★★★★☆ TION gives their clean style of ballad singing to elegant arrangements.

St. Peter’s Cathedral
February 13, 2016

For six consecutive years, the a capella group, The Idea of North, has performed Ballads by Candlelight at the Adelaide Fringe in St. Peter’s Cathedral and while it’s not an institution to the extent that it rivals the cricket at neighbouring Adelaide Oval, the capacity crowd and the throng of people at the door at 7.30pm to get the best seats confirm that it’s here to stay. TION has undergone some renovation since I saw this show last year. Founding member and musical director Naomi Crellin has returned from maternity leave and the quartet is currently a quintet with Victorian tenor Ed Fairlie joining the group for its recent Christmas tour. Going by the group’s website, Ed isn’t rusted on to the group yet, but given the beefed-up sound and variety he adds to the performance, they would be unwise to cut him loose.

TION straddle the pop and jazz categories and the set they performed highlights the variety within their repertoire noting that this is about to be expanded by a new album, simply entitled Ballads. Beginning without Fairlie – who didn’t appear until three songs in – Crellin and stalwarts Andrew Piper, Nick Begbie and Sally Cameron began curiously by transporting me back to my pink flares with The Bee Gees’ Nobody Gets Too Much Heaven No More. The German love song Roslein Auf der Heiden was followed by a triple dose of Jack O’Hagen (Josie and Me, Blue Rhythm, Stolen Kisses in the Moonlight) exhumed for Barry Humphries’ Peter and Jack show for last year’s Cabaret Festival.

Bassman Piper, often left to provide the Bobby McFerrin beat that underpins his colleague’s voices, got to perform his own cheery tribute to “Mondayitis”, One Minute More, while Begbie also got to show off with Tim Minchin‘s F sharp – defiantly remaining a semitone above. The group’s clean style of ballad singing and the elegant arrangements lend themselves to standards and Gershwin’s But Not for Me, Legrand’s Windmills of the Mind and Fairlie’s arrangement of My One and Only Love were impressive. The marquis moment (as with last year’ s show) was with the passionate take on Jo Lawry’s I Said No – noting the composer (who sings backup for Sting and performs her own show next weekend) was in the audience hearing this treatment for the first time. The group had the chutzpah to perform a mock Gregorian chant, but the bold attempt to extract the rock from Cold Chisel’s Flame Trees was less successful.

Finishing sans microphones with Sinead O’Connor’s In the Hut, TION laid the foundation once again for a return gig next year. Indeed, given that Crellin and Cameron are locals, and the wry connection with their large following here, they may need to risk the ire of Glenn Gould devotees and change their name so that the compass points in the opposite direction.