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Music: GALS Food and Wine concert

Mon 26 Jun 2006 In: Music View at Wayback View at NDHA

GALS Food and Wine concert Centennial Theatre On Friday night a large and loving audience gobbled up a food and wine theme concert given by GALS, the Gay and Lesbian Singers, relishing a smorgasbord of sounds, some tasty, some creamy and some downright saucy (well, I never knew that's what Shirley Temple meant by 'landing on a chocolate bar'!). The overall flavour was, of course, fruity. There were a couple of halfbaked moments - we weren't sure if they were ever going to get to Strawberry Fair (maybe the pianist needed a bit more baking powder) and the 'dings' and the 'dongs' far out-chimed the words in Oranges and Lemons. But you've got to love a choir as generous as this one - they gave us prize-winning chocolate cake free at the interval! The gals gave us a honey-dripping rendition of Sugartime while the guys got all worked up about Drink, Drink, Drink (Thomas and Frank in particular, and didn't we lap it up). The sopranos certainly enjoyed Food, Glorious Food, while the basses and tenors frothed over at that good ole Java Jive. Pizza Pizza used an old Italian melody to poke some fun at the local pizza wars and an overly elaborate polka pean to coffee ended the show; oh, not quite, unlike Oliver we got more - the Banana Boat Song. And music was indeed the food of love when it sounded as delicious as GALS' versions of Wild Mountain Thyme and a wordless Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy (hmmm, I think I spotted some in the audience). Local songsmith David Hamilton contributed a couple of tasy tidbits - I Ate Too Much was an especially droll morsel. Pierre the chef ('Wee, le chef!') provided just the right amount of scene setting (and scene stealing) and I understand that underneath the floppy hat and ferocious greasepaint moustache we have the sherry-dry David Steemson to thank for that. I preferred their aprons in the second half to their elderly boy scout look in the first, and having left the muffled acoustic of their previous venue behind it was such a pleasure to hear them, really hear them. This was a smooth, fingerlicking good mixture, with kudos to Stephen Bowness and Margaret Robertson for helping GALS show they have all the ingredients to cook up a concert all by themselves. And if like Oliver you want more (I know we did), there's another serving coming up in mid November. John Curry - 26th June 2006    

Credit: John Curry

First published: Monday, 26th June 2006 - 12:00pm

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