Sunday Summary – Music: June 7, 2009

This past week was a BLAST! I had a GT (good time) all morning long – and I wasn’t even on stage. So that’s sayin’ somethin’!

First, some back story…

As we’ve looked at the summer as a whole, we realized that Andy’s not speaking here (or any of the campuses) for nearly 3 months, starting 2 weeks ago. He’ll be back in August.

(FYI – he’s enjoying some vacation time, as well as giving a bunch of the other communicators and speakers in our organization some opportunities to speak, along with a couple special guests).

So that leaves us with 2 things:

#1 – Shorter services (AKA time to fill…). Speakers other than Andy are alloted 35 minutes, and so that gives us an extra 5 minutes to either fill in content or get out a few minutes early – we’ll be doing some of both over the summer.

#2 – No Andy. Duh! It’s no secret that attendance dips a bit when it’s publicly known that he’s not speaking, so we’re going to do our best to help make the services this summer fantastic – at least as much as we can from a music and programming perspective.

So will we do a few more fun openers this summer? Oh, you betcha!

And we started this week with a great “Summer” song – Bryan Adams’ “Summer of ’69″.

Sam Tesh came and sang it for us – and dude, he’s amazing! He’s a great, charismatic performer with a voice perfect for Journey, Bryan Adams, Aerosmith, Bon Jovi – you get the picture. Oh, and all in the same keys as the originals! Yep – that’s high.

Oh, and giant kudos to our good buddy Steve Thomason, who, of course, covered the tones and solos to perfection. That boy has mastered the art of being faithful to the originals when it comes to classic rock. Love him!

Here’s Sam and the gang making the 80′s proud…

We, spearheaded by Eddie, have a real passion for this summer for our bands, singers and worship leaders to HAVE FUN! To enjoy themselves on stage. To bring a smile and encouragement to the congregations and attenders. To embrace what they’re singing and playing and have a RGT (really good time).

And our prayer is that will help soften the hearts and let down the guard of the stoics and skeptics. And anyone bummed about no Andy

WORSHIP:

Man, we kept the blood pumpin’ with worship, too!

God Is Alive

Glorious (off of Todd’s new CD)

Everlasting God

Yep – not one tune under 105 bpm’s. In review some thought it was a little much. I could see their point, but I think the majority didn’t mind it. I thought it worked, especially going into the funny Title Package for the current series.

So we’ve got a few more things up our sleeves for this summer – should be fun!

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East Band – Eddie Kirkland, Rachael Gillis, Steve Thomason, Danny Grady, Scott Meeder, Richard Meeder, John Carrozza, Sam Tesh

West Band – Ryan Stuart, Rebecca Iraheta, Mike Hines, Matt Melton, Wayne Viar, Earl South, Keith Thomas

Sunday Summary – Music: March 29, 2008

First, a big shout out to our Long Island guests! (You know who you are… )

Sunday was a fun day. Sometimes the mood on stage and off is just a little brighter and perkier than others – this was one of those days.

No real reason why, other than the fact that everyone was glad that 5 straight days of rain was over.

That, and the fact that we did some fun tunes…

Sunday was our “Strategic Service” day – the day we honor our existing volunteers, and push for new ones.

So we opened with a highlight video – a montage of photos from every area that volunteers serve, underscored by each side’s live band doing Jack Johnson’s “Better Together“.

It’s a happy little tune, just like most of Jack’s repertoire. Danny Dukes sang it on East and Eddie Kirkland did it on West.

And I got to use a vibraphone patch, so that alone made my day… .

Worship was, at least for me, more fun than usual. I played on East with Chrystina Fincher leading. If you don’t know Chrys, she’s a firecracker rock-chick. I mean, this is the mother of 3 that sang Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll” at DRIVE and Catalyst conferences!

So a win for Chrys is a set of “up” tunes that have a lot of energy and really allow her to show off her dynamic personalty and lead a crowd in worship.

Plus, Eddie was leading on the West, and he can sing the phone book, so no worries!

We started with Chris Tomlin’s “Let God Arise“. Now if you don’t dig this tune for worship, chances are you’ve not heard the right person lead it.

Tomlin’s recorded version lacks something, and you don’t realize what that is until you hear someone with a stronger, more aggressive voice sing it. It’s a great tune, but a smooth, tender voice like Tomlin’s doesn’t do the song justice. But when you put someone on it that has some grit, the song takes on a whole new persona!

Next was Marvelous Light, a fave by Charlie Hall, but one that is nearing it’s last days and will soon be put out to pasture. So enjoy it while it’s still around!

We concluded worship with a new song by Todd Fields that he co-wrote with Eddie called “Jesus Reigns“. It’s got a great mid-tempo groove ad is a blast to play. The verse is a little wordy and with some odd syncopation, but it certainly learnable over time. The chorus, however, is fantastic – a great hook that’s super easy to pick up and repeats a bunch.

We’ll be singing this one for a while! It’ll be on Todd’s new project due in May.

There you go!

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East Band – Chrystina Fincher, Danny Dukes, Ryan Stuart, Steve Thomason, Ben Snider, Ashley Appling, Richard Meeder, Me

West Band – Eddie Kirkland, Danny Grady, Brad Avery, Jennifer Young, Mike Bielenberg, Pat Malone, Wayne Viar

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Sunday Summary – Music: August 24, 2008

Sometimes simple is nice.

Because sometimes that turns into nearly 16 minutes of worship. And yes, for us, that’s a lot.

Even more, it gives the worship leaders just a little more leeway and comfort within the set to talk, set up a song, engage the crowd, get them smiling, clapping, and maybe a chuckle or two.

It’s not something we always have, since we often have so many different elements within the service (specials, baptisms, special announcements, longer title packages, etc.).

And, to be honest, it’s not something that every worship leader desires. Some WL’s aren’t as comfortable filling extra space or interacting with the crowd as much.

However, our boys today are two of the best at interacting with and engaging the crowd – Todd Fields and the eternally-youthful Danny Dukes.

And with those guys comes a great rock show! Danny is the epitome of classic rock, so we usually pick some of our more rockin’ songs that fit his strengths in that area. (And yes, the players selfishly love that! Shhh – don’t tell!)

WORSHIP:

Salvation Is Here

God Is Alive

Glorious One

Yeah, a couple familiar songs in there, as well as God Is Alive, one of our newer songs, written by Eddie Kirkland and Steve Fee.

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A couple of shots from the East Auditorium balcony during the 12:45 service.

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East Band – Danny Dukes, Steve Thomason, Danny Grady, Ashley Appling, Pat Malone, Dee Dee Maillian, Jared Hamilton

West Band – Todd Fields, Danny Howes, Jen Carrozza, Bill DeLoach, Richard Meeder, Wayne Viar

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What did YOU enjoy about church this week?

True Music Fans Only…

Saw this on a Middle School small group room.

You’ll only find this amusing if you’re a true classic rock fan…

Sure, the spelling’s off a tad, but it’s still funny…

And for those of you who don’t have a sweet clue as to what I’m talking about, here’s a cute pic of Cooper getting a bath at Yaya and Papa’s for your enjoyment…

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