The Chapel of St Barnabas sits on Manette Street, between the scuffle of Charing Cross Road and the bluster of Greek Street, at the very edge of Soho. Past the Borderline, before the Pillars of Hercules, a nondescript metal gate leads to a low, huddled doorway and on through a dim passage to the chapel itself, where stands an altar with soft red marble pillars. From time to time, musical performances are held here, before the rows of chairs set out in lieu of pews, in the space beneath the blue semi-dome painted with golden stars, in a small, calm clearing that somehow makes me think of that Lorca line: "The still pool of your mouth, under a thicket of kisses."
A little while ago, I was here at St Barnabas for a showcase held by XL Recordings: there were videos from the Raconteurs and Vampire Weekend, Phill Jupitus played jovial host, and the evening culminated in a live performance by Cajun Dance Party. I have, it occurred to me midway through the evening, probably been to more gigs in churches than I have religious services. From a bill featuring Belle and Sebastian and Arab Strap, to a more recent lineup of Emmy the Great, the Mountain Goats and Micah P Hinson at the Union Chapel in London. And they always enrapture me. I remember going by myself to see Sigur Rós play such a gig one early summer evening, many years ago. The air was still warm, you could hear birdsong drifting through the open chapel door, and as they played, I remember a feeling more transcendent, more glad-hearted than I had experienced at any harvest festival or carol service. It appeared to me then, as it appears to me now, that it does not matter whether it is Silent Night or Svefn-g-englar that fills those church walls; the thing about music in churches is that its performance feels like a celebration of creation, an affirmation of how damned glorious it is to be alive. As Stravinsky put it: "The Church knew what the psalmist knew: Music praises God. Music is well or better able to praise him than the building of the church and all its decoration; it is the Church's greatest ornament."What I like about churches is somehow what I also like about musical instruments and lyrics and songs - that they only truly come alive with human contact. Cold marble, hard pews, stained glass, share much with guitar strings, piano keys, CDs, sentences, syllables, that in their inhabitation, in their playing there comes the sense of the inanimate made flesh. To hear the heave and huff of the church organ, to hear the swell of the choir and the congregation, to feel music and voices rising to the rafters, is to see life breathed into the building itself. And so to hear Jonathan Richman at the Union Chapel, or Patti Smith incanting at St Giles, or even All Things Bright and Beautiful sung with glory and gusto in a small Lancashire church, brings to me a similar shiver as that first snap and crackle as needle kisses vinyl; the sense that something has been resuscitated.There was a television series first screened in the mid-70s, named A Passion for Churches, which saw John Betjeman waxing lyrical about the churches of Britain. I've only ever seen it on YouTube, but in the clip I like to watch when I'm far from home or sick of the city, he is rhapsodising about Norfolk churches. There are shots of Wymondham Abbey, the rich green of the churchyard, and stained glass windows showing bewinged and halo-ed angels engaged in silent, motionless musical pursuit: lute, violin and horn; cymbal, trumpet, tambourine and triangle. And then in the final moment comes a clutch of pale-skinned, blue-clad choirboys rehearsing Ye Holy Angels Bright. "Behold! Behold! Behold!" they sing, as the choirmaster tuts, and the piano wheezes, breathing life, suddenly, into their stained-glass friends. And above it all, in its well-articulated chug, rises the voice of Betjeman himself, reading a line from Psalm 150:6: "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord."
