If you wanted to pick a venue to return to live concerts post-lockdown, a church seems like a pretty good place to start - presuming your local health centre is unavailable.

And, indeed, 150-year-old Willowfield in East Belfast, standing serene amidst the Covid storm and proud of its reputation as a "church in and for the community", proved the perfect platform for Anthony Toner to ring in the new era.

Social-distancing meant the venue for this EastSide Arts opener was at a fifth capacity but with his soulful lyrics and reflective blues, the Coleraine troubadour-turned-East Belfast booster filled the venue with his feel-good vibe.

Having memorably and musically saved Sailortown, Anthony Toner has turned his talents eastward to create a new suite of songs – a symphony even — paying tribute to East Belfast. In this binary city of orange/green, Prod/Taig, unionist/nationalist, east/west, we often fail to see the beauty and wonder of Belfast from a different vantage point. Toner puts that failure to rights with this local masterpiece. 

HOLY GROUND: WIllowfield Church
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HOLY GROUND: WIllowfield Church

For this innocent abroad in the east, this was not just an evening of fantastic songs but an entrée into a whole other world of sights, sounds and points of view. Celebrated in this 'Six Inches of Water' album is the breeze from Belfast port, the tranquility of the Connswater Greenway, and even the grimness of 1974 — yes, they baked their spuds on campfires in the east during the UWC strike as well. And that six inches of water? A reference to the amount of hot bathwater workers got of a Friday night in Templemore Baths to wash off that shipyard grime.

Toner's songs are soothing, beguiling, embracing - a timely tonic post-Covid. But he can rock it up too courtesy of his backing band — surely the most talented trio to grace a Belfast church since the last time I knelt at an altar. A big (sanitised) hand for Clive Cuthbertson on bass, Matt Weir on drums and John McCullough on piano and Hammond organ.

Biggest cheer of the night went, of course, to Sailortown but the most moving and poignant song was 'An Alphabet' dedicated to the singer’s dad Leo who passed away last July. "When I hug my father, we hold on tight – if he forgets who I am, well that’s all right: A is for Alzheimer’s," goes the powerdriving opening line. 

My favourite, however, was from the new album, the comforting and uplifting 'God Look Down to Mrs Boyd' commemorating eleven souls "swept away" too soon when a bomb shelter collapsed in east Belfast during the '41 Blitz. 

God look down to Mrs. Boyd:
She came home and found it all destroyed.
Easter 1941,
the air defences overrun.
The Germans on successive nights,
come looking for the shipyard lights.

In truth, East Belfast has much to sing about - not least the transformation of the area over recent years into an arts and culture Mecca. And, fair play, they opened their annual festival on the same day as Féile an Phobail with this Toner command performance — a nod to the holy ground of this united city, even as it remains divided.

Trouadour Toner took over a church and built a cathedral of song. So God look down to Anthony Toner too and to all those with the wit and wisdom in EastSide Arts who commissioned this musical treasure trove.