The never-ending quest to support Christian artists's attempts to engage the culture-at-large finds Shari Lloyd and I at a notorious rock 'n' roll venue in a seamy urban neighborhood for a nine-band ska marathon known as the Ska Against Racism Tour. The bands in order of appearance were: 

Bruce Lee Park 
MU330 
Kemuri 
Five Iron Frenzy 
Mustard Plug 
Blue Meanies 
The Toasters 
Less Than Jake 

They were traveling together with lofty intentions: to focus attention on the lingering problem of racism in America, and call for its obliteration in this generation. My interest in the event was Five Iron Frenzy. What sort of impact could a Christian ska band have in a dingy former movie palace where a thorough frisking of everyone by security is required before entrance? Would they pass muster when compared to the other bands? Would they be accepted? Would their evangelical message have a platform? What about their fans--would seeing a Christian group in a secular setting corrupt them? Lastly, I wanted to see the crowd’s interest in ska. Christians are notorious for jumping on bandwagons late. Is ska still cool? 

Five Iron Frenzy’s sound turned out to be indistinguishable among the first five bands. Their ska-core, with its flattened melodies, rapid-fire lyric delivery in a strained, half-shout, was almost the same as everyone else’s, even Kemuri who sang some songs in Japanese. The high-jumping antics of their horns and Jeff being the only woman playing on the tour set them apart more than what they sang about. If the listeners weren't familiar with Five Iron's wry, subtle lyrics, their Christian worldview was not clearly imparted from the stage. One of the other acts mentioned that there were Buddhists, Hispanics, gays, straights, and Christians on the tour. I assumed that was a reference to FIF. They just fit in, and no one really noticed the difference. This is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it once more disproves the assumption of many Christians my age that the mainstream media will not tolerate believers; on the other hand, tolerance of everything puts Christianity on the same level as everything else, which demotes the message of the Gospel. 

With over a month of touring together behind them, camaraderie among bands was high, and the Christians onstage seemed as well-accepted as anyone. Jeff led the onstage dancing during The Toasters’s surrealistic set, and Five Iron band members contributed to mass guitar and brass solos during The Toaster and Blue Meanie finales. 

Less Than Jake, the headliners, closed out the show with a fresh twist on the never-ending quest of rock to assault the sensibilities of adults: the tosser. Throughout their set, every sixty seconds, the tosser threw something into the crowd. Band pictures, posters, coupons, and tapes were interspersed with the mechanical messmakers--a confetti cannon, a silly string army, a super-soaker brigade, and a toilet paper blower capable of emptying a roll of Charmin back into the balcony in less than ten seconds. The kids loved it; the grown-ups just worried about the mess. 

The sold-out, energetic crowd of 16 to 23 year-olds belayed any question of ska’s current popularity. Christian shows always have spare room for dancing, but at the Riviera, only the lucky few pulled up on stage by some of the acts had room to flail elbows and knees. Beer, wine, and cigarettes were available, but not heavily consumed. Surprisingly, there were even fewer body piercings and tattoos than are evident at the typical Christian event. The tour’s themes of tolerance and morality were exact opposites of earlier decades’ onstage calls to depravity, and the moralizing was consistently met with cheers. Once more, the young people have figured out how to annoy their parents: they are claiming the higher moral ground. The presence of Christians at such events at least provides the opportunity to offer good examples of a living foundation to anchor one’s idealistic standards. Hopefully Five Iron Frenzy is up to the challenge.