Both visually and acoustically there could've been no better venue for Sydney's a cappella maestros The Idea Of North. All four members (Nick Begbie: tenor, Trish Delaney-Brown: soprano, Andrew Piper: bass and Adelaide born Naomi Crellin: alto) are jazz-trained, and appropriately opened their set with Duke Ellington's It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing), complete with a scat beginning.

Bravely tackling Sergio Mendez's Latino classic, Mas Que Nada might have been made easier by having the arrangements revamped by Australian jazz legend James Morrison, but to then choose the hymn Sweet, Sweet Spirit and Michael Jackson's Man In The Mirror to segue respectively just might've proved a disaster in less capable hands.

A scat-filled, jazzy version of Cole Porter's It's Alright By Me certainly shifted the room's feel with a hilarious multipart harmonised and gibberish finish. Two more comedy numbers: 'Blew By You', to the tune of Roy Orbison's 'Blue Bayou' and 'Singin'

A Cappella' managed to expertly shoehorn in such oddly placed rhymes as fortune teller, propeller and salmonella.

Then came what was for me the night's highlight, a beautifully moving version of Randy Newman's When She Loved Me.

More hymns, jazz staples and show tunes later and the night drew to a close with Thelonious Monk's Evidence, with added lyrics (again supplied by Morrison).

Stevie Wonder's Isn't She Lovely had the audience joining in under instruction with the three levels (floor and upper two balconies) singing along with the tenor, alto and soprano parts, which worked surprising well, as did the two encores: one suspects they just gleaned the words for the first from a recipe to make chilli-con-carne, the other an over the top, overacted take on The Bee Gees, Staying Alive.

Whew! What a performance, what a venue and oh, what a night - should be more of 'em.