With their bohemian, laid-back style, The Be Good Tanyas might just be the antithesis of traditional country music.

The Canadian band’s stylish update of Southern American roots music ditches the stuffiness and gives folk, bluegrass and gospel an ageless appeal. The religion was kept intact and performed against a backdrop of Christ on the cross at St George’s Church as the Kemp Town faithful rapturously received the Be Good gospel.

In My Time Of Dying is a hymn to finding God but Ford’s approach was playful rather than devout: “If these wings should fail me Lord/won’t you meet me with another pair”.

The show went beyond religion and was characterised by a lightness of touch and stripped-back arrangements of double bass, guitars, drums and organ.

Frazey Ford’s whispered rasp made the most famous cover the band’s own – The Beatles’ Here Comes The Sun dedicated to Ford’s “favourite place in England”: Brighton beach.

The evening’s most transcendental moment came with the first of two Neil Young covers, Birds – with all three singers giving the yearning refrain “It’s over” spiritual poignancy.

It ended fittingly with Gospel Song in a venue that had become as humid as a Deep South Pentecostal church.