Rock On!

OK, that was a lame title, but I wanted to give a hint about the body of the post without totally giving away the subject matter. Anyway...

I went to see the Newsboys in concert tonight. I'll wait a moment while you get your jaws off the floor before I continue.

...

Back in position? Alright. Here's how it went:

8:25. Enter door of building. Cue vibration of innards. VIBRATIONS. I mean my heart wasn't beating, the music was beating it. Crazy.

8:27. Find seats. Watch strange-hairdo-guy sing unintelligible lyrics on stage. Was told later this was a new band. Was relieved to learn this was not the Newsboys.

8:30. Next band comes out, DecembeRadio. Enjoy hearing them talk about Jesus being the Savior between songs, but again, unintelligible lyrics. Sensing a pattern here. Not passing judgment on them as a band since I didn't know them, just giving my first impression.

9:00. DecembeRadio leaves, Duncan Phillips (drummer of Newsboys) comes out, everyone stands up cheering like crazy. Duncan introduces Anthony Walton, president of Global Tribe, who talks about missions in Baja and Tijuana.

9:15. NEWSBOYS come out. Yaayyy! Best moment of our lives! No one can believe it, it's so awesome!!! Let's scream our lungs out! Not having much practice screaming my lungs out, I delegated that job to the more experienced, who were apparently standing quite close to me.

At this point I was slightly concerned that this was just going to be a rock concert for the purpose of rocking out. Personally, I enjoy Christian rock much more when CHRIST is emphasized, when it's used as a form of worship, and I think there's a fine line between getting excited about Jesus and just getting excited for excitement's sake. Not having been to a rock concert before, the fact that the previous few bands seemed to get roused up just because of the fact that they were making noise was not doing wonders for my hopefulness. Again, not saying they weren't good bands, just giving my impression. But I was about to be presently surprised.

The lead singer, for all of you not up on your Christian Rock Trivia, has recently been replaced by Michael Tate, previously of DC Talk. I liked him. He gave short messages between songs, making sure our focus was on the One for whom we sing, and not putting emphasis on band members, the music itself, etc. And he had a good voice.

One cool bonus of having him as lead singer was getting to hear a few DC Talk songs in addition to Newsboys classics, including "Jesus Freak" and "I want to be in the Light." The Newsboys songs included "Wherever We Go," "Shine," "Breakfast," (drum platform spin was awesome) "I am Free," "Something Beautiful," and others.

Overall, I enjoyed it. A good experience. Now, if only this ringing in my ears would stop...


Oh, I almost forgot. I had an employment evaluation session after work today. It wasn't really an "employee evaluation" since Pat seemed more interested in what he could do to make my job easier than in what I could do better. He said he was happy with what I had done, and said the only times he would get frustrated are because of miscommunication based on the ambiguity of his instructions. This is nice, eh? My boss is blaming himself for my mistakes. Not sure it gets any better than this.

One more thing. I've taken up the Rubik's Cube once again, in response to Clayton (another OBCL attorney in the office) bragging about his amazing feats of cubeness. Got my time down to 1:30. WOOT!