Salvation Army Carol Concert (2025)

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For reasons that I can’t recall, we haven’t been to the annual Carol Concert here at The Citadel, Kettering for the past couple of years – and it was good to be back! 👍

It’s not that we haven’t been at all, as we saw their excellent performance of The Messiah back here in April. With two Carol performances on offer today, we chose the latter – the 5pm Service in preference to 2.30pm.

In the years that have passed since we last attended this Christmas staple, a lot has remained the same, whilst elsewhere, things were very different. On arrival, the Choir was already in full voice (we initially thought we were late!), acting as a ‘warm up’ before the main event. A nice touch! 👍👍

Other changes include the important news that The Citadel now has two new Leaders – Captain David & Kate Donaldson – who arrived earlier this year from Australia. And with new leadership often comes with new thinking, and that was certainly the case with the look and feel of this year’s annual Carol Service. Those expecting the familiar routine of Readings/Carols/Nativity Scene/Collection/Prayers would be delighted, but much of it was all about to be offered in a different style.

It was good to see the Mayor of Kettering, Ben Jameson, attending, but unlike the Carol Service at St P and St Paul’s that we attended last week, there was no sign of any other VIPs! 🤔. A bit of a shame that! 😕

Although, as I mentioned earlier, there were some differences tonight, some aspects have remained the same in those intervening years. The Citadel Brass Band, under the experienced baton of Richard Phillips, were as professional as ever. In fact, their sound felt even bigger and fuller tonight (even though the number of band members seemed largely unchanged). An impressive sound that would (and should) have been heard as far away as Wellingborough, Welford, Harborough and Huntingdon! I seemed to recall that Richard had ‘retired’ a few years back, and so it was good to see and hear the fruits of his (returning) labour.

No Salvation Army Christmas Concert would be complete without their singers – and tonight there was even more variety. The Songsters were as enjoyable as we remember them, whilst the Army’s own Junior Choir were exceptional. Additionally, later in the performance, there was a small group of younger members of the Kettering Salvation Army, all dressed in white, and whose voices harmonised exceptionally well – as close to angelic as you could get! 😇🪽. Derek Wears, a staple of past performances (and who played at our wedding) provided piano accompaniment to the majority of the vocal arrangements, where, as usual, he made it all look so easy and effortless. Finally, in a concession to more modern musical tastes, it was good to see the humble Bass Guitar ‘front and centre’ during one song tonight! 👍

Another firm fixture was plenty of Carols, most of which were familiar to us. With tongues firmly in their cheek, the new Captains had arranged something a little quirky (probably the first public rendition in Kettering of the well-known alternative lyrics of ‘While Shepherds Watched their Flocks…’ (think ‘socks’). As the words appeared on the overhead screen, it seemed to take a while for our fellow audience members to spot that they were slightly different lyrics! 😀😀

A big part of these Concerts is the ‘message’, and both David and Kate had a very different style to those who we’ve seen in previous years. ‘Miked up’, they walked the stage and were fairly animated both physically and vocally – and as a result, no-one was sleeping on their watch! 😲. The differences continued as audience involvement became the priority. Maybe it was just me, but the threat of David ‘offering’ to wander about with a handheld ‘mic’ to check whether we were all singing, felt more like a threat than a motivator. Luckily, for everyone else present, he never made it to where I was warbling! 🥴

The desire to involve the audience as much as possible continued, including a request to look for the animals from the Nativity underneath our seats (yes, really!) A nice touch, but I’m not sure the whole congregation ‘got it’. The Captains certainly worked hard to ‘wow’ the audience, but I just had a small feeling, to them, we were ‘a tough crowd’ 😕

Elsewhere, in the continued attempt to offer something ‘different’, we had an unfamiliar take on the familiar Nativity Scene. Instead of the familiar sight of legions of cute children assuming the major roles (and sometimes playing the animals too) we had ADULTS in the key roles. For me, the sight of a couple of pensioners taking the role of Joseph and Mary didn’t quite do it for me, although it was certainly different (if a little long). For added sound effects, asking the audience to make the sound of the animals (and also asking for the Band’s assistance) on paper, sounded like a great way to get everyone included, but I’m not sure all of the audience were in a mooing mood. The result wasn’t exactly a coordinated cacophony of creature sounds! To complete the animal involvement, even though most of us know that any creatures in the stable is further embellishment of the Christmas Story, it was good to see that David & Kate had brought a little piece of Australia with them – in the form of a Koala Bear (an inflatable one, naturally!) 😂🤣😂🤣. Ozzy humour at its best!

Ninety minutes later, it was all over for another year. It had certainly been a unique take on a familiar event. For this increasingly crusty old bloke, whilst it hit the mark musically, some of the more innovative approaches to boost audience interaction didn’t quite do it for me – although looking around, it certainly did for others! 👍👎

Innovations aside, part of tonight was about raising money for those in need. Good news then! This, the 5pm performance, raised a generous £641 and was on par, I think, with previous years. When added to the earlier performance, it totalled a heartwarming £1300, to help continue the good work by the Salvation Army in Kettering.

So, all in all, there was a lot to like about tonight, but for me, some of the innovations didn’t quite land. Someone, pass the humbugs! 😂😂