The Manama Singers Summer Concert & Karaoke Session, Blue Moon Marquee, Dilmun Club
The Manama Singers put on their most dazzling show in their 50-year history with a fun-filled sizzling summer concert.
Members of the group donned flowery frocks and Hawaiian shirts to ensure the spirit of the occasion was clear to see.
A packed audience filled the Blue Moon Marquee which, perhaps surprisingly, proved perfect acoustically, as well as offering the ideal setting for the less formal frolics and a singalong programme of classic songs.
Musical director Jo Diciolla led the Singers with powerful panache and the first couple of numbers, namely California Dreamin’ and Brown-eyed Girl, gave a taste of what was to come.
As announced earlier in the GDN, the Singers’ pianist Tom Matthias, a British music teacher at Nadeen School, was offered a few solo spots and it was clear that they have an exceptional talent on their hands that needs to be utilised.
However, at times the show felt disjointed with the Singers stood silent on stage when they could have injected a few chorus vocals to some of the superb tinkling of the ivories, particularly Yesterday credited to ‘Lennon-McCartney’.
The song was written solely by Beatle Paul and remains popular today with more than 2,200 cover versions. In fact it’s one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded music and it cried out for a Manama Singers vocal.
The famed ‘wall of sound’ came to the fore, however, with You’ll Never Walk Alone with the Singers doing the Anfield Kop proud on this occasion; all that was lacking was Mo Salah flying down the wing with a plate of prawn crackers.
To encourage the audience to participate, the lyrics to the programme of songs were displayed in hi-tech style on big screens inside the tented venue.
The night carried on in style as the audience and the Singers let down their hair to enjoy an end-of-show karaoke session hosted by Double J – namely Jared and Jessa – with some pop classics crushed … but, by that time, even the knobbly-knees escaping the summer shorts could not fail to hit the high notes.
– Stanley Szecowka