Rev. Vince Anderson keeps Monday holy at Union Pool

Williamsburg's long-running Monday-night gospel-rock service with the Love Choir convenes again tonight at 8:30, free, 21+.

Every neighborhood has a weekly ritual that outsiders only hear about secondhand. In Williamsburg, one of the longest-running is a man in a collar, a band called the Love Choir, and a Monday night at Union Pool.

Tonight, Monday, Oct. 26, Rev. Vince Anderson & The Love Choir are back at 484 Union Ave. Dice lists the show at 8:30 p.m., 21+ with physical ID required, and free. That's earlier than the 10:30 p.m. starts on the venue's older listings, so set your evening accordingly.

The "Rev." is not a stage gimmick. A 2014 Brownstoner profile says Anderson left Union Theological Seminary in the early 1990s to pursue music. Over the years that followed, he played Union Pool with the Love Choir while leading a church choir and studying for ordination. The music and the ministry grew up side by side, and you can hear it: the band's gospel-rock sound reads less like a costume and more like a Sunday service that got loose and wandered into a bar on the wrong night.

Union Pool has made that wrong night its own. A 2017 listing on the venue's site describes Anderson's show as a fixture of its Monday nights, and the venue has called him a Brooklyn staple. Listings from at least 2015 through this month show him on that stage again and again, including a Christmas Supertacular. The bar describes itself as three separate bars, a 150-capacity room, pinball and a real photo booth. That's a modest setting for what can feel like a revival.

Less like a costume, more like a Sunday service that got loose and wandered into a bar on the wrong night.

We looked for a new record or announcement to anchor this and didn't find one. That's fine. The reason to go has never been a release cycle. It's that a room this size, on a night this quiet, still fills up for a preacher and his choir, and that in a neighborhood that has changed so much around it, a Monday at Union Pool still works the way it always did.

If you've never been, the pitch is simple: it's free and it's done early enough that Tuesday morning will forgive you. Bring ID and come ready to sing along. A choir is only as good as its congregation.

If you've been before, you already know. You've just been waiting for someone to remind you it's Monday.

Sources: Rev. Vince Anderson & The Love Choir, Oct 26, Union Pool (Dice) (dice.fm); Union Pool: Reverend Vince Anderson and the Love Choir (Nov 6, 2017) (union-pool.com); Union Pool: Reverend Vince Anderson and the Love Choir (union-pool.com); Union Pool: Reverend Vince Anderson and The Love Choir's CHRISTMAS SUPERTACULAR (union-pool.com); Union Pool: Ryley Walker w/ Special Guest Franz Charcoal (venue description) (union-pool.com); Reverend Vince Anderson & Friends to Bring 'Rockin' Gospel' to Sunnyside (Brownstoner) (brownstoner.com); The Reverend (filmyap.substack.com)