I’ve been keeping my head down lately, and before I resume my hibernation I would like to express some of my thoughts on tonight’s concert.
The turnout for a start was fantastic. It was nearly full to capacity. I noticed some people were sitting on seats at the side but this may have been their choice, because seats with a centre viewpoint were full almost going to the back. There were VIP’s in the audience tonight. The mayor and lady mayor decked in their gold bling were sitting a few rows in front of me with the minister. From what I could see they appeared to be very impressed by the youngsters from South London.
The community word obviously did a good job getting more locals into Beverley Minster than what we saw at Chester. When I turned up there was already a decent queue forming alongside the railings. The weather wasn't the best either. They let us in at 7pm and the crowd just kept coming in. It was probably 85% full by the time the lights went down. It’s nice they (libera) can turn out a decent gathering ‘up north’. The ‘southerners’ were just about to claim all rights to them lol
The singing was exceptional I thought tonight. It was right up there as one of the best I’ve attended. The dictation and maybe it was down to the speaker setup, seemed on the button. Some parts of Chester sounded a little soft and not of the same clarity. Tonight was near perfection so maybe that’s a big cheer to the sound technicians!
I won’t go into detail on every song, but the overall concert was performed without too many glitches and off key notes. I couldn’t really detect any to be honest. I think Mathew missed one of his ‘aah-aahs’ on Stay with me (the bit we saw Liam do on Leiden DVD) because I could see Robert pick up on it and he made a point of catching his attention the next time.
Deep Peace was my favourite tonight in terms of the whole choir nailing it. Stefan’s solo was exceptional and the harmonies were interwoven as one. It was pretty much a flawless execution.
Even Far Away (which in my opinion is a song that takes no prisoners, and leaves little margin for error) was performed very well. Ralph did a lot of work during the first half with quite a few solo’s and assisted solos. I detected a little nerve during Fountain, but now it’s been mentioned he was not feeling very well, it’s all the more admirable that he sung the way he did.
I think they could have brightened the spotlight more on Stefan during his solo on Mysterium. I didn’t see him standing up near were the organ was until the second verse. I noticed other people in the audience were wondering were the sound was coming from too. I think his microphone cut out a little on his first ‘aaah-haaa’ and this caused Mr Prizeman a little concern when his magic wand conducting wasn’t getting the usual response. Things were quickly sorted out and Stefan was strong, loud and clear on the last part of the song. There was lengthy instrumental link into Gloria too, as they had to wait for them to return from above to join the other boys on stage. This was the one song which I appreciated more at Chester because of Stefan walking down the centre aisle and being called to by the boys.
Carlos came across confident and with more clarity for his solo on Ave Verum compared to Chester. Stefan and Jacob combined well with How Shall I Sing That Majesty. This and Exsultate were obvious crowd pleasers down to their rousing finale. A little nod in Josh’s direction too. He’s now down to one solo for Time and despite being 16 and having solo assistance from Ralph & Sammy (I think) you could still hear him clearly in his trademark voice. It’s lower no doubt, but it’s still uniquely him. Congrats to him for still being able to sing solo in a treble dominated setup.
The Speeches were very good once again, all the boys got applauded. Cassius got a few laughs when he said he finds being in Libera ‘really amazing’ giving the audience two thumbs up and a big cheeky smile.
So that’s it! I’ve had my fill of concerts over the past few years and it’s finished with a good ‘un. I will pop in now and again and keep myself updated, and share anything I find that’s libera related.
I’ll leave you with one of the new pictures from the program tonight…
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