MBS needed in Gospel shows

When I wrote about it three years ago I titled my toils ‘Sham Religious Choir Show’

 

My argument then was that it was day light robbery. It was looking all good on paper to have plenty artists playing on the same day, the same venue and coming one after the other... after the show it was all great dissatisfaction for the patrons.

My contention came in April of 2014 when in two subsequent weekends large turnout of both patrons and artists that include Ethel Kamwendo Banda, Favoured Martha, Kamuzu Singers, Great Angels Choir, The Marvellous Deeds, Ndirande Anglican voices, Peter Mlangeni, Limbani Simenti, Mlaka Maliro,  the Mighty POV and Thocco Katimba performed in three venues of Zomba, Blantyre and Lilongwe.

When I wrote about it at the time the organisers of the show – The Great Angels Choir – boasted that they had 850 patrons at Gymkhana Club in Zomba, 2500 at Robbins Park in Blantyre and 4,000 at ICA Marque in Lilongwe where each parted ways with K1000.

It therefore brings joy to me that two weekends before we hailed bye to the month of July proprietor of Chrichi Multipurpose Gardens in Chitawira, Blantyre, Wales Chakukuma organised a show that gospel star King James Phiri sandwiched by two top gospel groups in the country, The Great Angels Choir and Ndirande Anglican Voices performed before a crowd that appreciated the value of their money and time.

Chakukuma said the two groups and Phiri shared one Stage in order to run away from the tendency by most gospel concerts these days that have overcrowded line-ups that allow gospel acts to just perform a song each.

In his wisdom, people were going home disappointed all the time while on the other hand artists were compromising their performances.

Last time I attended such shows was three years ago that I talked about earlier and it was the Blantyre Show which was scheduled to run between 1 PM and 7PM, a six-hour marathon that was expected to excite the over 2500 patrons that jam-packed Robins Park.

One clear thing that I witnessed was that it was apparent that there was an overcrowding problem which caused no problem to the organisers whose only care was how much money they would be making by the end of the day.

The challenge that I witnessed then was that there were too many artists trying to squeeze into so little time that most of the performers gave the people a raw deal as they sounded tired and out of place and tune. While others literary played a single track with some extension that was meant to mean that they are doing something.

At that time I also observed the need to consider adding microphones when groups like Great Angels or Ndirande Anglican Voices are performing. The situation where four people had to share a single microphone was mocking the patrons to say the least. I don’t know what the situation was at the Chrichi Multipurpose Gardens this time round.

Just to prove my point that people have had a raw deal, Ndirande Anglican Voices’ lead vocalist Dennis Kalimbe admitted this time round that they have been lazy by not rehearsing before shows and were therefore challenged with this particular show.

The Great Angels Choir’s music director Ephraim Zonda also felt challenged and acknowledged that it is clear that people want these shows with few performing artists.

I would add that people did not feel short-changed this time round where gospel shows have been one way of stealing from them by giving them half baked performances.

The challenge that we have is that the Malawi Bureau of Standards (MBS) does not think it’s important to standardise these performances. Talk of even some of the albums that are released unto the market for consumers, they leave a lot to be desired.