This weeks been crazy for me, so I've gotten behind on my list of "to-post" ideas, but I did at least want to mention that I went to the Winter Wonder Slam Concert last week, which was pretty good. Definitely not the best concert I've been to, but not too shabby either. The opener was some person whose name I had to look up (B. Reith, BTW). He had a pretty good voice, but does this hip-hop thing that is kinda bad. He beatboxes if that tells you anything, and I love how the MC of the evening (a tobyMac groupie) called his style "soul". I'm sorry, but if this guy was soul, then maybe I'm stuck in a place where soul is more meaningful. Next up was quite different than anything else Family Force 5, who had a pretty kickin performance. They were about what I expected from the type of band they are..... it's hard to explain. Listen closely to any of their songs, and you'll hear a drum machine, a guitar, a bass, drums, and synth. Listen closer and you'll notice none of those parts are particularly complicated, yet somehow, FF5 required an 8 person band on stage. 3 of those people were what I now affectionately call the "hair shakers". It doesnt bother me that some of their stuff was musically lacking, because it isn't even really about that for them, it's more about the attitude more or less, something that they were not short on. The whole FF5 show felt like the 80's threw up on stage, but hey, it was fun! Next up was Relient K, which I'll be straight up, they didn't do as good as they did last year when they toured with Switchfoot. In fact, last year, their show beasted Switchfoot's. They did do an old fav of mine, Mood Rings, which has to do about the fairer sex, and is a pretty fun song. They split their performance, performing Christmas Songs. I'm split on this, because I love their holiday material, but they mainly their slower songs, so I felt I lost some of the energy through this part. I also missed a couple of other favorites from their set list.
Intermission....
(Yea, thats right, Tmac hogged half the whole show, trimming opener's act to slightly more than 10 minutes, FF5's to 25 and Relient K's to 35 or so)
TobyMac also Stole the show in a good way too. I understand that he was the headliner, but they really did good even considering that. The lights were pretty good, the supporting band on target, and who doesn't love some break dancing? I recognized all the songs I liked by him, plus some more obscure ones, but he mainly waded through his most recent material from Portable Sounds. Theres not a ton to really say about it, but the performace was really strong. There were some almost hardcore moments, some slow moments, and a little throwback to the opening days of Christian Rock. There was what you might call a cameo performace of the song Jesus Freak, which I quite enjoyed. It took me back to elementary school when that was popular (97 or so, I was a little young when it first came out).
Throughout the concert, holiday favs were sparsed in. FF5 did a pretty interesting rendition of Grandma Got Runover by a Reindeer and Relient K did a whole Christmas mini set. TobyMac played one too, but I'm embarrassed to say I've already forgotten which one.
Bottom Line: Good concert, but not the "best freakinist show ive eva been to lulz" as a friend of mine said.... not by a long shot.... but it was good.
Overall: 70
Set List: 14
Band Energy/Audience Connection: 16
SLD (Set/Lighting Design) & Sound Quality: 14
Sound AKA Lip Sync Factor: 14
Lasting Value (will I remember this in six months?): 12
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