God, Church and the Elders

Some reviews and recollections of this weekend's music festivities. First, from Bill Brownlee, who was more than a little excited about the Erich Church show at Santa-Cali-Gon Days.

Eric Church / Sept. 2 at Santa-Cali-Gon Days

His scruffy good looks and black ball cap make Nashville newcomer Eric Church look like Toby Keith’s brainy kid brother. Yet it became quickly apparent during Saturday night’s show at the Santa-Cali-Gon Days festival that, unlike the controversial Keith, Church is remarkably free of charisma.

Church’s “Sinners Like Me” is a crackerjack debut album. Its convincing songs about beer, bars and broken hearts are slightly grittier and a whole lot smarter than most contemporary country sounds. But live, the Carolina-bred Church failed to close the deal. Continued here. 

Rock the Light / Sept. 2 at Starlight Theatre

Call it sacrilege, but I didn't stick around for the main events, they being Day of Fire and Audio Adreneline. I did spend more than three hours at Day 2 of Rock the Light, the Christian-rock festival where I heard plenty of decent music and some transcendent messages. The music at this festival isn't the medium, the messages are. But the music matters, and the four  bands I saw played several varieties of contemporary rock: the rap/rock fusion (like Linkin Park), nu-metal (like Korn), "modern rock," like 3 Doors Down and indie folk and indie rock.  The guy on the left is Jasen Rausch, lead singer of the heavy rock band Red, which compares its sound to bands like Chevelle, Muse and Linkin Park. He's on the merchandise concourse, next to a T-shirt stand, signing autographs. He may look like Moby but he screams like James Hetfield.

My favorite acts: The Lakeland House Band, who do the melodic indie-folk/rock thing like early R.E.M. and the Innocence Mission; Thousand Foot Krutch, who borrow heavily from an array of genres (industrial/goth, nu-metal, post-grunge); and Monday Morning, a North Carolina indie-rock outfit who would fit comfortably on Merge Records. They ended with a convincing cover of "Rockin' In The Free World."

Other attractions: The T-shirts, especially those that imbued famous logos with Christian messages" Lord's Gym (Gold's Gym logo); "C.S.I: The Rock" (stands for Christian Students Inc.); "Satan Got Punk'd." There was also lots of prayer and promotion, especially from Walden Media, maker of "The Chronicles of Narnia," which promoted its latest project, "Charlotte's Web."

I left just as Danni Boatwright was telling the crowd how God and faith helped her win "Survivor." After three hours of rock and religion, my spirit needed some Irish love.

The Kansas City Irish Fest, Sept. 1& 2

The Elders don't own this festival, not officially anyway. But it's theirs in spirit.

Saturday night they played the first of two headling shows for this annual throwdown, which celebrates many things Irish: dance, comedy, food, dark ales and Celtic music.

The rock/blues/soul band Hothouse Flowers played the main stage on Friday and the second stage on Saturday. They seemed better suited to the smaller stage. Friday night they drew a few thousdand people, and for the first 45 minutes or so, they entertained. Continued here.

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[Ramone]

Rock the Light VII