Solent City Chorus hosted a sparkling summer concert at Portchester Methodist Church on 19 th July. The guys were thrilled to welcome back the Queen Bees from Southampton as their special guests; the ladies were on great form and kept the near-full house entertained with their combination of wonderful singing and lots of humour.

The evening also saw a terrific performance from Autumn Gold, a quartet drawn from within Solent City, and featuring Bob, Julian, Ian and Kevin. Both the songs they sang were arrangements by members of the chorus – “When you say nothing at all”, arranged by Peter Mumford, and “In my room”, arranged by Julian Church. A remarkable tribute to the talent in the chorus.

As for the chorus itself, the comedy number “Blew by you”, featuring Philip Davies (aka the Portsmouth Pavarotti), brought the house down as always. But there was also a huge roar of appreciation for our first public performance of “Paralysed”, an old Elvis number. With several of the guys launching into their own version of the notorious Elvis hip gyrations, there was general relief when we reached the end of the song with no limbs dislocated! Lots of fun, great enjoyment – and with the after-glow continuing in the local pub afterwards.