Coming Home from Work and tobyMac!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNJwRGhsfJA


Well, Cathi was driving me home from work. I was tired and still had my own homework to do. We drove past the Grand Wayne Center, our convention center. Outside on the marquee they were advertising the Portable Sounds tour. This is the tobyMac, Barlow Girl and Thousand Foot Krutch concert. Now I am old, a couple of years ago I qualified for AARP membership. Still, I love tobyMac’s music and Barlow Girl knocks me over. Cathi said I should skip homework for a night, and I did. I went to the concert by myself, this is not Cathi’s type of music! Three days later I was still singing.

For those of you who don’t know who these folks are, they are all contemporary Christian groups. Toby is very urban, hip hop/rap. But he does a lot of world music. It is not unusual to hear Indian melodies or Mexican sounds coming from his stage. The Barlow Girls (all three are sisters) are also contemporary, they can rock, do moderate hip hop and they can sing as if they were born in Ireland. One moment they have you swaying to a song that could have been song by Bing Crosby and the next minute the bass is pounding, the drums are keeping three different beats and everybody looks like they are going to get whiplash from all the head banging. I loved them both. Thousand Foot Krutch is a Christian heavy metal band. They did what they did very well. The audience loved them. Thing is, I just don't appreciate heavy metal, did I mention that I’m old?

TobyMac amazed me. The dancing, rapping, energy was phenomenal. Toby is from Washington D.C. originally. In fact his first successful group was d.c. Talk. He lives in Tennessee and his mixture of urban music and southern drawl just adds to the atmosphere of total celebration of diversity. His band is diverse and his music reflects the diversity of humanity. It is difficult to celebrate diversity and not feel that the gifts of diversity reflect in a modest way the gifts of the Body of Christ.

He is gaining notoriety in mainstream music. He is a nominee for an award at the American Music Awards in November. He was part of the soundtrack for Transporter 2 and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. He played all the songs I wanted to hear: Boomin, Irene, Diverse City, Cathcahfire, and Made to Love.

Cathi is right, self-care is important. One night away from work and a week later my batteries are still charged!

P.S., for another fan's perspective of the Portable Sounds tour visit Chad's blog. Chad acutally went to high school with one of the guitar players. I suspect he had really good seats!