Nigel Teles­ford

De­stra Gar­cia brought gospel to Queen’s Hall re­cent­ly when she per­formed songs from her new al­bum, Re­flec­tions. She blessed the al­most ca­pac­i­ty au­di­ence with her pow­er­ful voice raised in prayer and wor­ship.

Ac­com­pa­ny­ing her at­ten­tive au­di­ence who had as­sem­bled dressed in all white, De­str be­gan her set in a flow­ing white dress as she “walked down the road” away from so­ca and Car­ni­val and on­to a dif­fer­ent path blessed with spir­i­tu­al up­lift­ment.

Start­ing off the show with “I Look To You”, she cap­ti­vat­ed the gath­er­ing with church favourites, in­spir­ing sing-alongs and raised hands for pur­pos­es en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent from what she has been ac­cus­tomed to in her more than 20-year ca­reer.

De­liv­er­ing songs from her re­cent­ly-re­leased al­bum of the same name, she pro­gressed to “Open My Heart”, be­fore wel­com­ing her daugh­ter Xaiya on­stage for a com­pelling duet of “Eye on the Spar­row”.

The moth­er and daugh­ter pair sparked the first of many crowd cho­rus­es and sing-a-longs for the night as they blend­ed their voic­es in trib­ute to the Almighty.

Joined soon af­ter by the Maria Regi­na Grade School Choir for “Je­sus Loves Me”, De­stra left the stage for her first wardrobe change as they sang, “I Know Who I Am”. Re­turn­ing in a re­splen­dent blue gown, De­stra de­liv­ered five more songs be­fore be­ing joined by the One Love Choir, who raised the roof with the clas­sic “You Raise Me Up”.

A pho­to col­lage of De­stra’s var­i­ous ac­com­plish­ments over the years kept eyes glued to the large screen on stage, as the So­ca Queen changed in­to a sparkling sil­ver dress and re­turned to per­form “My Trib­ute”, “Bridge Over Trou­bled Wa­ters” and “Good­ness of God”.

Her daugh­ter Xaiya then re­turned for a pi­ano so­lo of “The Prayer” and “Hal­lelu­jah” be­fore a com­pelling video pre­sen­ta­tion her­ald­ed De­stra’s re­turn in a fiery red en­sem­ble for the grand fi­nale.

Ris­ing up from be­low the floor while singing the earth-shak­ing, “Break Every Chain”, she fol­lowed with the so­ca-es­que up­beat “No One” and end­ed with a med­ley of Bap­tist sankies ac­com­pa­nied by the One Love Choir and dancers.

“I feel drained right now, but oh so alive!” she said af­ter tak­ing pho­tos, re­ceiv­ing con­grats and shar­ing hugs and kiss­es with fans for an hour af­ter­wards.

“We were here since 2 pm go­ing through every­thing and Bri­an (Mac Far­lane) fi­nal­ly calmed all my fears and anx­i­eties then, which al­lowed the evening to flow seam­less­ly.

“I was hap­py to see the au­di­ence singing along and clap­ping. It felt a lit­tle strange at times to not have them more en­gaged, but I set­tled in­to it even­tu­al­ly and I think they all en­joyed it in the end.

“I def­i­nite­ly feel ac­com­plished now hav­ing fi­nal­ly done this and like I said on­stage, I al­ways want­ed to just sing for the peo­ple and for The Cre­ator.

“Now I’m go­ing in­to Holy Week and the most in­tense pe­ri­od of prayer and fast­ing with my fam­i­ly and I’m hop­ing to gain more clar­i­ty af­ter East­er with re­gard to what I will do next.”

Com­plete with a set de­signed by Bri­an Mac Far­lane and pro­duced by Lisa Ghany’s Xcep­tion­al Events, De­stra’s Re­flec­tions showed the pow­er of faith, self-con­fi­dence and the un­de­ni­able mer­its of fol­low­ing her in­tu­itive path.

De­stra is now free to chal­lenge her­self even fur­ther in any di­rec­tion she choos­es to take.