Album Reviews
Movie Reviews
Concert Reviews
Past Concerts
Book Reviews
 
 

Contact Us

"You might want to put something on it, so it looks like it's saved."

Thus I spoke to a few teens and adults sitting next to what looked to be unoccupied chairs at the venue hosting the seven-act/$10-at-the-door bill benefiting Compassion International. Had I been told the publicist who arranged for me to pay $0 at the door that my press status could have afforded me early entry, I could have saved a few syllables for a few folks. If you are one of those with who I spoke about your empty-looking seat, and you thought me rude, sorry about that. But enough kvetching, huh?

The Rock and Worship Roadshow is to MercyMe what the Winter Jam is to Newsong; an evening's revue of a few CCM acts to draw a wide age range at an inexpensive price to benefit a sponsoring charity. No way would a $10 ticket, even if all several thousand seats were sold out, cover the expenses of a venue so large. If this second night of this year's tour was any indication, it is a mission well accomplished.

Sidewalk Prophets and Remedy Drive merited the opening acts' distinction of playing with all the hall lights not yet down and the jumbo-tron above the stage not set up to deliver coverage of the happenings on it. The former opened the night with an abbreviated take on Michael Jackson's "Man In The Mirror," including impersonations of the late pop music king's squeals, before segueing into three more numbers of adult-contemporary leaning pop/rock from their debut longplayer, The Words I Would Say. Lyrics showed up on the screen above them, if not their animated commiseration with the still-filling-in audience. The Prophets' lead singer resembles MercyMe frontman Bart Millard some both in frame and face, so the band acted as a bookend of sorts.

Remedy Drive did their best to be showmen by rocking at least some harder than the act preceding them and by singer David Zach going for a couple of handstands on his keyboard. Sticking to their (generally softer) radio hits and tracks from their recently-expanded 2008 major label debut, they seemed to engage the crowd, comprised in good measure of bus-/vanloads of church youth group kids and their supervisors.

Fee's set benefited from the lights being fully down-all the better to show their nifty animated lyric videos-and the sound system being given additional oomph. If any U.S. band has succeeded at balancing praise & worship lyrics with a moderately rocking sound, it's these guys. It works well live. Leader Steve Fee's talk of the University of Wisconsin Madison's team's recent victory in the college basketball championships was as topical as it was chummy.

Francesca Battistelli looked to be the most anticipated act among the kids in my church's youth pastor's fold. Among the boys, especially, if I heardrightly (sorry, fellas; she's hitched). Her radio singles strike me as products of the cumulative crossbreeding of gal piano pop in Carol King/Vanessa Carlton tradition with the quirkiness of Kate Bush and Regina Spektor, albeit toned dow enough for CCM listeners wary of gals (or anyone, really) being too quirky. She's neither far removed from that profile in person. Maybe a touch quirkier. Good thing, that. It surprised me to see her playing both acoustic guitar and piano. Confessing how her breakthrough hit, "Free To Be Me" was inspired by having run into a lawyer's car drew some laughs. A couple runs through of the chorus to "Lead Me To The Cross" (with lyrics on the 'tron superimposed under shots of her singing) elicited the sing-along she was wanting. Liked her more than I expected.

I have spotted pictures of Family Force dressed looking like something an anime illustrator might dream after a night of too much sake and bad sushi. They weren't attired so obnoxiously tonight, but their get-up--something Devo circa 1982 might have felt comfortable donning--was certainly the most distinctive attire worn by anyone on stage that night. What FF5 call "krunk rock" can be translated as nu metal taken a further degree toward hip-hop with a patina of extra electronics. They looked like they were sweating up a tsunami, and, to the degree the venue and security allowed, at least many of the younger attendees were likely joining them in perspiration production. For much of their set, singer Solomon Olds (no, I'm not using their silly pseudonyms) sported a gargantuan glove on his microphone-holding hand looking like the boxing gear for a mutant giant gorilla. Arguably the least scripturally substantive act on the bill--and one with whom I would still like to read a response to my letter to their MySpace regarding their soteriologically dubious response to a non-Christian fan of their tuneage asking about becoming a Christian fan of same--but did they put on a heckuva show and bring the party? That they did and then some. 

David Crowder and his band make me wonder some, too, with their apparent ties to emergent-ism and Catholicism. But there's no getting around their being one of the most sonically expansive praise & worship acts around. Nor is there any denying Crowder's unique appeal unto himself, what with his singular tonsorial and facial hair do's. Plus, his palaver between songs sounds so much like the musings of the Old West's most sincere patent medicine salesman, it's always an amusing pleasure to hear. Same goes for the pleasurable quality of their music, natch, they are the only group here to employ violin and turntable (or synthetic reproduction thereof) amidst more traditional rock instrumentation. They managed to hit highlights from throughout their catalog, including a hoedown. The latter consisted of a Hank Williams, Sr./Albert E. Brumley two-fer abetted by robotic drummer Steve-3PO. Exactly the kind of thing that reminds me to bring a camera, that. 

MercyMe did some book-ending of their own. The headliners opened their conclusion to the night with a truncated rendition a song for which the publishing was once held by Michael Jackson, The Beatles' "Revolution" (guys, if you ever want to play the whole song, "Obama" has as many syllables as "Chairman Mao"...). From there, they zipped through enough of their radio smashes to make one realize that MM have met the needs of adult-contempo/inspirational CCM radio on their own more-creative-than-many terms. Millard looked sporting in a high fedora and longcoated suit, with his bandmates in matching pieces from the same designer. The singer joked about how touring in such habdashery might have been a mistake for a larger gent such as himself, but I, for one, was digging how they looked formal without resembling matching Southern gospel clotheshorses.

"I Can Only Imagine" was, expectedly, MM's centerpiece, and though band's can grow tired of singing their mega-hit at every show, they play a song that so brands them, they kept it fresh. They have collected pictures of fans' relatives who have made it to heaven, and scads of them were shown on the screen behind them. New numbers from the forthcoming The Generous Mr. Lovewell, a semi-concept album should continue to keep them in good stead with mellower general market radio; "Move" even has the potential to push them to the same kind of dance club appreciation found by Plumb and Lifehouse. In a refreshingly ego less move (likely in keeping the whole shebang around the four-hour mark), they ended sans encore, with the lights going up immediately after "All That Is Within Me." 

Steve Fee also medley'ed some P & W choruses with his acoustic guitar and the chorus of one classic hymn, "How Great Thou Art," after Millard's Compassion International pitch and his band's closing set. Commercial and sufficiently reverent with enough variety to keep a few thousand attendees rapt, The Rock & Worship Road Show succeeds as an evening of entertainment with some spiritual challenge.

Jamie Lee Rake