Bishop shuts down concert

[tobee]

I can't see a thread already on this, but am I the only one 😱?!

From Sky

https://news.sky.com/story/this-is-a-terrible-racket-bishop-in-dressing-gown-interrupts-church-concert-and-asks-crowd-to-leave-my-house-13402383

Given they have admitted they were overrunning and yet still did another song and took an age to leave I think it's quite obvious the bookers were CF'ers.

People are staggeringly rude when hiring a space. They want it for a 2 hour event yet also want to book it just for the 2 hours as paying for set up and clear up is "too expensive". Then it's fine to overrun because the key holder that night only lives over the road, zero respect for the fact they're up early in the morning.
Our village hall has had to add on a ridiculous charge for overrunning bookings to get people to take their end time seriously.

They’d booked it for an extra hour.

In fact from experience they’ll have had it for most of the day for a band call/tech rehearsal too.

Exactly! Our hirers usually turn up early afternoon, rehearse, have a break and then perform.

This particular choir pay for professional musiciansto accompany them.

I have quite a strong feeling, having watched the video, that His Grace was right about it being a terrible racket.

A bit harsh to chuck everyone out early - if it was early - but surely a perk of being a bishop is that you can call a stop to cacophonic amateur singers in your church?

People need to conduct themselves properly in a place of worship (or other building connected to it) whatever the religion

Good point, he should’ve put some trousers on and spoken discreetly to the organiser.

Your personal, subjective opinion on the quality of singing is irrelevant. It was a private hire by a well known performing arts organisation who regularly hold concerts in church venues throughout London.

I’ve heard some apalling church & community choirs in my time. But the joy and pleasure singing brings outweighs that.

I think "His Grace" (not very graceful by any definition of the word) should have treated the amateur choir who HIRED the church with a bit more warmth and and sensitivity. Wouldn't this put all of them (and their family and guests) off christianity/church of england?

Also...bishops are there to serve not treat their flock with contempt.

I agree that it’s not very Christian to refer to the singing as a dreadful racket. Which I’m sure it wasn’t.

Yeah, very fair. I wouldn’t want to be listening to a capella ABBA on a Saturday night on Holborn, but that doesn’t matter.

Still, it’s not every day you see a grumpy bishop in his dressing gown throwing a choir and musicians out of a church with some gnarly words. So I’m still on Team Bishop.

The choir will have been rehearsing all term. Their friends & family were watching. It will have meant something to them.

if the Bishop didn’t want it in his house the church should not have taken the booking in the first place.

What a lovely response.

If the choir wanted somewhere they could book for later they should have found one.

Where in Christianity does it say you need to lie about dreadful rackets?

Wow

Good grief. They need to ask for their money back. The violinist you can hear in the video clip is dreadful.

Not in my stripe of Catholicism, which involves a congregation of four elderly women muttering responses under their breath, generally slightly ahead of the priest.

Did you listen to the video??

I've mentioned before on MN that I used to know a very tall powerfully built man who did that very thing. Early hours of the morning. Walked into the house opposite, knew where the fusebox was as it was the same layout as his house, cut off all the electricity, walked out again. Good for him.

Nor mine.
None of the Catholic churches where I live would allow concerts of the type this choir performed either. Classical concerts, religious music etc. but not Dancing Queen type repertoire with amplifiers, dancing in the aisles and so on.

If the bishop doesn't want concerts like this going on in "his house" he can introduce rules about the type of event that is allowed.

It was supposed to finish at 930 and had overrun by nearly an hour so not unreasonable to say it needed to finish, but there was no need to call it a terrible racket . Possibly the bishops home attaches to the church so it was his house in that sense?

It was supposed to finish at 930 and had overrun by nearly an hour

Not according to the post I'm quoting. There seems to have been some confusion.

The concert didn't start until 8pm. There is no way it was supposed to finish by 9.30pm.

I find some of the people on here mocking an amateur choir singing musical theatre repertoire quite nasty.

It’s very reminiscent of a dad coming down to tell a teenage child’s friends to leave after they’d being playing records* too late and larking around

*or whatever the modern equivalent is