February 24, 2005
Concert Review: Steven Curtis Chapman
Amy and I saw Steven Curtis Chapman's "All Things New" tour on Sunday, with Casting Crowns and Chris Tomlin. Honestly, when we decided to go to the concert, Chris Tomlin was the largest draw for me. I really like what Casting Crowns is trying to do with their ministry, but as far as their musical style, I can take it or leave it. I enjoy it enough when I hear it, but I'm not likely to reach for their CD if I'm looking for something to listen to. I think there's just not enough that's distinctive about their sound to make me either like it or dislike it.
I knew that Steven Curtis Chapman had a reputation for doing a very good live show. I actually saw him back in the early 90's at an Icthus event in Kentucky, but at the time, I was more interested in the main act the next night (Petra). I enjoyed his show that night, but it was a polite enjoyment of the Friday night act while anticipating Petra on Saturday night. I listened to SCC a good deal in the later 90s, but not as much lately. So, being out of touch with his music, I can't say that he's what made me want to go.
As I said, Chris Tomlin was the reason I wanted to go. I've had great worship experiences with many of his songs, and my brother Mark had seen him live before and said he was great, especially at getting an audience drawn in to a song they had never heard before. I was anticipating a great worship time with his leading.
To say that I was pleasantly surprised by the entire concert would be an understatement. It started with Steven Curtis Chapman coming out and praying for the concert. He sang a bit of the song "Much of You" from his new CD as a prayer, and then prayed. It was something I have never seen done before, and it was great to set the tone for the evening.
After that, Casting Crowns came on and played about 6 songs. They started right away with "If We Are the Body" which got the crowd into it. They turned out to be a lot of fun and very engaging in a live setting, more than I had found them to be on their CD. The crowd, which was probably about 7-8,000 was very active—it actually seemed like they were more excited about Casting Crowns than Steven Curtis Chapman. That would change later. I think all of their songs were performed with video tracks and had the lyrics overlaid. I enjoyed the video tracks, but I would have also preferred to have close-up video of the musicians, since I was in the cheap seats. Steven Curtis Chapman joined them for the lsat song they did, which was "Voice of Truth" (I think). I enjoyed their set much more than I expected I would. So far, so good.
While they were setting up for Chris Tomlin, Steven Curtis Chapman came out with a very minimal band and played a little medley of his popular songs from years ago. Songs like "More to this Life", "For the Sake of the Call", and "The Walk". It seemed like 80-90% of the crowd had never heard these before, but I was loving it. No "Let Us Pray" though... too bad. A nice alternative to an intermission, and it satisfied the need to play those old hits that people always want to hear, without devoting too much time to it.
After that was Chris Tomlin, and it was an awesome worship time, as I had hoped. He did "Forever", "Holy is the Lord", "How Great is Our God" (went into "How Great Thou Art"), "Indescribable", and a couple others from his "Arriving" CD. The only negative thing was that the songs were in keys that were a little high for me, so it was hard to sing along at times.
Intermission was next. By this time, it was already about 8:45 (concert started at 7:00). The concert ended up going until about 10:30. Steven Curtis Chapman came out and did one of the best concerts that I have ever seen. He had the crowd on its feet for nearly an hour an a half, did a wide variety of material, and "won over" the crowd with ease. I said earlier that they seemed more excited about Casting Crowns, but by the end of the night, everyone was pumped up about SCC.
I noticed a couple of interesting technical details. First of all, he used two projection screens. One was mounted abov
Posted by jvp at 12:08 AM