pat loughery

I found this old draft from July, and won’t finish it up, but I’ll post it in case it gets caught in a search somehow.
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I figured I’d start here, with a brief set of reviews for the bands and speakers I saw at Creation West this year.

Background first: I went for my only other time 2 years ago before we planted Mt. Si Vineyard. I was a chaperone for the youth group, which was a pretty low-key role – mostly I hung out and talked with other adult type peoples.

This year, we were invited to join with the group camp from our mama church. I was hoping that we’d have a good contingent from our clan, and was particularly hopeful that our new worship leaders would be able to attend. In the end they couldn’t, as they were moving into their new condo. Another couple new to the church had to drop out for personal reasons as well. We did have 5 folks from our gang – my sister-in-law, her two daughters, and two of their friends. Shannon had to work and stayed home with Kaileigh and we hired a babysitter.

And the other background: I love handcrafted music. I’m not very big on drum loops (I’ll tolerate them). If a band lip-synchs or there are backing vocal tracks running, it’s an instant “Strike-3-You’re-Out!” I like quality musicianship and great songwriting. I like edgy vocals over polished fluff. I’m not a huge fan of rap or hip-hop.

I play guitar, though not particularly well. Competently enough to lead worship in a small group. So I appreciate good guitar work.

OK – that intro being over, click below to get some snippets.

Wednesday

JARS OF CLAY

Nice job. I like the depth to their work and their unique sound. Nothing particularly memorable, except that I liked them. I’ve got a CD or two at home, but felt no reason to buy any more. The band wasn’t tight, and took 4 or 5 songs to get their vocal harmonies together and get on the same page. That was disappointing.

STACIE ORRICO

I am not a fan of bubblegum pop. Stacie has a nice voice, she had a competent backing band, but not my style. Very sweet young woman though. She really appeared to be as simple and humble as what you saw.

DAY OF FIRE

These guys were a last minute addition to the schedule as Paul Baloche didn’t make it the first night. I’d never heard of them before.

The band was two members:

1. A vocalist – a new Christian who repeatedly mentioned how Jesus helped him kick a nasty drug habit; he had a great hard rock voice
2. An acoustic guitarist. I was impressed with how he got a nice Alice in Chains type sound from an acoustic.

Good: Very unique sound.
Bad: They did a 3-song set, specifically labelled “worship”. After all three songs they announced the release date of their new CD. On one song, they announced the release date of their new CD before the crowd even realized that the song was over. Tacky? Yabetcha.

ROB BELL speaker

Now we’re getting somewhere. If you haven’t gone out and bought every single one of Rob’s NOOMA Videos, the emerging church police should just come and revoke your membership card. They’re fantastic. He’s an incredibly good teacher – relevant, witty, deeply spiritual and profound. I was looking forward to this (and Chris Tomlin) the most of the first couple of nights.

Home run. Rob was amazing. One 40-something woman in our group said she cried 3 times during his talk (but she allowed that it could have been the menopause talking too :-)).

His thesis was that we need to pay attention to the God who surrounds us, who’s active in every moment of our days. He blew me away with a description of God speaking to Moses in the burning bush, likening the Hebrew vocalization for YHWH as very similar to the sound of breathing. So when you breathe, you’re speaking God’s name. He illustrated this incredibly well. This was probably the highlight of the trip for me.

I was curious to see how this would go over for the crowd – really, the Creation crowd is conservative evangelicals, generally quite traditional in attitude. (Yeah, they may listen to thrash metal or whatever, but… well, I’ll discuss this peice in the next blog entry). Given that the other keynote speakers were Josh McDowell, Luis Palau and Greg Laurie – all very good and very effective, but modern as the day is long – I’m not sure how Rob was even invited.

Fantastic job by Rob.

CHRIS TOMLIN BAND

We are living in a wonderful time of worship songwriting. Matt Redman, Tim Hughes, Casey Corum, Chris Tomlin all are writing deep, challenging, engaging worship. (Let’s be honest, Matt Redman is mindblowingly talented).

In this set, Chris was a wonderfully engaging worship leader – the songs went well, he followed the lead of the Spirit, people really engaged and went somewhere. His songs were excellent, but even more so – his heart as a worshiper was evident.

If I would have gone home Wed night after seeing Chris Tomlin and Rob Bell, I’d have been satisfied.

Thursday

AUDIO ADRENALINE

See the Jars of Clay review. But the lead singer had serious vocal problems, and even had problems talking. Given that it was a great show – they really soldiered through, and the fans loved it.

SWITCHFOOT

Wow. I love this album, I love the songwriting, and they pulled off a very exciting rock show. I’ll go catch these guys on tour again. This is a band to watch; it’s a great blend of talent.

LUIS PALAU speaker

OK, I want to be very clear in what I’m saying here. I highly respect this man’s ministry. He’s a very clear and effective communicator. Hundreds of people responded to his invitation to accept the gospel. I felt hypercritical thinking that the message was half an hour too long, and should have been 45 min max. I was disappointed that he didn’t include repentance as part of the gospel process, or at least I didn’t hear it emphasized, and I wanted to know how he would present it.

CASTING CROWNS

Great band. I began my experience with them a few months ago when I saw that Greg at Emerging Minister used “If We Are the Body” as a backing song for a killer cool communion service. I felt like the song was manipulative and guilt-focused. I’ve since changed my mind.

These guys write well also. Tight band on the stage. I really enjoyed them, and look forward to their next album.

Bob Smiley – Comedy

Funny. Edgy. Made the organizers cringe once or twice. I liked him.

JOHN REUBEN

I don’t like rap, but I really liked the 4 or 5 tunes I caught of his. Great sense of humor. Rap without the typical attitude. I’ll check out his CDs.

MUSICIANS SEMINAR with PAUL BALOCHE

The first day Paul spoke on arranging and creating flow in a worship set. I love this guy. He’s got a pretty vanilla worship style, but I love his songwriting, and his clinics are very helpful. He’s a gifted teacher. Last time at Creation I bought his DVD training series, and he’s added a couple more items to the series. I’ll get them from worshipmusic.com.