Copious Notes

Chris Huffman on stage with Casting Crowns at the 2008 Ichthus Festival. Photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.com.

The last time we checked in on Glasgow native Chris Huffman, in 2004, he was a single guy in a white-hot Christian rock band who got a charge out of seeing his group’s CDs on the shelves at Wal-Mart.

Today, Huffman remains the bass player for Casting Crowns, but he’s a married guy with two kids, which makes touring and getting back to Kentucky a bit more challenging.

Casting Crowns are Megan Garrett, Brian Scoggin, Mark Hall, Hector Cervantes, Chris Huffman, Melodee DeVevo and Juan DeVevo. Photo by David Dobson.

“Everybody in the band has kids,” Huffman said Wednesday afternoon from a tour stop in Casper, Wyo. “In fact, my wife and I just had our second child three weeks ago tomorrow.”

That makes getting back home all the more important to Huffman, and leaving harder, particularly because his wife suffers from fairly serious car-sickness, so she can’t often hit the road with the group.

“It can be hard,” Huffman said, “when you call home and find out someone’s been hurt or something big happened to not be there.”

Still, despite the separation, Huffman said that Crowns is a valuable ministry, and the band’s policy of returning home for services at its home base of Eagle’s Landing First Baptist Church in Atlanta means he is rarely gone for an extended time.

“When you’re passionate about what you do, the negative sides don’t really bother you,” Huffman said. “I get frustrated a lot of times, but you learn to overlook the frustrations and the hardships.

“I believe God has called me to do this, and as long as he has, my response is, I’m here; send me.”
Huffman, who was born in Glasgow and lived there until he was 10, returns to Kentucky next week with the band’s concert Thursday night at Rupp Arena. The band is touring in support of its new album, Until the Whole World Hears, set for release Nov. 17.

Huffman loves his job, but the band’s fourth studio album and family obligations have quelled that Wal-Mart thrill. Somewhat.

“When I go to Wal-Mart, I’m usually going to the grocery and baby department,” he said. “But sometimes I get to electronics, and it’s nice to see we’re there.”

Quest Community Church's new state-of-the-art 2,400-seat auditorium was built with private funds. Could Lexington arts supporters do something similar?

What do you think of Lexington’s inventory of theaters and other venues for live performances?

Currently, leaving aside our behemoth of Rupp Arena, our major arts and entertainment venues are the Singletary Center for the Arts, which seats about 1,500, and the Lexington Opera House, which accomodates just under 1,000. Then, in the seats-a-few-hundred category, you have the black box theater in the Downtown Arts Center, the Lyric Theatre, which is currently being rennovated, and the Kentucky Theatre. There are also venues such as Studio Players’ Carriage House Theatre and the Lexington Children’s Theatre that are almost exclusively used by the groups that occupy them, and University spaces such as the University of Kentucky’s Guignol Theatre and Transylvania University’s Haggin Auditorium that are primarily used by the institutions.

Am I leaving any Big Kahunas out?

So, is that a good inventory. What do we lack?

Some lament we never got the major performing arts center that was supposed to happen where the courthouses now stand at Main and Limestone. Others say Lexington isn’t ready for a venue of that caliber. Others look at smaller spaces such as the Woodford Theatre’s venue in Falling Springs Arts and Recreation Center and wonder why Lexington couldn’t have something like that for groups that may see the Opera House as too big for their needs.

Still others say creativity trumps venues, and point to places such as Charleston, S.C., that have built vibrant performing arts scenes without an ideal inventory of venues. Here, we have examples such as Balagula Theatre at Natasha’s Bistro and Bar and the chamber music festivals that bookend the summer taking place in  an old tobacco barn at Shaker Village and Fasig-Tipton’s horse sales pavilion showing a creative use of non-traditional spaces in town.

Here’s another fly I’ll throw in the ointment: I just attended a concert last week in a new, state of the art 2,400-seat Lexington venue that would have been the envy of many area arts groups: Quest Community Church’s new sanctuary. If there is a desire for a new theater or theaters in town, do you need to have public funds to build it, or can the arts community come together to make something happen like, oh, Quest or a little baseball park near Broadway and New Circle that was built with private funds.

That’s sort of a distillation of conversations and thoughts I’ve had over the last several years about Lexington’s theater space.

So, what do you think? Hit the comment button and let’s talk.

The Jonas Brothers take the stage at Rupp Arena Sunday, Aug. 23, 2009. Photos by Jason Sankovitch.

I got a lot of sympathy yesterday.

It was all in good fun, as I posted on my Facebook page and Twitter that I was reviewing the Jonas Brothers show at Rupp Arena last night.

“Ummm…sorry?” one local musician wrote, and my sister concurred.

Another friend wrote, “Some people will do ANYTHING for a buck…..hahaha ;-}”

Oh, when it comes to doing things for a buck, I have to say this is a pretty good gig. And if you have this gig, being the critic covering the biggest concert of the summer is where you want to be, so you will never hear me complain about having to go to see the Jonas Brothers or any other act.

The Jonas Brothers fans were thrilled to see the dreamy trio on stage.

Of course, it is usually Walter Tunis covering the big Rupp concerts with a sharp critical eye and years of experience. This one happened to fall to me because I have a daughter who just passed out of the the Jonas generation, so the Disney Channel tween culture is very familiar to me. I’ve watched the Jonas Brothers grow from guests on Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus’ show and tour to a marquee act in their own right, and was even vaguely familiar with their initial foray into Christian rock.

As a critic part of your job is to step back and see and appreciate things for what they are. The Jonas Brothers are the latest teen heartthrobs, backed by the entertainment empire of Disney, and they brought a show that pulled out all of the stops. I sat next to a 43-year-old musician and dad from Louisville and our jaws were dropped a few times by what the JoBros — or, to be acurate, their technical directors and designers — put on stage. I would have liked some more spontaneity and soul. There was little room here for the surprises or improvisations I have treasured in concerts by some of my favorite artists. But no doubt, many a teen and pre-teen girl walked out of Rupp last night thinking they had seen the greatest thing ever.

And there is the point here where the critic needs to remind cynical adults that every generation has its teen idols, and some of them were even the Chairman of the Board, the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll and the Fab Four. Am I saying the Jonas Brothers are going to be the next Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley or Beatles? Hardly. The jury is still very early in deliberations on that, and in the long run, the fraternal trio will do well to be as enduring as The Monkees or Duran Duran. Time and the Jonas Brothers talent and public taste will tell the tale of how far they go. I do think they have musical and songwriting talent, and fairly winning stage presences. But the stigma of being someone’s favorite when they were 10 can be a tough thing to overcome. The daughter who familiarized me with the Jonas Brothers world has already moved on, had no interest in last night’s show, but really wants tickets to the Kings of Leon in October.

This is why any artist that makes most of his or her cash off the delirious excitement of girls who are too young to drive would be well advised to invest that money wisely, because the trip from arena stages to the where-are-they now category can be as quick as fashions change and those shoes become so five minutes ago.

And adults will always look at the flavor of the moment with some disdain. As one friend wrote, “If you can’t poke a little fun at teenage millionaires, who can you pick on…? : )”

Michael W. Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman on stage at Rupp Arena Sunday, April 26, 2009. Photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.

When you get a ticket to a concert featuring Michael W. Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman, there are moments you hope for.

Like, the pair riffing on each other’s gargantuan catalogues. After Chapman finished his first-half solo set at Rupp Arena Sunday night, Smith came out and said, “You know, you didn’t sing one of my favorite songs. May I?” and launched into the Chapman classic, The Great Adventure.

Smith in the opening number, Blessed be the Name of the Lord.

Chapman complimented Smith saying, “You should do an album of Steven Curtis Chapman songs,” and then returned the favor singing Smith’s Place in this World.

They were moments that remind you iconic artists are fully capable of appreciating other iconic artists’ work. They can also razz each other like guys standing around the grill on Saturday afternoon.

In one of several age-related jokes, 46-year-old Chapman lauded 51-year-old Smith for “blazing a trail,” for him. “So I blazed a trail?” Smith replied. “At least I wasn’t clogging in Opryland,” he said, referring to one of Chapman’s pre-contemporary-Christian-music superstar gigs.

It was an evening of good humor and deep appreciation for the singers, and basically a two-fer for the audience that was nowhere near as big as the dual-headliner bill deserved. Rupp, in it’s 5,000-ish seat Heart of Rupp Arena configuration, looked to be about half full. Maybe Christian stars shouldn’t compete with regularly-scheduled church activities, because the Lexington crowd is usually much more supportive of Christian pop.

The crowd that did turn out got to see Smith and Chapman together and in individual sets, which were strikingly different.

Smith had the most cohesive musical presentation of the pair. Taking the stage on his own in the second half, he offered a few blasts from the past, including Secret Ambition from the 1988 release i2Eye and Go West Young Man from the album of the same name. He also played The Giving from his 2000 instrumental album, Freedom, which sounded surprisingly good without an acoustic piano or orchestra.

But Smith’s recent focus has been worship music, and once he launched into a set from his current A New Hallelujah album and his Worship efforts, Smith was deep into his own element. And while some of us may lament a dearth of his greatest hits in Smith’s recent shows, he is a compelling worship leader.

Chapman sings Yours, a song he said had taken on new meaning since the death of his daughter.

Chapman’s set was an all-too-modest greatest hits set. What was striking was, it is difficult to remember a Christian artist with as focused a testimony as Chapman currently has. Most everyone in the house knew that last May 21, Chapman’s 5-year-old adoptive daughter Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman was killed in a tragic accident at the family’s home.

Any question as to whether Chapman would address his loss was quickly answered when he introduced his 2007 hit, Yours. He said the tragedy forced him to reconsider the implications of the lyrics about turning everything over to God, and later in the set said he had a new perspective on a lot of his music. He also said he thought he would never be able to sing Cinderella, a song he wrote for his daughters, again. But he did at his first concert back on stage last July, and performed it last night, beautifully isolating the final line in the song about a dad having to let go of his little girls as they grow up: “I know the truth is the dance will go on.”

Chapman actually shared his testimony about Maria, the third child he and his wife adopted from China, in a great little song arc, concluding with God is God, a song about trusting the almighty from his 2001 album Declaration.

Chapman and Smith combined for a tidy three hour show, including an intermission and pitch for Chapman’s Show Hope charity which supports orphan children. They both addressed their Kentucky connections, Chapman talking about his Paducah home and brief stint as a pre-med student at Georgetown College and native West Virginian Smith talking about his Rupp Arena memories, including concerts there when he was Amy Grant’s keyboard player.

The sweetest moments between the two though were not so much when they bantered or played each other’s tunes, but when they were simply there for each other. Smith told the crowd the original set list did not include Chapman’s I Will be Here, and he would have refused to tour without Chapman including it, before he played keyboard’s for Chapman’s rendition of the classic.

And half way through Smith’s Friends, Chapman strode out to sing the chorus, and Smith deferred to him for the final line, “A lifetime’s not too long to live as friends.”

With the United Tour, Rupp Arena will host two of the icons of Christian rock.

Michael W. Smith

Steven Curtis Chapman and Michael W. Smith are global superstars of the genre. But you could also see a Central Kentucky gig for them as a homecoming, or close-to-homecoming.

Chapman grew up in Paducah and started his college career at Georgetown College before moving to Nashville. Smith grew up in Kenova, W.Va., outside Huntington, and one of his earliest Christian rock experiences was attending the Ichthus Festival in Wilmore, back when it was at the campground in town.

In 2005, Smith told the Herald-Leader that he was already writing songs and dreaming of being the next Elton John when he came to Wilmore to see artists such as Andrae Crouch. He left thinking, “I want to do that.”

Chapman came to Georgetown in 1981 because it was the thing to do.

Steven Curtis Chapman.

“Every good Baptist kid in Paducah wants to go to Georgetown College,” Chapman, who was a pre-med student, told the Herald-Leader in 1998. “There are professors there that probably still shake their heads at the idea of me being pre-med.”

Clearly, there were other plans for Chapman, ones that looked a lot like Smith’s.

Between them, Smith and Chapman have eight Grammy Awards, 99 Dove Awards (including three more Thursday, Chapman winning artist of the year) and 80 No. 1 songs. They are responsible for some of the biggest hits in Christian and even mainstream music. How many graduates have shared their last moments together to the tune of Smith’s Friends? How many weddings have included Chapman’s I Will Be Here?

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• Enjoy our Winter Jam slide show. Mouse over the bottom to get controls. Click on the little comment cloud to the left to activate captions. If you click on a photo, it will take you to a larger version of it at Picasa, and you can click the link at the bottom left for a larger version of the whole show.
  

It is a safe bet that the vast majority of the 12,396 people who turned out for Winter Jam 2009 at Rupp Arena will be in church Sunday morning. But Saturday night, they were at the biggest party in Christian rock.

Tobymac at Winter Jam.

Tobymac and the Diverse City Band were in the house and left little doubt as to why with Grammy Awards, Dove Awards and chart topping album sales they are the top act in contemporary Christian music. No one spins praising God and having a good time together the way these guys do, and fortunately, it can’t rain in Rupp.

Toby made reference to the fact that he was rained out at Ichthus last year and promised to give the Bluegrass Winter Jam audience a little extra. The band flipped through some of the hottest hits off Tobymac’s three solo efforts and the Grammy-winning Alive and Transported album including revved up renditions of Boomin’ and Slam that left the band and the audience breathless, needing the break of Lose My Soul.

Winter Jam, which made its second visit to Rupp in as many years is presented by New Song, who opened the evening after Dove Award nominee Francesca Battistelli, with a few of their hits, including Arise My Love. Hawk Nelson made an early appearance with a hyped up set that topped the first half of music.

Then evangelist Tony Nolan took the stage to deliver a message and a high-tech take on the invitation for people to commit to the Christian faith. No walking forward to Just As I Am, Without One Plea here. Winter Jam goers were told to text “Tony” to 38714, and they would receive a text with more information about where to go for information. Winter Jam organizers estimated 2,500 people responded to that invitation Saturday night.

Then, it was back to music, with The Afters burning through several of their hits, including Beautiful Love and MySpace Girl. Finally, Toby came on for a quick exausting set that, after a shower of confetti, sent everyone home in plenty of time to get some sleep before church — even with this being spring forward weekend.

Julian Drive are keyboardist Shaun Bennett, Guitarist Jesse Triplett, guitarist and vocalist Shane Bowers and bassist James Nitz. Photo courtesy of Inpop Records.

Review: Julian Drive, My Coming Day

Athens, Ga. It’s a town that has an almost mythic reputation in rock ‘n’ roll as the birthplace of Hall of Famers R.E.M. and The B-52’s and current acts such as Of Montreal and Widespread Panic. So when Julian Drive’s CD rolled in with a press kit mentioning Athens was home for the band, it was attention grabbing. Is this group going to carry the Athenian spirit into Christian rock?

Well, here’s the good news about Julian Drive’s debut, My Coming Day: the youth group band had longtime Christian music producer Lynn Nichols, who’s guided Phil Keaggy and Switchfoot, to name a few, on board for this project, and he brings out a sleek, professional sound in Julian Drive. No doubt, these guys are ready for radio.

Maybe too ready.

The problem is Julian Drive sounds too much like what you hear on radio already. As the opening track, From Your Hands, plays, its way to easy to recall Tenth Avenue North’s Love is Here, in both the tune’s mood and use of crucifixion imagery. And that continues through most of the album, with songs easily recalling themes and moods we’ve heard before. It isn’t until track seven, Unplug, that we seem to get something individual out of the group, and there’s an inspired cover in Hoobastank’s The Reason.

What Julian Drive needs next time around is something of its own to say. Part of the magic of those Athens bands was they truly broke molds and offered music unlike anything music fans were hearing at the times they debuted. Julian Drive probably does not have that in them. After all, these guys were born out of a rural Clarke County church, not the eclectic downtown clubs near the University of Georgia. But any substantial act needs its own voice, and that is something Julian Drive still seems to be looking for.

Coming our way: The big Michael W. Smith-Steven Curtis Chapman United Tour is back on the road and will hit Lexington at 7 p.m. April 26. Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday for the show.

More Aussies: Newboys and Rebecca St. James have already demonstrated the power of Australian artists to become big stars in American Christian rock. The editors at Billboard magazine have looked into the crystal ball and seen Revive may be the next band from down under to top our charts. The band’s first album, Chorus of the Saints, drops March 10, and they’ll be hitting the road with Third Day and Brandon Heath. Revive is signed to Third Day’s Consuming Fire Productions. If you’d like a preview of what the new disc may hold, Revive’s 2007 release, Trafalgar Street, is available on CD and at Napster and iTunes.

Home movies: Fireproof, the latest hit from Alex and Stephen Kendrick and Albany, Ga.’s — we have a little Georgia theme today, don’t we — Sherwood Baptist Church is out on DVD today. In the film, Kirk Cameron plays a firefighter whose marriage is crumbling and he is challenged to try “The Love Dare,” which you may also recognize as the title of a best-selling book from last fall.

New music: One of the big new releases today is CompassionArt, a set of 15 new songs by Christian music stars including Michael W. Smith, Amy Grant, Steven Curtis Chapman and others. All the proceeds from the disc, organized by Delirious frontman Martin Smith, go to fighting poverty around the world. We had a chance to talk to Smith last week and will post that interview sometime in the next week.