Black Sabbath: Outrage as Christian rock concert wakes up finalists with Sunday Morning din

Boisterous Christian rockers enraged finalists when they warmed up for their Broad Street concert – at 9am.

Update May 7th – statement from Love Oxford is below.

The “ear splitting” noise from the Love Oxford concert woke up exam- students on Sunday – who then couldn’t revise all morning.

The noise could was so loud it could be heard from 7 colleges: Exeter, Jesus, Lincoln, Balliol, Trinity, Hertford and Wadham were all affected.

According to some cross finalists, the noise from the “open air service” was so loud it could be heard from inside the Bodleian Library.

Sam Galbraith Slater, a first year at Exeter, said: “I woke up at about 6am to the sound of them putting the stage up – except it sounded a lot more like they were just hurling metal poles around.

“At about 9.30am they started soundchecking, the same song over and over again – I swear if I hear ‘My God is Greater’ one more time I will flip.”

And finalist Alice Nutting said: “The concert went ahead until 1pm and the noise was ear splitting: my bedroom door and windows (in Exeter) were shaking and banging repeatedly.”

She added: “It is exam season and it was impossible for a lot of people to revise for the entire morning, especially as the Bodleian libraries in the city centre were also affected.

“I don’t understand how they were granted a license but I’m pretty sure your average rock band wouldn’t get one for a Sunday morning concert.”

Exeter student Peter Fage was also woken at 9.30am – “to loud bass noises shaking the window panes of my room. I had no warning of a massive concert on Broad Street (which my room overlooks).

“They were practicing before the concert at 11 but it was ridiculous – I could make out the words of the singing with my windows closed, and my room is next the the Sheldonian rather than where the stage was.

Slater also said: “The main problem is that there didn’t seem to be any warning, and there is always the suspicion that had it not been a religious group they would never have got a license anyway.”

Exeter College’s JCR passed an emergency motion on Sunday to complain to the City Council and local councillors. This came after complaints flooded the event’s Facebook page, with Jack Searle saying “Your music is fucking stupid”.

And Fred Cascarini called the organisers out on their loving principles: “I thought you guys were supposed to ‘love your neighbour’? Annoying hundreds of finalists in the 6 nearby colleges and the Bodleian who are in pre-finals panic and trying to revise/sleep is not exactly what I would consider loving?”

Love Oxford’s press release on the issue is as follows:

“On Sunday May 3rd around 2500 people gathered in Broad St in a remarkable sunlit two hour gap between rainstorms, for the biannual Love Oxford event to ‘pray for the peace of the city to which I have carried you’.

‘Love Oxford’ is all about unity. It has the distinctive of uniting different people groups in the city: young and old; town and gown; different ethnicities; different denominations: all are gathered in a multicultural mix like Joseph’s coat of many colours of old. The rich diversity of our city’s inhabitants is celebrated. Hundreds of students participated along with families and young professionals and many of the elderly. This is remarkable.

The event flows out of friendships between Church leaders which have stood the test of time. It gathers several of Oxford’s Churches – from all the largest to many of the smallest – in the open air for a Sunday morning meeting of public worship. Love Oxford works for months gaining the necessary permissions and negotiating a date suitable during term time to enable students who wish to participate to come and sending out notice to businesses and the colleges around Broad St alerting them to what will be happening.

The event unites noise and silence. It has moments of complete silence: this year a moving minute of silence to remember victims of the Nepal earthquake and to pray for their families. It can be also be joyful and exuberant as the crowd celebrates their life together. This year the gospel choir of Christian Life Centre (which normally meets in what was formerly the Regal cinema, Cowley) led worship with their distinctive sound. So Love Oxford can be noisy, but no noisier than the Oxford student balls of which residents receive notice at this time of year, always asking for understanding as their noise rocks through the nights. And at two hours Love Oxford is a lot shorter.

We are thankful for the goodwill of so many and of the colleges and the city council that enabled the event to pass off with such a sense of purpose and joy. We were encouraged by reactions, including the following message from a student: Can hear your singing from inside the Bodleian and it’s beautiful. Thank you for blessing Oxford in this way’. And Boswell’s, one of the businesses on Broad St. wrote as follows: The event did not inconvenience our trade in any way on the day, and I would happily encourage Love Oxford to return to Broad Street in future years. My colleagues reported that customers coming into the store found the event uplifting and joyous, even though they were spectating bystanders. Additionally, our customer numbers were swelled in the afternoon by attendees taking advantage of our exclusively advertised discount on the day, this increased our trade by nearly 25% on the day. Well done!

We do regret any inconvenience caused to our neighbours and ask for their understanding as we all try to live together in unity in our city. The Love Oxford Committee.”