Copious Notes

The David Crowder Band isn’t going out with a bang or a whimper, but with a tsunami of music.

For the band’s sixth and final studio album, it has released a 34-song epic that goes just about everywhere the Crowder Band has been, including a heapin’ helpin’ of bluegrass toward the finale, and forges some new territory such as a rock opera-esque grandeur toward the middle of the project.

Like almost everything Crowder has done, there is a plan, a design underlying it, this one being fairly clearly stated in the extensive title, Give Us Rest or (a requiem mass in c [the happiest of all keys]). The nearly two-hour album is built on the mass stucture including a mighty, modern Kyrie and extensive contemplative section bookended by some flat out fantastic songs, pop-oriented at the beginning and footstomping bluegrass toward the end. (Dude, if you guys want to retire to Kentucky, we’d love to have you.) As I am not Catholic, I will not pretend to be terribly knowledgeable about what Crowder has done to make this a true mass, but the album is as captivating as the experience of a mass, well beyond what we usually expect from a pop release.

Overall, Give Us Rest communicates a pervasive love of music in many, many forms – this is the band that has credibly brought banjo and the I Am T-Pain app onto the Christian concert stage, often in the same show. And it communicates a consuming love of God and desire to make music for God.

The final stroke of genius though is after all the great songs like Sometimes and Come Find Me, the complexity of the music and the structure of this project, this is how Crowder and his band exit: a humble, as unplugged-as-you-can-be-in-the-studio rendition of the hymn, Because He Lives.

Most Christian music fans hate to see Crowder and his band go. There is too much formulaic, passionless music in the Christian genre to see an act of this talent and integrity disband. But over the past decade, the group has earned the right to chart its own course and say when the journey is over. And if this it, the David Crowder Band has left us with a masterpiece.

David Crowder leads the Rupp Arena crowd in singing Here is Our King on March 13, 2011. © Herald-Leader photo by Rich Copley.

The David Crowder Band has announced it is working on its last record and will play its last tour in the fall.

A characteristically geeky statement on the band’s website explains that the group always had a six album plan when it started recording in 2000, and it is currently working on album number six, called Mass – the word both describes what it will be musically and alludes to the term in physics, which alert fans know has been part of the band’s oeuvre.

“The problem, or the beauty, is that we’ve never been able to see past album 6,” the statement says. It continued that band members had discussed what would be next for them – including going back to school or concentrating on writing and, “the decision was reached that this sixth album would be our last. None of us is sure what’s next, but we’re not afraid. We’re, in fact, really, really excited! And we’re sure that music will play a role in the future for most, if not all, of us, since, well, we wouldn’t know how to not have it a part of our lives.”

It is a decision that will bring to an end one of the more eclectic careers in Christian music, with Crowder helping to redefine praise and worship music from sources as diverse as banjos and fiddles to keytars and Guitar Hero controllers. Along the way, the group has added numerous classics to the contemporary Christian music songbook including Foreverandever, etc. and Here is Our King.

The band’s last area date was March 13 at Rupp Arena as part of the Winter Jam tour. Kentucky is not currently on the itinerary for the group’s 7 Tour which starts Sept. 29 in Austin, Texas. They will play a youth conference at Louisville’s KFC Yum! Center July 9 and the 7 tour stops in Cincinnati Oct. 27.

Red's Michael Barnes plays to a cheering crowd at the 2010 Ichthus Festival.

More: Click here to listen to our chat with Red’s Anthony Armstrong.

In 2006, the band Red released its debut album, hoping someone would listen.

The group wasn’t even on a label at the time, but slowly people tuned in to the hard-rock sounds of the disc, which spawned the hits Breathe Into Me, Break Me Down and a couple of other chart-toppers. The album ended up nominated for the Grammy Award for best rock or rap gospel record.

Five years later, Red doesn’t release albums quietly.

Quickly after the Feb. 1 release of Until We Have Faces, Red was hovering near No. 1 on iTunes’ sales charts, and the band was booked on TBS’s Conan and NBC’s Tonight Show With Jay Leno, national television debuts for the band.

Red guitarist Anthony Armstrong.

“We can’t even believe the numbers that are coming in,” guitarist Anthony Armstrong said a few days after the album’s release. “Some amazing things are happening.”

For Central Kentucky fans of Red, one of those things is a slot on the Winter Jam tour, which comes to Rupp Arena on March 12. The bill is topped by the resurgent Newsboys, the David Crowder Band, Kutless, Francesca Battistelli, Jason Castro, Chris August, Sidewalk Prophets, KJ-52 and tour hosts NewSong.

But Red is easily the hottest band at the moment on the show, like many other bands successfully crossing the line between mainstream and Christian venues.

“We try to play the same way whether we are playing in a church or a bar,” Armstrong said at last summer’s Ichthus Festival. “We want people who see us to say, ‘Those guys are the same no matter where they play. They’re not putting on an act or trying to hide anything.’”

One thing Red showed very well at Ichthus, where it was the Friday evening main stage opener for Skillet, was that it could play to a huge crowd — sort of like the one it will see in Rupp Arena, where last year’s Winter Jam drew 14,756 fans.

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Newsboys frontman Michael Tait played to the Rupp Arena crowd at Winter Jam 2010 in March, his first Central Kentucky appearance as frontman for the iconic band. Copyrighted photos by Rich Copley | LexGo.

The new year hasn’t started, but we already can tell Christian music fans about a few things to look forward to in Central Kentucky in 2011.

Chief among them is, of course, the Ichthus Festival, which already has started releasing the lineup for the event, which will be June 15 to 18 in Wilmore.

Some of the new names coming to the main stage include longtime fan favorites Anberlin and newcomers The Letter Black, along with mainstage returns by Family Force 5 and Disciple, who weren’t there last year. There are a number of returns from last year, including Skillet, Superchick, Red and LeCrae, who brought some highly credible hip-hop to the main stage last year.

Christian music has had trouble embracing hip-hop over the years, but this year’s festival will be further evidence that hard rock is having no trouble finding its way in the genre, with heavier acts on the main stage and the growing prominence of the Deep End stage, which will feature acts including Project 86 and The Almost, Aaron Gillespie’s ­Underoath side project, which has grown into a substantial act in its own right.

Ichthus 2011 will again open on Wednesday night, with a community concert like last year’s Tobymac, Newsboys lineup, and it will include the acoustic Galleria stage. In years past, Ichthus had a grand lineup announcement, but now organizers trickle it out primarily on their Facebook page (Facebook.com/ichthus).

In addition to the acts mentioned above, the lineup thus far includes Jason Castro, Fireflight, Remedy Drive, Mikeschair, Chris August, Sleeping Giant, For Today, Josh Wilson, Josh Garrels, Living Sacrifice, Trip Lee and Britt Nicole.

Tickets for Ichthus 2011 are on sale at Ichthusfestival.org. (If you are reading this Dec. 31, you can still get in on bargain basement rates if you buy before the new year.)

Long before that, when the weather will be more like it is now, Winter Jam will hit Rupp Arena for the fourth straight year. And for the third straight year, it will be a Saturday night. On March 12, the set will feature Newsboys, the David Crowder Band, Red, Kutless, Francesca Battistelli, NewSong, KJ-52, Sidewalk Prophets and Chris August. Newsboys were here last year in their reconstituted lineup featuring Michael Tait, and event hosts NewSong and Francesca Battistelli have been at the Rupp event before. But the rest of the lineup is new to the event, including the Crowder Band, a onetime Ichthus staple whose last big local date was a fall 2009 show at Southland Christian Church.

As in previous years, admission for Winter Jam is $10 and only at the door. For more information, go to Hearitfirst.com/winterjam.