John William Schlitt, better known as the voice of Petra, performed on stage with Nagaland’s very own Divine Connection to the largest ever crowd witnessed here at local ground, Wokha Saturday night.

Considering the fact that this event, co-hosted by Kyong Youth Initiative (KYI) and Metro Team (India) was the first ever international act in Wokha, the capacity crowd was expected. The crowd would have been larger if the big downpour just before the start of the concert had not played spoilsport.

Finally, after more than two and a half hours of scheduled time lost, the rain Gods relented to give the citizens of Wokha a chance to enjoy their first ever gig featuring an internationally acclaimed artiste on stage.     

And John Schlitt being John Schlitt, he did not disappoint. All of 62 years of age, John Schlitt’s athleticism on stage would easily put to shame many people including young people less than one-third of his age who came to watch him perform on Saturday night.

With the crowd swaying and singing along, John Schlitt belted out a mix of songs ranging from Petra classics like Beyond Belief (Beyond Belief, 1990), Just Reach Out (Wake Up Call, 1993), More Than a Thousand Words (No Doubt, 1995), God Fixation (God Fixation, 1998), Jekyll & Hyde (Jekyll & Hyde, 2003); II Guys from Petra – Lord I Lift Your Name On High (Vertical Expressions, 2007); from his solo albums – Inside Of You (Shake, 1995), God Is Too Big and There Is Someone (Unfit For Swine, 1996); and to his more recent Take Me Home from The Greater Cause (2012), and many other popular numbers.

Clearly, John Schlitt was also enamored by the Wokha crowd and went on to announce that he wanted to come back “as I already consider myself a citizen of this beautiful place.”

John Schlitt also had to come back and perform after taking leave from the stage as the crowd seemed reluctant to leave, mesmerized as they were by their first experience of witnessing an internationally acclaimed artiste perform for them.

Earlier, local acts including Aisle, K3M and the duo of Mharhoni Humtsoe and Zuren Kikon opened the mega concert.
Meanwhile, John Schlitt left for Dimapur on Sunday as he was scheduled for a performance there on July 3.