The movie glutton goes to Christian Youth Weekend at Six Flags

This weekend's concert was a bit of a contrast from last weekend's trip to the symphony.  Kelly, Elliot and I joined thousand of screaming teenagers and their youth leaders for a noisy night at Six Flags's Music Mill Amphitheatre.   I love the fact that Elliot loves worship music.  He's a worshipper with heart and his favorite music to listen to is the worship songs of artists like Chris Tomlin and David Crowder.  He and Kelly went to see Chris Tomlin play a Christmas concert last year at a local church, and when he learned that David Crowder was going to be at Six Flags, of course he was excited to go.

The opening act was a band I had never heard of, Needtobreathe.  I guess I'm not really in tune with Christian music these days; they won the Dove Award for Group of the Year for 2010 and 2011.  I had no idea they were so hot.  Besides their success in Christian music, they've had some success on the mainstream charts and have had their songs featured on some movies and TV shows.  I recognized one song from the radio, but now I can't tell you what it was.  They play solid rock and roll with a Southern twinge.  I couldn't tell you what they were singing about most of the time.  Elliot and I agreed on that.  I asked him if he liked them and his comment was, "I can't understand what they're singing."

That may have been a sound system issue, because when The David Crowder Band came on, I couldn't understand a lot of his singing, either, and I know many of his songs.  They played several familiar songs, with lots of audience participation.  Clearly this was a crowd of Crowder fans!  After a few songs, Crowder said we were entering the "rock opera" portion of the concert.  They broke away from the familiar set and began some extended jams.  I was really getting into it!  Fans like to hear their faves, but the best part of a live concert is the extemporaneous, energetic breaking away from the usual play list.  Crowder is clearly a fun-loving, innovative, extremely creative musician, with much, much more to offer than "three chords and the truth."  Unfortunately, my wife's and son's musical ears are more attuned to KLTY than to experimental rock.  They both said it had gotten too loud and too wild and wanted to leave, so we missed the last part of the show.  But I thought what we saw and heard was terrific!

This is not his stage hair.  He looks like this all the time.

I love the David Crowder* Band's music, although I never have understood the asterisk after his name.  (By the way, they have a trunk load of Dove Awards, too.)  They are musically and lyrically creative (not to mention visually--Have you see their Lite Brite video of "SMS [Shine]"?)  Mostly I love that they create worship music that draws young people into worship.  As worship leader at University Baptist Church in Waco, as a worship leader at the Passion conferences, as an award-winning recording artist, and now as my son's favorite band, David Crowder will stay at the top of my list as well.