Crowds go wild for Soweto Entsha

THIS is the scene outside St John's Church in Edinburgh this evening, as the extraordinary South African vocal group Soweto Entsha, who wowed audiences last year, make their preview debut at the 2012 Festival of Spirituality and Peace.

"it's great to see the queues outside and feel the buzz of atmosphere building," FoSP director Katherine Newbigging told Spirituality & Peace News as show time approached.

Soweto Entasha are "a smart, slick a cappella four-piece who reached a global audience performing at the [South African] World Cup opening ceremony," wrote Fiona Shepherd in The Scotsman last year.

"They are distinct from the other African music shows that have stormed [through] in recent years in that they freely blend western pop elements of the male vocal harmony tradition into their performance, making for a diverse set which draws on the vibrancy of 1950s doo-wop, the all-singing, all-dancing presentation of the 1960s soul groups and the more saccharine tendencies of the modern R&B outfits as much as the soft, healing invocations and exhilarating spirit of their own tribal cultures.