Right from the moment when I was asked to do this till the very moment that I managed to settle for an event to attend, all I knew was I was spoiled for choice. It is a fact that I couldn’t evade noting, the city is ‘noisy’ and kind of swimming in a body of activities most of which involve music played either by disk jockeys or live bands. From the specific instructions, I attended a live concert in the city and until I had caught up with the mood of the arena, I had not realized whatever it is that I missed before my arrival.
This was a gospel concert hence the whole event comprised a variety of bands and singers from different churches some from the city and others from a far. The event took place on the 24th of September and the venue was a church hall within the city. Due to the fact that it comprised a number of performances by different individuals, the great feel of diversity in the genres is what made the evening more flowery and over-glowing. The featuring band was the host church’s band, ‘The Potter’s House Band’ this implies, the Potter’s House Mass Choir was the main team that rocked the audience the whole night in an awesome of moment of lifting higher praises to God.
Apart form the church’s choir, there were others like the fighting temptation as well as other solo artists like Damita and Deitrick Haddon, Darwin Hobbs and Mary Mary just too mention but a few. A number of songs were also done for instance the Potter’s House Choir began the whole concert with R.Kelly’s Storm is Over in the slow rock style version. The other songs that rocked the crowd were, It all Belongs to You and I’ve got a praise which were done by Damita Haddon and Deitrick respectively. From the above brief description, I also would like to add that the two latter songs were both composed by Deitrick while the Mass choir began the event with R. Kelly’s original composition. A part from the few songs that I have mentioned above, a number of the others which were performed during the event were not he original compositions of the artists instead, most of them were twisted/altered versions of some worship songs and hymns done in the early 80s. This implies the concert comprised both the original and cover set-pieces/songs.
The music was simply ecstatic and extremely involving, one would not evade dancing and nodding to the precious piano tunes and drum beats as they changed and flowed smoothly form one genre to the other. I’ve never seen such a diverse showcase, there were songs done in the reggae style, slow and first rock as well as punk. The music comprised an impressive combination of bold percussive instruments, a well controlled fugue as well as a balanced set of all the wind instruments one would ever think of. It was done with the full application of all the technical skills hence it entailed all the cohesiveness, harmony and well coordinated timing. The music was simply awesome and offered just the right accompaniment for the great vocalists we had in the hall that evening.
The audience too was huge; there seemingly had been great publicity prior to the event. Despite the fact that the blacks made the bigger percentage of the audience, I can say it was homogenous since there were people form other races and classes too. At the same time, there were adults and youths as well as a few kids who probably had accompanied their parents to the concert. With music that sweet and tempting, the crowd remained active almost throughout the event; save for a few moments when people had to cool down for a word of exhortation or something else. The people that made the audience were generally responsive and this they showed by the lifting up of hands, shouting, screaming and of course singing along. Since the concert took place in a hall with good ventilation and an appropriately raised podium, the venue had no much influence to the audience in that it added to the success. On the other hand, since the hall had no walls, the cold slightly interfered with the concentration of those near the edges but this was later corrected by an efficient air conditioner and temperature controller.
