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Caedmon's Call Live at Pepperdine University, 09/17/03 (Plus My Advice to a Flailing Folk/Rock Outfit)Sep 29 '03 (Updated Apr 29 '05) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line I expected a lack of classic Derek Webb material... I wasn't expecting a lack of new material in favor of worship songs the band didn't even write. Highly disappointing.
Date: Saturday, September 13, 2003 Performers: Caedmon's Call with Mark Schultz and Kepano Green Venue: Alumni Park, Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA Ticket Price: $15 (general admission) I said a few years ago that Caedmon's Call was "One of the Best Live Bands in Christian Music Today." Ladies and gentlemen, I am officially retracting that statement. Now if you've read anything else I've written about the band within the last year, you'd probably be able to jump to conclusions regarding why I'd say such a thing. I'm just ticked off because Derek Webb left the group, right? Well... sort of. I miss Derek, and the absence of his creative input could really be felt on their latest album Back Home, but I generally won't hold expected drawbacks against a band's live show. That is to say, the expectation that none of Derek's classic material ("Center Aisle", "Somewhere North", "Thankful", "Daring Daylight Escape", etc.) would be played live any more wasn't going to make me resent the songs that were played. As my girlfriend and I and some of my roommate's buddies made plans to attend a recent show at Pepperdine University, I reminded myself of this. I'd heard almost every single Derek song that I could ever want to hear in a live setting. Now it was time for some of the new material to shine. Often, favorable presentation of new songs in a live setting can lead me to appreciate an album that I had overlooked up to that point. This was what I was hoping would be achieved by my attending this show. (That, and my girlfriend hadn't seen them live before, and I figured she had to catch them at least once before their inevitable demise or conversion into an unchallenging AC worship band.) Canyons Fill First By all accounts, it should have been a memorable show. There was a sense of comfortable familiarity to the venue that the band chose (or should I say, that chose them) - Pepperdine University has the enviable position of overlooking the Pacific Ocean from the hilly community of Malibu, California. It's a bit of a ritzy area, and somewhat difficult to navigate if you're not familiar with it. Fortunately, I was familiar with it, having come down there nearly three years ago for a previous Caedmon's Call show (which I missed most of due to an erroneous time being listed on the group's website), so my girlfriend and I took the scenic route through Malibu Canyon (which is lovely and definitely worth exploring if you're in the area) instead of fighting with the stop-and-go traffic of Pacific Coast Highway. We showed up a good hour before opening act Mark Schultz was set to play, figuring we didn't want to take any chances regarding incorrect show times. Long on Love for Kepano Green Showing up early turned out to be a good thing, because the familiarity bug bit again. The gentle sound of acoustic guitars and harmonizing voices was coming from the stage as we parked and made our way into the park. At first, judging from the lyrics, I thought it was some local worship band, but there were no drums, and the guitar chords were a little more inventive than that. Turns out it was the local indie band Kepano Green (or at least two guys who used to be in that band), who I thought was kaput as of a few years ago, but apparently someone booked them to open for CC and Mark Schultz. Not a bad choice! In addition to some new songs that I assumed were a solo venture by Josh Kauffman, he and Paul Duncan ran through a few selections from the group's only proper studio album, Waiting for Daylight, including "Open Hands", "Long on Love", and the closing "Supernatural". The guys have a way with crooning over jazzy chords that would probably make John Mayer a little jealous. Suddenly I wish this band were officially still together! He's My Youth Pastor Now, you know it's a bad sign when your opening act upstages you. Having only given Mark Schultz's music a cursory listen and finding only one song to be memorable, I wasn't really expecting much out of his set, especially since solo pop singers often can't hack it in a live setting. As Schultz and his band got going, I actually found myself rather irritated with the upbeat material, and Schultz's slightly gritty and slightly nasal voice (think Michael W. Smith) didn't seem to be a natural fit for the songs being performed, which were largely culled from his first album. With a second disc out last year and a third due out soon, I was a bit skeptical as to whether the youth pastor turned piano-playing pop singer was simply resting on the laurels of a well-received debut. But as he introduced the song "When You Come Home", which tells the story of an anxious mother learning to let go as her son leaves home, I had to admit I was starting to become endeared to his witty sense of humor. He even capped off the otherwise paint-by-numbers ballad with a humorous alternate verse about how kids are flaky and never really keep in touch with their parents. He had been talking about reading a book on "How to Write a Hit Song", and we could tell that this was a guy who knew he was pop, and didn't feel like apologizing for it, but at the same time knew that a little humor would go a long way in terms of helping him stand out. Mark did eventually get around to some newer material, including the hits "Back in His Arms Again" and "I Have Been There" from Song Cinema (the former was good for audience participation, since he taught us to chime in with the simple refrain "One life, one love, one way home"). One of the highlights of the concert was the debut of a brand new composition from his upcoming album, Stories and Songs (he doesn't come up with the most original titles, does he?), which was called "Letters from War". While it definitely fit in with Schultz's past catalogue of tear-jerking ballads about family members, this one had a little more of a conversational flavor to it as it detailed the correspondence between a mother (Mark's great-grandmother, actually) and a son who had been shipped off to fight in World War I. Mark was clearly excited about his new material - he even premiered a song he hadn't even finished yet entitled "Walking Her Home". I'm not sure if this was even a real song that he was working on, or just a clever way of making fun of his own sentimental slickness - he filled in for lyrics that hadn't been written yet with a lot of "na na na"s and side comments to the audience about what was happening during the verses that he hadn't gotten around to finishing. The whole thing was really stupid, but at the same time, it was awesome that he could screw around so much and still have the audience eating out of his hand. Of course, I probably felt that way because I wasn't that attached to Schultz's discography so far. If there is one song by Mr. Schultz that I am attached to, it would have to be the most popular of his heartstring-tugging ballads, "He's My Son". Yep, guilty as charged - this thing shows songs like Bob Carlisle's "Butterfly Kisses" how it's supposed to be done. Schultz told a lengthy story leading up to this one, about how he got talked into being a youth pastor (basically because the guy who talked him into it could tell that he was insane enough to take the job), and ended up meeting the kid with leukemia who inspired the song. Schultz was really humble in explaining that he had no clue how to write this song, since he didn't have any of his own kids, and yet he really wanted to convey what the kid's father was feeling as he faced the possibility that his son might die, and cried out to God to let him take his son's place if at all possible. God basically dropped the song into Schultz's lap in about 45 minutes. The actual performance of the song was rather routine, actually, with Mark's guitarist switching to keyboard to add in some run-of-the-mill symphonic sounds (we can't have a heart-rending pop ballad without strings, can we?), but Mark's voice and his passion for the subject made it believable. These are the kinds of songs I honestly wish Michael W. Smith were still writing. (The kid is doing fine now, by the way.) I would've expected Mark's set to end at that point, but he still had time to dedicate a few more songs to his old youth group - this gave him an excuse to do the worship standbys "You Are My All in All" and "Open the Eyes of My Heart", but neither seemed forced nor trite. Even his first pop radio hit, "I Am the Way", didn't turn out to be the closing number - he dug into the back half of his first album for the off-kilter country song "Legend of McBride" (which was strangely juxtaposed with a cover of The Isley Brothers' "Shout") and the closing ballad "Remember Me". Even though I think the set relied far too heavily on Mark's older material, and there are instances when I'm reminded that it's no coincidence that "Schultz" rhymes with "Schmaltz", I think I've become curious enough to give his third album a fair listen when it comes out later this year. (Incidentally, we later noticed Mark sitting on the grass a few feet away from us, watching Caedmon's set. He was talking to one of his companions through most of it.) Set List: Let's Go When You Give When You Come Home Back in His Arms Again I Have Been There Letters from War Walking Her Home He's My Son You Are My All in All Open the Eyes of My Heart I Am the Way Legend of McBride/Shout Remember Me (Funny, I almost forgot that this was a review of a Caedmon's concert. Alrighty, on to the main act now...) Before, There Was Time to Play a Full Set! It was getting dark by the time Caedmon's Call hit the stage. They opened with their former closing song, "Hope to Carry On", which is known as one of the band's signature songs even though it was originally written and recorded by the late Rich Mullins. As expected, they continued in a worshipful vein with one of their more recent compositions, the bass-driven "Before There Was Time". I actually enjoyed that song a bit more than I remembered enjoying it on the band's overrated worship album In the Company of Angels - Jeff Miller and the band's two percussionists Garret Buell and Todd Bragg really anchored this one down, rhythmically speaking, and the chorus of "Holy, holy begotten Son of God" was easy to sing along with while not as dumbed-down as your average modern worship chorus. As Josh Moore's playful piano introduced the third song, "Who You Are" (which has never been a favorite of mine), I could tell that this setlist was going to draw heavily from Angels. I gritted my teeth and hoped for a few of Aaron Tate's classic compositions to show up in the absence of Derek's lyrical brilliance. Now You're On Your Own Speaking of Derek's absence, the band has at least had the forethought to get a like-minded artist to fill his slot in the band. Andrew Osenga, lead singer for The Normals (an underrated folk/rock band currently on hiatus), has been singing backup and playing guitar for the band for most of the year 2003, and if The Normals are in fact done, I can only hope that Andy begins to take a more prominent role in the band. It hurt to see him relegated to the back with the bass and drums (from where we were standing, he was obscured by Josh's keyboards), but he managed to gain prominence during the oldie "This World", which he contributed a third vocal to (to fill in for Derek's background parts), and he even added a bit of his own flavor to it with a sweet mando-guitar solo. (I had never even heard of such an instrument until the last Normals record). Directly afterwards, Cliff took some time to say a few words about Andy, and in one of the evening's only pleasant surprises, the rest of the band cleared the stage and allowed Andy to perform a song from his solo album. The whimsical "High School Band" gave listeners who mere unfamiliar with Andy's work a taste of his songwriting style (which is at times reminiscent of Derek's) and his unique voice, which takes some getting used to but has an emotive charm all its own. I definitely need to hunt down Andy's Photographs album and give it a listen. "Potter" Is the New "Thankful" So remember how I was hoping for a chance to enjoy more of Back Home in a live setting? By far, the most frustrating aspect of the concert was the near-absence of material from the new album. The pedestrian "Only Hope" was unveiled early in the set, and of course there was the requisite "Hands of the Potter" to close things out at the end (which came all too soon due to the obnoxious 9 PM noise curfew imposed by the snobby city of Malibu). "Potter" is being billed by many fans as the new "Thankful", and while it's cool to see no less than four people on the stage banging on things all at once, I preferred the old "Thankful". I miss the trash cans, man! I guess "Potter" is a bit of a calculated move to have something similar to "Thankful" to play in Derek's absence. It didn't help that Cliff broke a guitar string and the song ended up being mostly percussion. And Now I'm Not Making Up for Lost Time And that brings me to one of Caedmon's other downfalls - the technical difficulties. As Cliff explained during his lengthy between-song ramblings, "guitars don't like outside". They basically had to retune after every song, and they seemed to need other sound fixes quite frequently, and while I know I can't blame them for that, Cliff's clumsy monologues pretty much killed any momentum that there was to be found in the band's set. Perhaps he's still getting used to being the front man as opposed to playing straight man to Derek. Part of him seemed to wish Derek was still there to banter with - I figured whiz kid Josh Moore would chime in, but he doesn't seem to be all that talkative (which I guess makes sense, he's not one of the band's vocalists, even though they had him placed up front - probably so the young girls could drool over him). This was mildly amusing at first, but toward the end of the show, I distinctly recalled hearing the words "bumbling idiot" out of a fan near me. I'm sure they were said out of love, but it's kind of in the same way that you love a socially awkward friend who embarrasses you all the time even though you know he means well. Cliff seems to have a lot to say about worship and the church, but when he's forced to use it to fill time, he trips on all of his "um"s and falls flat on his face. Speaking of worship, there was a lot of that to be found in the set - after the Andy solo song and a cursory run through "40 Acres" (the only song from the album 40 Acres to appear in the set - Long Line of Leavers was ignored entirely), the band worked their way through five fairly generic praise songs. Theologically, I obviously have no problems with that - it's great to get a group of earnest young Christians together and worship the Creator. What baffled me was the band's reliance on simple and repetitive material that they didn't even write. (Think about it - we all paid money to hear this band sing their own songs, we could hear our church worship band play many of these other songs on any given Sunday!) The bland junior-high group anthem "Warrior" was followed by an absolutely uninspired reading of "Lord, I Lift Your Name on High" (which is perhaps the most overplayed contemporary worship song in existence), and then nods were given to Twila Paris's "He Is Exalted" and Rich Mullins' Step by Step" (which is far less interesting without the verses, as is "Awesome God"). This eventually culminated in "God of Wonders", which is a worship song that I genuinely still enjoy, and was more expected from Caedmon's, since they originally recorded it with Third Day (though Danielle Young never seems to interject the "Holy, Holy, Holy" bit from the initial recording that I really like). At this point I could tell that time was running short for the band (after this came the aforementioned "Hands of the Potter"), and I was pretty much ready to grab my things and go. It was getting cold, and I was honestly a bit tired and cranky. Why Hast Thou Accepted Me? Interestingly, despite the encore and the lack of monitors, the audience persuaded Caedmon's to come back out for an encore. (This was the second time in two weeks I'd seen a band perform an encore without monitors - though I later realized Nickel Creek's was planned that way). Cliff honestly wasn't sure what to play, and he seemed to want to take requests from the audience, but everything they asked for either required a full band or Derek's voice. Somebody yelled out "Table for Two!", and Cliff explained that they didn't play that song any more because they were all grown up and married now (well, except for Josh), and so somebody else screamed for "Bus Driver" - yeah, like that was going to happen. Eventually the band settled for "Mystery of Mercy", which was a bit of an oddity due to its reliance on piano and strings, but it gave Josh one last chance to shine, and Danielle managed to fight back her laryngitis (which was the reason why she didn't sing lead during the entire show except for the opening verse of "This World") and help her husband out during the bridge. It was a good choice for a closing number, and yet Cliff just stood there rather awkwardly, fumbling with his guitar, not ready to let go. I figured this would result in another stripped-down version of a more obscure song - instead we got a thoroughly dull reading of the hymn "'Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus". I guess I can't be too hard on the band - this was a fly-in date and they didn't have a regular setlist that they had been able to hone during the length of a normal tour. Cliff did promise that they'd play different songs when they came back in November with Jars of Clay, and if there's one positive thing that I can say about the band, it's that they do still seem committed to not playing the exact same set at every show. Still, when it was all over with, I couldn't help but quote an old Derek Webb song to myself: Thank God I'm back in my car, and driving home, and driving home, 'Cause the air was thin and so cold back in there. It was my first time, won't be my last time, And the questions rise, expectations fall, in light of it all. Alas poor Derek... we knew him well. Now that he's off doing his own thing, I'd like to offer a little advice to the remaining members of the band - indulge me for a minute here... Josh - Talk a little more. Give Cliff something funny to comment on. You're also the best creative force that the band has left (assuming Andy isn't permanent), so please push them to not stick to melodically unchallenging worship songs. Write more stuff like "The Kingdom". That was cool. Danielle - DO SOMETHING. During most of the average Caedmon's Call show, you stand there looking bored or irritated. Harmonize. Pick up a guitar and give your husband a little backup. At the very least, crack a smile. You've been putting a bit of a damper on things lately. Andy - If you plan on sticking around, write something for these guys. You are by far the most interesting person in the group right now. Sing lead on one of the band's new songs or at least convince Cliff or Danielle to let you do a duet with them. If you have no plans of doing that, then there better be another Normals record in the works! Garrett and Todd - Most bands don't have two drummers. Do more interesting percussive things. Play with interesting rhythms. Find more stuff to bang on. Jeff - Actually, for a bass player in a subdued folk/rock band, you're doing pretty good. Keep at it. Cliff - STOP TALKING. That about sums it up. Kemper Crabb - I know you're not in the band and all, but you write really cheesy songs for them. Stop that. Set List: Hope to Carry On Before There Was Time Who You Are Only Hope This World High School Band (Andy solo) 40 Acres Warrior Lord, I Lift Your Name on High He Is Exalted Step by Step God of Wonders Hands of the Potter Encore: Mystery of Mercy 'Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus And the Least of These Before I end this review, I should mention that this concert was put on for a good cause - to benefit a charity called "Hats Off for Cancer", which donates hats to kids who are going through chemotherapy, and also a foundation dedicated to searching for a cure for Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome (RSDS). Caedmon's had been invited to come out to California and play by a group of students who had conceived of the idea three years prior (right after the last time Caedmon's had played there), and I guess Mark Schultz was a good fit there too, given the popularity of his song about a kid with a crippling disease. It was great to see the fruit of these students' labor even if the concert itself could have been better. My Ratings: Caedmon's Call: 3 stars Mark Schultz: 4 stars Kepano Green: 4 stars (what we saw of them, anyway) Show Overall: 3.5 stars Band Members: Cliff Young: Lead vocals, acoustic guitar Danielle Young: Vocals Josh Moore: Piano, keyboards Andrew Osenga: Guitars, vocals Jeff Miller: Bass Todd Bragg: Drums, percussion Garrett Buell: Drums, percussion Websites: http://www.caedmonscall.net http://www.andrewosenga.com http://www.markschultz.com http://www.kepanogreen.com  |
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