A peculiar concert

Sublime Gracia Band is a Christian band from the state of Texas, United States. The group considers itself, above all, a group of admirers of the Lord and his exploits both on Earth and in Heaven.

It is the fifth time that the American group performs a concert in Peru.

By Camila Mandujano

A Christian band performs at the Good News Church in Lurigancho at eight at night. It consists of a vocalist and four musicians. The pastor gives us more information about the concert and an hour before I am in front of the congregation.

The space is small (a capacity of less than one hundred), but the number of empty chairs seems otherwise. Those in charge of the event are arranging the small stage, as well as the lights and musical instruments. They test the projector, which reflects a vague image of the Church logo that does not take up the entire wall.

The pastor tells me that the five of them are waiting for time in a nearby room and invites me to be part of the experience. It is a room surrounded by bone-colored walls and white chairs in which the artists are having a kind of snack before the show. Cookies, brownies and alfajores are the desserts that catch my attention the most.

It's eight o'clock and the band goes into action before an audience of no more than eighty people. They are punctual with the time and don't take a second to start playing.

The lights mix between green, blue, purple and pink; and the enthusiasm is growing. The projector strives to reflect not only the logo of the congregation, but also the lyrics of each song they present.

The joy of the public is evident; However, melancholic news breaks through the crowd: the guitarist announces that one of his children died two years ago. The statement is not sudden, as it relates to the lyrics of the last song, death and moving forward after a loss.

And that is not the only particular event of the night. Later, the vocalist invites a part of the audience to the stage. The sound engineer lowers the volume of the music and the leader asks them to kneel to say a prayer. And in the middle of the concert, the prayer is performed by the vocalist who curiously is also a pastor (I end up finding out right at that moment).

Some live passionately in the moment because of the tears that fall from their cheeks, others just wait for the dynamic to end to continue with the show. The truth is that I have never seen anything like it at a concert in my twenty years of existence.

And, by the way, more than twenty songs are what the band offers before ending with a small and last prayer. It is ten o'clock and, as if it were a mass, it is the same band that invites the people present to go in peace.

However, with camera in hand, I refuse to abide by the ruling. “The post-concert must have even more peculiar occurrences” I say in my mind. And the idea of ​​an interview to enrich what I experienced begins to take shape in my subconscious.