Ballads by candlelight caused the odd swoon, but needed more naughty and less nice.

St. Peter’s Cathedral, Adelaide
March 14, 2015

Despite arriving at St. Peter’s at 7:28pm for an 8:00 pm show to find a queue longer than the lineup for a beer at the Adelaide Oval, I procured a seat where my view wasn’t blocked by the Cathedral’s mighty pillars to settle down to a spiritual evening of fine accapella singing from Australia’s foremost exponents of the art.

The Idea of North (or TION) is 22 years-old and founding members bass Andrew Piper, tenor Nick Begbie in company with soprano Sally Cameron and “deputy alto” Joy Hague filling in for Naomi Crellin showed why the group has endured, with a program of eclectic ballads from Sting (Fragile, The Pirate’s Bribe), Joni Mitchell (Both Sides Now), Randy Newman (I Think It’s Going to Rain Today) mixed seamlessly with originals including Crellin’s Thou Shalt and even some Michael Leunig poetry set to music by Begbie (Let it Ring, The Truth). Cameron and Hague are Marryatville High alumni and paid tribute to fellow alumnus member Jo Lawrie now backup singer for Sting by performing her heart wrenching I Said No.

The audience applauded and swooned. However, perhaps it was the stained glass and the candles or the procession of “slit your wrist” material as Hague joked, but I began to feel 30 minutes in that I was attending a service rather than a concert and longed for some irreverence to break that spell. Yes, it was a family show in a church, but the lengthy intros combined with the sombre material made me ponder whether the highly intellectual introspective Canadian radio show that celebrated splendid isolation and from which the group got its name was exerting too much influence.

TION has done a gospel album and covered Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder and a couple of foot tapping songs would have been welcome light relief and completely appropriate celebration. Still, TION’s ballad show is becoming an Adelaide Fringe fixture so maybe I can look forward to more naughty and less nice next year.

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