Saturday, April 18, 2015

Crowder show

We took in the David Crowder 'Neon Steeple' tour last Thursday night at the University of St. Francis Performing Arts Center in downtown Fort Wayne. Openers were Dan Bremnes and Tim Timmons. Crowder had a good-sized band and the perfectly paradoxical set of an old front porch complete with laser lights. Here is a short youtube clip advertising the show: https://youtu.be/zyx9o6JL8Ro

Carrie bought a group of tickets, plus they took all three grandkids, so that was fun. The Datema's, Zimmerman's and some other people Carrie knew were seated around us. It was fun.

I had never been to the former Scottish Rite Center before, and it was... okay. It's a neat old building, but the acoustics are not top notch. It wasn't terrible though. It's sort of a smaller version of the Embassy, and not quite as fancy.

The opening bands were both okay, but Crowder is who we were there to see. He is one of the few "name" Christian performers we will probably pay money to see live. I like how he just comes out, plays his music, and doesn't lay any guilt trips on anybody. I also like his music. I mostly like how it is basically just worship music. They have monitors on-stage for the crowd to sing along with, and we did most of the night. The best part for me was the several-song encore of old hymns and then ending with "How He Loves." I was unable to sing along with HHL until almost the end. It just carries to much emotion for me yet.

One thing that strikes me about Crowder... I love the loud, heavy, bass sound, and all the lights and lasers and things... but leave it to him to provide an opportunity to sing along some old, old hymns. It seems like it's been ages since I've been able to do that. Certainly I don't want to sing them with some 90-year-old church organist, but I find it interesting that EVERYONE in the crowd - old and young alike - stood and sang and "got into" the old hymns. You would think more contemporary worship leaders would catch onto this. But... maybe it's just me that thinks that.

Anyway, it was a really good show. I'm glad we went. I'm glad my grandchildren were there too. It started at 7 pm, and we were home by 10:30 - so it must have been over around 10 or a little after.