Procrastinators. But their performance spoke nothing of this. This was a capella, gospel and pop, sung by a dozen or so out of the hotbed of the Strange Weather Gospel Choir. That’s good. They were missing some memebrs, and this was a very short concert, but it was lively and demonstrative and nicely sung. On the day, they were 11 singers: 3 altos; 2 each of bass and tenor; 4 sopranos. From the top you could feel the joy and energy. They moved! It’s done in gospel choirs, but forgotten by others. They featured voices: several tunes with male calls or solo female melodies. They grooved with boop-sha accompaniments. They smiled and made little indicative hand movements, pointing or waving or rocking. Interestingly, they all wore black with a crimson feature: some obvious, like ties or braces or flowers or necklaces, or more suggestively, like headscarves or even crimson lipstick. I liked that. It’s not surprising that the guys wore the ties and the forthright and dramatic altos wore the lipstick. They were fun. But that’s not all, they sounded great. Various gospel tunes, slave-hollers and field responses; pop songs like Under the boardwalk and Hallelujah and a joyful favourite of mine, Walking on sunshine. A suite of African/South African songs from Soweto and the apartheid era. It’s here the audience joined in with claps and some piercing ullulation. Then to end, a tune that worked as art and drama but didn’t appeal to me for its theological individualist self-flagellation, Nobody’s fault but mine, and that cutesy Goodnight sweetheart to finish. This was a lovely little concert and I was chuckling during it and broadly smiling by the end. At least until I found my recording had failed after I’d brought a camera without an SD card. So, just a nasty phone pic. All that’s left is a lively gospel-tinged memory. The Procrastinators are an SATB a capella choir conducted as an autonomous collective (True! They confirmed it. Really…) and introduced by Liz Keirs.
04 February 2013
We all procrastinate
They couldn’t decide on a name, so this collective of procrastinators decided on the obvious: The Procrastinators. But their performance spoke nothing of this. This was a capella, gospel and pop, sung by a dozen or so out of the hotbed of the Strange Weather Gospel Choir. That’s good. They were missing some memebrs, and this was a very short concert, but it was lively and demonstrative and nicely sung. On the day, they were 11 singers: 3 altos; 2 each of bass and tenor; 4 sopranos. From the top you could feel the joy and energy. They moved! It’s done in gospel choirs, but forgotten by others. They featured voices: several tunes with male calls or solo female melodies. They grooved with boop-sha accompaniments. They smiled and made little indicative hand movements, pointing or waving or rocking. Interestingly, they all wore black with a crimson feature: some obvious, like ties or braces or flowers or necklaces, or more suggestively, like headscarves or even crimson lipstick. I liked that. It’s not surprising that the guys wore the ties and the forthright and dramatic altos wore the lipstick. They were fun. But that’s not all, they sounded great. Various gospel tunes, slave-hollers and field responses; pop songs like Under the boardwalk and Hallelujah and a joyful favourite of mine, Walking on sunshine. A suite of African/South African songs from Soweto and the apartheid era. It’s here the audience joined in with claps and some piercing ullulation. Then to end, a tune that worked as art and drama but didn’t appeal to me for its theological individualist self-flagellation, Nobody’s fault but mine, and that cutesy Goodnight sweetheart to finish. This was a lovely little concert and I was chuckling during it and broadly smiling by the end. At least until I found my recording had failed after I’d brought a camera without an SD card. So, just a nasty phone pic. All that’s left is a lively gospel-tinged memory. The Procrastinators are an SATB a capella choir conducted as an autonomous collective (True! They confirmed it. Really…) and introduced by Liz Keirs.
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