Hosanna! Music, Lionel Petersen - Rejoice Africa

Reviewed by Andy Cooper

This is the first time this unique event from South Africa in 1993 has been made available on DVD. Lionel Petersen leads the worship, with top musicians such as Justo Almario on sax, Abraham Laboriel on bass and Alex Acuna on percussion, and an enormous choir made up of virtually all races of South Africans. Despite this, and despite the title, it's not particularly African in feel or in style. For that you should check out the Sounds Of Blackness or Ladysmith Black Mambazo, both from the same era. Talking of the era, you just can't help cringing at the mullet hair styles and loud Hawaiian shirts on display here. The production is not exactly big budget: no video trickery, limited camera angles, a standard viewing format (not wide-screen), few lighting effects and quite a flat un-dynamic audio mix. But then that means less distraction from the music, the worship and the performance. And there are still some spine tingling moments, such as Bev Turner's rendition of "Behold The Lamb": perhaps the only song featured here which can, almost 15 years on, be filed as a classic. A couple of video extras are thrown in: interviews with some of the band, telling of how impacting the concert was for them personally. Worth checking out...if you don't object to late '80s fashion.