An Evening of Gospel Music

The 2^nd Gospel Music Fest was organized at Garcia da Orta by Henry Music Café to mark 26 years of its foundation on the 12^th of October 2016. It was a nice evening with pleasant weather and a decent crowd. The stage was well lit up and the sound system was a bit too ostentatious in my reckoning. The organization could have done with better planning and coordination. Projectors and screens were set up but were sparsely used. Too many performers were called up to entertain in a short span of time and this led to a lot of time being wasted on set up and sound checking. Besides the regular changes led to a loss of momentum and meant that the audience had to make another laborious wait. Some of the groups did do justice to the opportunity given to them while the others served merely as entertainment.

Chrystal and Sancho gave the crowd a wonderful performance. Chrystal had powerful vocals and a honey-dipped voice; combined with Sancho’s skills on the keyboard, the duo were fantastic.

Prior to them was a solo performance which I almost entirely missed and hence can’t comment upon.

Braz Gonsalves and family put on a great show as well. It was the first time I heard brass music live and I was impressed especially by the fact that Braz’s young grandson’s took the stage and delivered the goods.

The Band of Priests fell far short of the expectations I had of them. They seemed totally unprofessional and were constantly casting anxious glances at one another which a keen observer like me was quick to pounce on. There were quite a few mistimed and delayed entries, uncertainty with regard to the ending and such like. A song that they composed however went very well and they managed to get the crowd to jiggle along with them. Besides they did another action song that was also appreciated although the verses didn’t come out strongly.

The Slipping Chairs from Sri Lanka were perhaps the stars of the night for me. They took an awful lot of time to set up but once they began I didn’t want them to stop. Their vocalist had the looks and voice of David Cook and their music was pretty good and strong. The lead guitarist had talent but lacked any rockstar punch. The other band members did well to put on a good show. I don’t know whether the rest of the audience liked them as the majority were people above the age of 35.  

Brothers In Arms were another flop. Their female vocalist was the only one to look out for besides the drummer but they couldn’t pull them through. They came across as regular musicians with nothing special to offer.

Faith closed up the night with their rocking performance. It was the case of the best kept for last as despite the late hour, they still managed to get everyone on their feet dancing and singing praises to the Lord.

The emcee for the evening was tolerable and came across as unprofessional and casual. He could have done a better job. The breaks between groups could also have been covered up with some animation. A Towards the end, video songs were being played during such breaks but they weren’t well scheduled.

I appreciate the initiative and the concept of getting people to come and praise God through music. I would look forward to having such evenings on a weekly or fortnightly basis although of a shorter duration and with better planning. This is something that can and must be promoted particularly by parishes as they are a good way of giving people an opportunity to be exposed to gospel music, a platform to express their talents for God’s glory and a way of bringing the Christian community together to praise and worship God in a different way.