Tour Schedule

Tour Schedule

Concert Review

Expectations can be a nasty thing. Especially when it comes to Christian concerts. Often, bands can evolve over time, putting out an interesting array of songs in the process, some ready-made for fan consumption, and some a little more daring and experimental. When playing live, bands often face the dilemma of how to balance the new material with the old and keep their fans happy. This dilemma is especially difficult for bands whose early work has generated a high number of hits and “classics”, such as Jars of Clay or Third Day. If you’re primarily known as being a worship band, the challenge is even more daunting. This is definitely the case for the five-piece British rock act Delirious?.After an intermission, during which a friend and I tried in vain to find a better vantage point, the D:boys came out on stage while their familiar “Game Over?” intro piece played onscreen. I was expecting that to lead into “Sanctify” like it does on the D:Tour Live 1997 disc, so it was quite surprising when guitarist Stu G suddenly ripped into the bouncy riff from “Deeper”, arguably the group’s biggest radio hit thus far. Wait, don’t they usually close with that one? No matter. They made it clear from the get-go that their set wasn’t going to be as predictable as I expected. Though it wasn’t a big surprise to hear a barrage of their most popular “worship” material, I didn’t exactly mind, because they hit us with “Did You Feel the Mountains Tremble?” and “History Maker” early on - songs which I usually expect to show up near the end of their set. The band’s most recent modern worship venture, Glo, was not to be forgotten either, as evidenced by the marathon “God’s Romance”, which is always a good song to get hearts pumping with Martin Smith’s manic preacher-style singing and Stu G’s fiery guitar riffs. I sort of felt like a few of the opening numbers lacked in energy when compared to the album versions, but they’re all such passionate songs that I know it’s hard for the band to keep up with themselves at times.

Thankfully, surprisingly little of what the band was doing seemed like a rehash of past concerts to me. Snippets of older songs showed up in medley form - Martin tacked the chorus of “Revival Town” onto “History Maker”, and later threw in the “Glory in the Highest” coda from “Blindfold” and the “Keep me” chorus from “King or Cripple” in a reflective outro to “My Glorious”. The breezy radio hit “Everything” (complete with music video in the background) was a nice surprise early on in the show, since it’s one of my favorites from Glo and it was oddly absent from their set list last time around. Its abrupt ending set things up nicely for the hammering drums and gritty guitar at the beginning of “My Glorious”, which also seemed less energetic than the album version but still got me up out of my seat, with a triumphant jump and an idiotic cheer. Half the fun for me at concerts is to see how the band chooses to order the songs, and this clever inversion of the order in which the songs are placed on Glo was quite satisfying.

One thing I do enjoy about the release of Deeper is that it has brought some old songs to light that might have been overlooked by fans in the vast sea of mostly long, meditative songs that made up the double disc Cutting Edge. Most of the stuff they picked from those two discs is an exact match of the tracks I program in whenever I play Cutting Edge, since I have a hard time being patient throughout the whole thing. It was wonderful to hear the ballad “Thank You for Saving Me” work its way into the set - Martin did this one with Tim Jupp playing solo on the keyboards, and I honestly didn’t realize that the other three guys had left the stage. I actually wished this one had gone on for longer (since it’s one of the tracks that is worth drawing out to six minutes plus on Cutting Edge with its fluid piano melody). I could tell the sound folks were having some technical problems because there was a distinct buzzing sound coming from somewhere on stage during the otherwise quiet moments of this song. I think the band had blown out on amp or something during “My Glorious” - but then, that just goes to show how passionately the guys were playing.

Martin gave himself (and the audience) a little breather by talking for a little while about the band’s history (they’ll be celebrating their 10-year anniversary soon) before getting on with the music. He can be a genuinely funny guy at times (though I have this theory that anything’s twice as funny when you say it with a British accent), but it was clear that the object of his monologue was neither a comedy routine or a cheap attempt to get the crowd on a Jesus high. He simply took the time to talk about a song that had become bigger than the band itself, a song that it humbled them to hear sung in foreign languages when they traveled to churches around the world, a song that they had recently re-released as a CD single, which went Top 40 on the UK charts… a little tune called “I Could Sing of Your Love Forever”. It’s interesting to see how this one has morphed over the years - Martin now sings the verses in a more regular pattern to make it easier for folks to sing along, unlike the choppy manner in which he originally sang it on Cutting Edge. Having said that, I don’t know if I like the re-tooled version. The band seems to have changed up the chords during the verses and given it a more eerie feel, even though the tune is the same. But then, I don’t think any of the remakes recorded for “Deeper” outdid the originals. Martin had mentioned that the band would soon be recording some of their classic material in Spanish, and it was cool to hear him intermingle a few Spanish lines into the song everyone there must have otherwise known by heart.

Another great surprise was up next, as Martin asked the audience if they wanted to hear something new. Since I fully expected the band to deny the existence of Audio: Lessonover, I figured it was time for “Not Forgotten”, the one new song recorded for Deeper. But they surprised me with “Show Me Heaven”, a feisty new rock anthem that they had written during the Glo sessions, held off on recording until the Audio sessions, and were now playing for the first time in L.A. It looked to me like I was the only one there who didn’t know the words - everyone else politely listened while I stood up and sang and acted like a fool. I was happy to finally be rewarded with some new material. Martin was great during this song, bringing the audience in with some energetic “Whoo!”s during the chorus, and floating around in the audience as the song hurtled along to its sudden end.

I had to chuckle as the familiar electronic intro to “Heaven” started up next. This made me happy, because 1) This meant the band had time to venture outside of their straight ”worship” material, 2) The juxtaposition of two songs with similar titles was clever, and 3) They were finally playing something from Mezzamorphis. Even though this song wouldn’t have fit the criteria for Deeper, the chorus “Heaven is my home, and there’ll be no shame to bear” took on a new, worshipful light in this context. They managed to keep me guessing (and looking like an idiot) by drawing out the soft break before the chorus comes back in, and then by pulling off a sharp transition into “Sanctify”, which I first confused with “Awaken the Dawn” due to its rhythm and opening guitar riff. “Sanctify” is a definite classic that took its time, but eventually became one of my favorites. I don’t like how Martin drags out the soft ending of the song in concert, but it still led nicely into a few more oldies-but-goodies.

The group rounded out their set with “Obsession” (complete with the “Obsession Oscilloscope” reverberating on the video screen) and “I’m Not Ashamed”. I had never heard a full version of the former in concert (they cleverly fused it onto the end of “Kiss Your Feet” a couple years ago), so this felt new to me even though it was old. Jon Thatcher (he’s the cute guy that all the girls go crazy for; every band’s gotta have one) really made the people tremble (and quite a few of them plug their ears) with the trademark bass intro while Stu Smith methodically pounded out the time. I’ve always loved how the song starts slow and ominous and then catches fire - even though it’s one of the band’s earliest, it’s one of their most rocking and passionate numbers. The same can be said for “I’m Not Ashamed”, which speeds along like a runway train, gaining momentum as Martin very nearly goes crazy with his sold out devotion to Christ. These were great picks to close out the proper set; I only had minor quibbles with the fact that the second verse was skipped in both. Given that they run longer than eight and six minutes (respectively) in the original versions, I guess the band can’t always fit everything in.

With many of the usual closers already out of the way, I was at a loss to predict what the band would close with as the floor began to shake and the audience made their desire for an encore known. Amusingly, an old home video of the band began to play on the screen, with Martin strumming an early version of “Revival Town” while spinning around on a merry-go round with Stu Smith playing the bongos to keep time and Stu G. sticking his face into the camera like an idiot. Midway through the video, things turned electric as the band took stage again, and Stu G. ripped into the song’s bridge with another powerful guitar riff. The band finished out the song and then proceeded to thrill us with three more, which was thrilling, considering the disappointing one song encore they gave me the last time I saw them. Even more thrilling was that the song they chose to play next was another new one - “Fire”. It’s probably the most aggressive track on Audio: Lessonover, sort of like a cross between their earlier hit “Bliss” and U2’s “Elevation”. The lyrics were extremely hard to make out live, but the chorus made up for it as Stu G. bellowed “I, I, I believe!” while Martin went into full falsetto mode. Careful there, Martin. We don’t want Bono to sue us now, do we?

Did I mention “Bliss”? I was fully expecting my favorite Delirious? song of all time as Stu G. began to noodle around on his guitar after “Fire” was suddenly extinguished. There were about three different times when I yelled “YEAH!!!!!”, only to realize he hadn’t started the song yet, once again making me feel like a moron. But eventually, the familiar heavy riff kicked in, and the boys blazed through a song that is always a highlight of their concerts. For some reason, I had never realized that Stu G. sang the low part during the song’s quiet bridge (“It’s the simple things that satisfy…”), even though they’ve done this song every time I’ve seen them. Sometimes I’m as observant as a brick wall!

I never understood why the guys thought “Investigate” (one of the most stunning tracks from Glo) made a good closing song. They ended with it on the Glo tour, and apparently they’re still doing the same thing. I absolutely love the song - it just ends too abruptly to offer a sense of closure. Despite that, the haunting chords were a perfect compliment to Martin’s plea to “Shine upon the darkest place in me”, and the coda was just sublime as the band hammered it out with one final burst of energy. These are always the best moments of a Delirious? concert - where there needs to be no distinction between the “rock” songs and the “worship” songs, because the act of rocking out is an act of worship. I can honestly say I loved every minute of it.

Source: www.epinions.com