I Am a Panhead

Friggin' Rock Friggin' On

Gregg Kavanaugh

So we went to a rock concert here in town tonight. Terre Haute doesn't get many rock concerts, so we were happy to attend. The fact that it was headlined by one of our favorite Christian bands, Skillet, didn't make our decision any more difficult.

Our tickets said Row 1 on them, but when Holli was checking prior to the show on Ticketmaster, it also showed that there were floor seats. We figured that what we had was the first row of the bleachers, and that there would be floor seats in front of us. We were mistaken. Front row, two seats right of center. I could stretch my legs out from my seat without constraint from other chairs in front of me. My face was peeled away by the blast of the speakers. It was righteous.

Decyfer Down opened the show. I'd never heard any of their music before the show, but I quickly became a fan. Their lead singer looks like Chris Jericho of WWE fame, and sounds quite a bit like him as he sings, too. I do not mean the latter statement to be anything but a compliment, mind you, as I think Jericho's got a good voice. Their music was just good ol' hard rock, except they're rocking for Jesus, which is a cause I can get behind.

Disciple was up next, and my brother-in-law had warned me that I might not like them, as he thought they were a bit on the screamy side. Perhaps they do scream, but it's much more in the mold of Rage Against the Machine, a band I liked very much when it existed, rather than in the mold of your average speed metal band singing D-E-words, which I do not like. They've also clearly got some roots in southern rock, a genre Holli still refuses to acknowledge the existence of, because there were some really strong melodies underneath all of the hard-rocking guitar. Their lead singer has more energy than any human being I've ever known, and he gave an absolutely fantastic testimony near the end of their set. Also, one of their guitar players did a backflip off of a crate with his guitar on, which was, needless to say, awesome cool.

Skillet closed the show, and they just blew us away. They're absolutely fantastic live, and even actually trudged along a fiddle player (it's a fiddle if it's played in concert with a guitar) to do their strings live. All five of them, much like Disciple's lead singer, were loaded with energy. Being an aspiring guitar player myself, the thought of actually being able to play my instrument at the high level they were at was daunting enough; playing it while singing and bouncing around like I drank a case of Red Bull seems impossible to me, though. I even have a picture of the fiddle player playing the string part in "Rebirthing" with both of his feet off of the ground. It was just nuts.

When the show was over, Holli looked down at her feet and found a guitar pick for me. As the roadies were cleaning up afterwards, they grabbed a bunch more of them off the ground and threw me another. You know, because I was in the front row. So now I've got two picks that have been used in the Lord's service, and hopefully they can carry on the the tradition here.

As I go to more and more Christian concerts, the difference becomes more and more clear to me. Here we were, however many people filling up the Hulman-George Theater, all rocking out and bouncing in our chairs during Skillet's set, when they play a worship song for us. What was a wild, rocking time suddenly turned into a theater full of hands raised, praising the God of the universe, focusing and letting loose all of the praise that we'd been involved in for nearly three hours.

Also, before the fascists running the arena made everyone go back to their seats, we had formed the most polite mosh pit I've ever seen. Everyone had their own personal space, nobody was pushing everyone. It was great.