The cavernous vaulted ceilings of Christ Church Cathedral would be enough to intimidate any solo vocalist this side of the divine, but Grace Knight took the resplendence in her stride for the annual Newcastle Music Festival on Saturday night.
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If Knight's vocals betrayed the barest hint of timidity in the opening number - an upbeat four-bar-bluesy cover of Dinah Washington's Soft Winds that neatly served to introduce the packed house to her three-piece band (a timidity that Knight readily admitted afterwards) - it melted away quickly as she and her band settled into a slow burn 14-song set mingling smooth jazz standards with a touch of Irish folk and a couple of throwbacks to Knight's Eurogliders days.
By her third number - a cover of Peggy Lee's classic Fever - Knight was in her element and had her audience snapping along as she, by turns, belted the stonework with rock-solid high notes and filled the air with breathy improvised vocal scats.
Knight is a veteran live performer who worked her passage to Australia aboard a cruise liner from the UK in the late 1970s. She found fame as the vocalist and frontwoman for the indi-pop Eurogliders, releasing Heaven (Must be there) in 1984 to reach No. 2 on the Australian charts and 65 on the US Billboard Hot 100 of that year.
Since then, she has released a handful of solo albums, notably Stormy Weather in 1991 which showcased her talents for the standards, and Fragile in 2021 which leans toward the folk numbers.
Knight was in full swing by her fourth song at the weekend, calling back to the Eurogliders with Can't Wait to See You, before she was joined by the Cathedral's Camerata Quartet for a number of show-stoppers at the backend of the set.
The four-piece string ensemble - featuring Callail Rowley, David Banney, James Ferguson and Anthea Scott-Mitchell - stole the show accompanying Knight and the band for Sundown, a delicate and steady lament to the little things from her album Fragile, and Will You Wait, a similarly sentimental number in which Knight had the crowd singing along in an ethereal chorus that filled the cathedral to the ceilings and seeped into the stained glass.
Hugh Fraser was a standout on the double bass, with a handful of playful walks and licks complementing Knight's lyrical tones, and bouncing off Reginald Lemann's equally effortless brilliance on guitar with Darryn Farrugia's steady hand on the sticks steering the show from behind the drums.
Knight encored her performance with a rendition of Heaven which had the full house joining in for an a-capella chorus to resounding applause to close the set.
The Newcastle Music Festival concludes Sunday with classical guitarist Andrew Blanch performing Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, also at Christ Church Cathedral from 2.30pm, in the festival's finale.