Winter Jam

This past weekend, Dorene and I went to the Winter Jam concert in Fort Wayne with 2 other adults and 10 youth from our church.It only costs 10 bucks to get in, so it's a good deal. A good mixture of bands, designed to appeal to several age groups.

The first group was "Sanctus Real," a group I really like, that has sort of flown under the radar. They've been around a while, but haven't really gotten all that big. They only played 3 songs, so they were on and off way too quick. I wanted to hear much more of them.

Next up was the hard-driving sound of "NewSong." Okay, just kidding. They were okay. Didn't play all that long and I was kinda bored by them anyway. Then, at the end, the band launches into some brief riffs of "(you make we want to) Shout" and "Sweet Home Alabama." Not bad.

Then came "Hawk Nelson," and they were easily the crowd favorite and were definitely the group I enjoyed the most. A sort of pop/punk sound that I really liked. They had a lot of fun out there on stage and didn't get all "worship moment" on us. Sometimes musicians should just play and not talk, because when they try to talk and be all profound, it just doesn't work. These guys just played and had a blast. Kind of reminded me of early Newsboys (before the worship genre got ahold of them and made them take it down a couple notches). I'll be keeping my eye on "Hawk Nelson" and checking out more of their music.

Steven Curtis Chapman came on next. I hadn't seen him since 1993 and have not really been a huge fan. But he actually did pretty good. Did some very amped-up versions of "The Great Adventure" and "Dive." But, what I really liked about him was his band. His guitarist was his 17 year old son and his drummer was his 15 year old son. The other guitarist and keyboardist were not related to the Chapman's but were brothers. They in fact have their own group, "The Following," which played a song as Steven Curtis briefly left the stage. I was impressed that Chapman has changed with the times. He wasn't just changing his style for today's youth, he was changing it for HIS OWN youth. I like that.

The comedian John Morgan came on, with his dead-on impression of George W. Bush. Now, the Coliseum was full, and I'd say that a sizeable portion were Republicans. But the response to this comedic bit was tepid at best. It just isn't funny anymore. Morgan said something about "you mess with the U.S.A., we mess with you." That whole bravado thing just doesn't cut it for me anymore. He also tried to equate himself as in tune with Christians, but with all the scandals that have taken place with Republican lawmakers, this just didn't resonate either.

The evening then closed with Jeremy Camp. Yikes, I didn't like him at all. He got the biggest cheer when he came on with his Peyton Manning jersey, and many seemed to like him a lot, but I found his set very boring. Ended the evening on a whimper. But overall, for $10.00, not a bad deal. Dorene said it was too loud. It was indeed loud, but it's never TOO loud.