A Soul Celebration

Have we begun a new-wave of Motown, soul and disco again? One would think so with the recent sold-out season of Velvet, which featured songs from the iconic era, and now the QPAC Choir getting into the act with their annual concert saluting the same genres.

Lending their voices to Forever Motown (“Dancing in the Street”/”Reach Out and I’ll Be There”/”Back in my Arms Again”), Queen of Soul - Aretha Franklin (“Think”/”I Say a Little Prayer”/”Respect”), and Disco Fever (“Stayin’ Alive”/”Disco Inferno”/”Turn the Beat Around”), the choir, dressed in tops in a variety of primary colours, gyrated, waved their arms about and sang with infectious gusto reliving the period.

Special guest was U.S. born, but Byron Bay based, Lisa Hunt, an Afro-American pub-diva who certainly knows how to work an audience. Putting her stamp on “River Deep, Mountain High”,  “Proud Mary” and “I Will Survive”, she continually had them eating out of her hand.

Accompaniment throughout was by the Soul Celebration Band, a 9-piece group of some of Brisbane’s best musicians. They took a solo turn in the spotlight with the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back”, which pushed the ‘smokin’ hot’ button to the max.

On his concert platform choirmaster Timothy Sherlock was again a show unto himself. His legendary pelvis-thrust moves were twofold. They were one of the highlights of the performance. The others were the Choir’s Chamber Ensemble a-cappela version of Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” and a quintet of Griffith graduating Bachelor of Musical Theatre students who opened the program with a rafter-raising “One Night Only” from Dreamgirls.

Peter Pinne