Acoustically Challenged

"What's that? Speak up!"

I feel like that this morning. I went to the Switchfoot concert last night. It was a fun and interesting time. My wife was supposed to go with me, but was sick. Also a friend ended up needing a ride for their kids going. So I ended up accompanying 3 middle-school aged kids. They did well for their first rock concert.

The title of this post refers to my hearing and the setting of the concert as well. It was in Reed Gym, and any gym is horrible for acoustics. We also got there late, and ended up WAAAAY up in the bleachers. We heard the concert better on the echo than the first time, it seemed like. Unfortunately the sound aspect wasn't the best it could be. We got some good bass though. I think my teeth are still rattling...

The opening act was a group called Lovedrug. Meh. Their songs didn't have much variety, and the lead singer seems to copy Dave Matthews to a point - mostly making his singing unintelligible by trying to do a slight falsetto. All four of us: thumbs down.

Switchfoot was a different story. It was obvious they were veteran craftsmen considering their music and showmanship. Even despite the lead singer going to jump up on the drum platform and instead tripping and crashing into the drumset! Professional as ever, both he and the drummer kept going - but the roadies rushed out between songs to make sure everyone/thing was OK!

The show was very entertaining, despite the poor location. I think the highlight was during the song "Gone", when the keyboardist slipped onto the drumset and the drummer was banging away on a kid's sized set. Right on! The four of us: thumbs up!

I happened to overhear someone in the line before the concert asking, "Are they a Christian band?" As if that was a bad thing. Unfortunately, I didn't pick up the response. But I think I will do a little consideration of some of their lyrics over next week, to see what can be said in artistic ways to get a point across to people.