The Trouble Is, even the Sunny Days in This World can be Crazy Times if we don't have a Hope to Carry On

On Saturday, I had the opportunity to see my current #1 and #3 ranking bands on my favorites list (with Switchfoot, who I saw back in September, ranking #2 at the moment) in concert up in Castro Valley. Here's a recap:

I arrived at the Redwood Chapel about 15 minutes late, as ever-reliable Yahoo! Maps led me astray again and I had to backtrack on the freeway. As I ran up to the front door and met my friend who was waiting with my ticket, I heard the shaggy-haired gentleman in front of me say, "I'm in the band." I looked at the guy in front of me and sure enough, it was Andrew Osenga, former frontman for The Normals and the newest member of Caedmon's Call, essentially replacing longtime member Derek Webb (who left earlier this year to pursue a solo career) as lead guitarist and high-harmonizer. I found it amusing that even though I was late, someone who was due up on stage in 20 minutes was there at the same time as I was. I have to figure that he rehearsed with everyone earlier in the day, then stepped out for a while to get a bite to eat or something. He did offer the excuse, "Yeah, I'm the new guy."

I missed Me Died Blue. I'm blue

I found my seat in the 2nd row of the left side of the balcony just as the opening act, Steven Delopoulos, was finishing up his set - much to my dismay. I've had his album for a few months and it's a stellar folk record with fun fingerpicking patterns, Mediterranean/Greek influence, and thoughtful songwriting that I haven't been able to completely figure out yet. The (half of) one song I was able to hear from him was pretty darn cool - I'm guessing he uses a thumb pick or something in order to switch quickly between very fast Shane Barnard-like strumming and the fingerstyle that he's known for.

On the plus side, I was able to meet him after the show, as he hung out at his merchandise booth and personally greeted and signed autographs for everyone buying his stuff. After shaking hands, I apologized for missing most of his show, complimented him on the stellar album, and asked if he was going to be back in the Bay Area again any time soon (probably not until mid-2004 at the earliest). I suggested that he look to do a coffeehouse tour as his music would probably translate better in that setting.

The Hands of the Potter can play a pretty mean percussion, too

Caedmon's Call took the stage next, made up of: Cliff Young (lead vocals, acoustic guitar), Danielle Young (vocals), Andrew Osenga (lead guitar, mandolin, vocals), Josh Moore (guitar, keyboard, accordion, percussion), Todd Bragg (drums), Garrett Buell (percussion), and Jeff Miller (bass). Incidentally, one minor annoyance from the evening was that both bands didn't bother introducing the individual members to the audience, as they typically do in concert

Being an acoustic guitarist myself, I immediately noticed that Cliff and Josh were playing McPhersons. If you're too lazy to click on that link, basically McPhersons are acoustic guitars that have an elliptical sound hole moved to the top of the guitar, which is supposed to give more continuous surface area on the solid top for vibration, translating into better sound quality. They run $4k each. They sounded pretty good; although not distinctively different from the Taylors Jars used later.

The band kicked off their set with a faithful rendition of the acapella song "I Will Sing" by Rich Mullins, with killer harmonies from Cliff, Danielle, and Andy O. I noticed that Andy O was hitting the high register notes that Derek used to hit with ease, so that was one point in favor so far. They then segued into the familiar acoustic intro to "Hope to Carry On", another Mullins cover and one of the fan favorites from their self-titled label debut.

After a few from their worship album (Before There Was Time and Who You Are), they paused for a bit and Cliff introduced himself and talked a bit about the band, how it was their first time in the Bay Area, etc. I've read elsewhere that he tends to ramble quite a bit in concert, and it showed some (plenty of "Uh..." and "Um..."), but for the most part he kept it fairly toned down and kept the evening going. He even had a few genuinely funny jokes: "For this next song, we're going to need the audience's support. So clap your hands, stomp your feet, whatever your denomination allows." "I've just been informed that Danielle's and my old high school choir director is with us tonight, so we're understandably a bit nervous. I guess if you hear someone in the back yelling out, 'Flat!!!', just try to ignore him." He also shared about worship, a desire for the church to love rather than be rooted in hypocrisy, and also a challenge to care for the poor through Compassion International (where he also talked a bit about Rich Mullins as a mentor for the band). There was very little on-stage banter, although there was an amusing exchange with Josh, who was having problems with his B-3 organ - "I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Satan himself lives in this organ." There was another funny moment for fans when someone yelled out "Bus Driver!" and Cliff began explaining how that's one of Derek's songs so they don't play it anymore... then Andy O began the familiar opening shuffling riff, and then stopped suddenly, saying, "That's all I know."

The setlist itself was a decent mix of oldies (Hope to Carry On, This World, 40 Acres), worship (Before There Was Time, Who You Are, Warrior, God of Wonders) and songs off the newest album, Back Home (Only Hope, Walk With Me, Hands of the Potter). In addition, they covered one Paul Simon song (Diamonds in the Soles of Her Shoes) and there was another one by Danielle that I didn't recognize - could have been off one of their indie releases or another cover. In general, the music was pretty faithful to the album versions, and Andy O did a pretty good job handling the electric solos and fills that Derek used to do. It was fun watching instrumentalist wunderkind Josh switch smoothly between keyboard, acoustic guitar, accordion, and percussion between songs.

The highlight of the live show was the percussion. On the albums, the drums, bongos, shakers, tambourines, metal lids, etc. are relatively muted, but in person the various complex rhythms combine to form a mesmerizing backdrop that overshadowed most of the instruments. It was quite a challenge to watch each percussionist during a song and try to figure out what he was doing individually, and then what layer that added to the song as a whole. Good stuff!

What could have been better? I'll make it short and sweet: I miss the two original primary songwriters for the band, Derek Webb and Aaron Tate. Kinda funny... when I first started getting into Caedmon's music, I didn't like most of Derek's songs, but somehow when I hit my mid-twenties songs like "Somewhere North", "Love is Different", "What You Want" and all the rest just suddenly clicked for me. Plus, he has quite the reputation as a live guitarist, doing some of his most impressive stuff when he's playing lead and not worrying about singing at the same time. Ah well, I'll have to catch him when his solo act comes to town. As for Tate, his songs have always been more explicitly Christian in content, but they were noticeably more theologically profound and poetic than most of the stuff off their new album. I've heard some good things about Andy O's songwriting from his time with his own band, The Normals, and so here's hoping that as they move forward, the songwriting quality goes up. I'm thinking: Tate comes back and contributes 4 to their next album, Andy O writes 4, and the rest of the "guild" of songwriters writes 4. Oh, and let Andy O sing lead on a few songs. That would be cool.

I'm gonna Show You Love in a whole new style

As the stage crew broke down Caedmon's setup and began bringing out Jars' equipment and instruments, I noticed that there was nary an electric guitar in sight. Plenty of acoustic guitars, a small upright piano, drum set, electric bass and upright bass, but no electric guitar. This was my first clue that things would be very different than the Eleventh Hour tour, and as a fan of acoustic music, I was stoked. I also knew that I probably wouldn't need to stand up for most of their set.

The Jar boys (Dan Haseltine on vocals, Steve Mason on lead guitar, Matt Odmark on rhythm guitar, and Charlie Lowell on keyboards) came out and launched straight into "I Need You". I noticed almost immediately that Matt is now doing more interesting things on the guitar than just rhythm - some picking, riffs/fills, etc. They then threw me for a loop when they broke into the familiar intro to their mega-hit "Flood", in just the second song of the set! Usually they save the big hits for the encore! Basically, what that said to me was, "We know that most of you are here because you know our first CD, but we would like to get past that and show you that we've grown and matured quite a bit as artists." I happen to like that boldness to be different; I don't know if most of the audience was ready for it (as their new album had only been released 5 days beforehand, and most people probably weren't like me - buying it on the first day and listening to it nonstop). "Crazy Times" came up next... it's not really one of my favorites from their catalog, but it's always been a favorite in concert. This rendition though, suffered a bit from two reasons: 1) the lack of an electric guitar sapped a fair amount of energy, and 2) they should have done acoustic riffs on the guitars to make up for the lack of the electric instead of the keyboard breakdown. Just my opinion, of course.

They then began a few songs off the new album, and boy, I think at least some of the audience was surprised. While "Show You Love", the first single, isn't a huge departure from the sound of previous albums, the next song they played - "Amazing Grace" - is more bluegrass than anything they've ever done. Sitting in the balcony, I could observe the folks in the bottom section slowly begin to sit down as they realized that this year's show was going to be less about the show and more about the raw music.

The Jars have clearly become more proficient at their instruments - the voices had a higher range and clearer tone, the harmonies were tighter, Charlie got to show off quite a bit on the keyboard, and the acoustics complemented each other nicely. Overall, it was a very mellow set. In the middle of the show, they brought out a few stools for the guys to sit down, whic basically invited the audience to sit as well. Dan then gave a touching introduction to the next song, saying that while they were writing for The Eleventh Hour album, someone close to the band had passed away, and that one of the great things about music is that it gives you an outlet to work through grief. They originally weren't going to record the song, but then a friend suggested, "Maybe other people can use your song to help them through hard times as well." This put "The Valley Song" in a whole new light - while I liked it before (although I thought the "gypsy" simile is a bit clunky), it's even more meaningful now.

They then pulled out the hat gimmick that I'd read about online - basically, they prepare seven songs and drop the titles into a hat, then invite audience members to come up and draw three songs that they'd perform. Spontaneity is cool. They ended up performing a faithful rendition of "Lonely People", a positively exquisite "Frail", and "Revolution", which suffered from the lack of the electric guitar/acoustic guitar riffs that I mentioned for Crazy Times. Before playing Frail, Dan gave a short intro saying that he was walking down a street in Nashville when he heard someone call his name. When he turned around, he saw a dark-haired guy running full-speed at him, and he was "frankly kinda scared. Then the guy stopped and said, 'Your dirt removes my blindness / Your pain becomes my peace. What were you thinking?' And that was my introduction to Steve Delopoulos." Reminds me of a story he told at last year's concert where he was ice skating and got run over by another, clumsier skater, and that was his introduction to Steve Mason. Guess that's how Dan meets guys named Steve.

There were several songs off the new CD (Show You Love, Lonely People, Trouble Is, Sunny Days, Amazing Grace) that I enjoyed immensely - I'm liking the soul/gospel/blues/country sound because they do it well. The "final song" of the set was old (and my) favorite "Worlds Apart", which the audience enthusiastically joined in on. It was a fairly standard rendition until they reached the "ramble" at the end which most fans know by heart - they changed things up a bit this time by cutting it off before the repeat, and then seguing into the lyrics of "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet", a song off the new CD that I didn't care for that much. It fit in better here though, as they used a similar melody to Worlds Apart with the lyrics.

The encore consisted of the classic "Love Song for a Savior", an old hymn that I didn't recognize (with Delopoulos coming out to sing alternate verses with Dan), and a cover of an upbeat Johnny Cash tune that they enlisted Caedmon's to help out on. The first was basically similar to the version on the Furthermore studio album, with Steve Mason on mandolin. Side note: the two "nonstandard instruments" that I think would be fun to learn are the mandolin and the hammered dulcimer. I mean, how cool would it be to bust one of those out at a jam session? Anyway, 'twas fun to get the audience singing along to the entire song.

The Cash cover was also a lot of fun, as basically it was one big acoustic rock/country jam, with breakdowns at the end for the mandolin, the accordion, the piano, the drums/percussion, with the spotlight moving accordingly... sent most of the patrons out the door with smiles on their faces. The bands looked like they were just having one big jam session and having a great time while at it.

So, what could have been improved? I think that the style Jars played tonight would have worked much better with a smaller venue - mostly acoustic, letting the lyrics and the instruments shine rather than big shiny "concert" stuff. Both of the upbeat tunes featuring electrics suffered without them (Crazy Times and Revolution), as I think they should have done acoustic guitar riffs rather than having the keyboard fill in. Otherwise, it was a great show - the highlights for me were "Frail" (gorgeous live), "Valley Song", and the new songs. The other ones, I've heard live before, and they were better before.

All in all, I had a great time, but I could easily imagine a better show with all my ideals: I get to hear Delopoulos' set, Caedmon's either gets Derek/Tate back or Andy O takes on a bigger role, and Jars keeps one electric around to switch between chillin' acoustic music and rockin' acoustic/electric music. I can always dream.