LCMS National Youth Gathering, Orlando, FL, July 24-28, Concert Reviews - Part 3

I traveled to Orlando, Florida, with 14 youth and 2 other adult leaders for the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod (LCMS) National Youth Gathering, July 24-28. We joined 35,000 other youth and leaders for Bible studies, speakers, mass events, and CONCERTS!

Today’s review features the Workhorse Bands. Part 1 features the Gathering Headliners, and Part 2 features the Gathering Bands.


American Band Rock: The Pool Boys
There were the Headliners at the National Youth Gathering, and then there were the Workhorses, the bands that played all over the enormous Orange County Convention Center (both complexes), playing in all different settings and times.

One of the Workhorses was The Pool Boys. They played the Cabana Main Stage on the opening day, the Coffeehouse Stage, a late night set, and played warm up before different speakers, including before Jason Harper’s “Guys’ Purity” talk (Harper is a great, hard-hitting, honest speaker with xxxchurch.com that produces a pornography accountability software).

The Pool Boys fall right in the Smalltown Poets Vortex (more later this week). Landing next to PFR, because like PFR, the Pool Boys have the ability to grab sounds from others parts of the Spectrum—folky stuff, harder-edged guitar, and some College quirkiness.

At their opening night set on the Edge Main Stage, I thought “How You Love,” which went number 1 on a Nebraska radio station, sounded like a Country-influenced Rock song, albeit with a programmed drum loop. After a number of praise & worship type songs, the sound kept coming back to that good ol’ country rock sound.

At the warm up set for Jason Harper, I still heard the Country Rock feel with a Glenn Tilbrook/Squeeze pattern in the way the chorus, verses, and bridge play off each other. “Both Eyes Blind” had a “Jars of Clay”-like electric guitar vamp, acoustic rhythm guitar, and background vocals. In songs like “First Day Home,” I hear Tilbrook’s style of stories in song, vocals, drum breaks, and bridges. Granted, the Pool Boys actually are less diverse in styling than Tilbrook, less jazzy, no keyboards, and they’re not Britpop. However, on a song like “That Makes You Smile,” the Pool Boys have that bluesy pop groove which gets in line with Tilbrook.

Overall, however, the Pool Boys come into the American Band Rock section, because despite their ability for a nice take on a praise & worship song live in concert, their album, Moving to Summerville, actually sounds much more straight-forward, less edgy, like the others in the Spectrum near the Smalltown Poets.

Moving to Summerville escapes from the abyss of Christian rock sameness on the more upbeat, rockier tracks, “First Day Home,” “Both Eyes Blind,” and “Far Off Now.” These songs hint at the more electric, energetic live show. “All Around,” with its bouncy keyboard beat brings you back to PFR’s early album, Goldie’s Last Day. You can take that comparison one step farther: bands like couches. The CD artwork for Goldie’s Last Day showed PFR sitting on a couch outside. Moving to Summerville shows, you guessed it, the Pool Boys on a funky yellow couch out on the lawn. Ah, that’s the kind of music appreciation and insight that brings you back again and again to Music Spectrum!


Jam Band: Right Lane Vacant
Jason Phelps and Maegan de Grood met at Concordia University, Seward, Nebraska. Phelps had already produced a solo CD, but now guitarist/singer Phelps and vocalist de Grood have combined to form Right Lane Vacant, an agreesive folk rock duo mixing honest lyricism with praise & worship choruses.

Right Lane Vacant falls in the Spectrum just past the American Folk section, with the section closers of Lost & Found and Riley Armstrong being good comparisons. However, Right Lane Vacant (RLV) occupies the very beginning of the Jam Band section with singer-songwriter Thomas Cunningham. With Cunningham, RLV have that Jam Band sensibility that given the right backing band could break out into the open format, soloing, and eclecticism of Jam Bands.

This Jam Band sound may come through more clearly on RLV’s 6-song EP, Meeting in Middle, which incorporates a full band. Their live sets in Orlando only featured the duo’s vocals with Phelps’ guitar. Like the Pool Boys, they too worked a number of different stages across the hundreds of thousands of square feet of the Orange County Convention Center.

De Grood has a soulful voice with a good range, the ability for gutturals, growls, and whispered high notes. Folk-influenced American Rockers Michelle Branch and Jennifer Knapp come to mind, especially on an original like, “Journey.” Together, de Grood and Phelps create nice harmonies and have a good stage chemistry.

“Crazy Narrow,” about youth being crazy but still on the narrow path of Christ, turns in a bluesy folk rock. Elsewhere in their sets, RLV had well-chosen covers of “Hey, Girl” by O.A.R. and multiple songs from Dispatch.

Worship song covers also dotted their performances. Their style of approaching praise & worship choruses brought me back to days of being in college at campus ministry group, the moment of realizing that you’re blessed with some great performers. However, RLV is able to play those songs in a much more brooding way, partly due to de Grood and Phelps’ tendency toward back-of-the-throat vocals. That brooding nature to their sound has the potential to reveal the darkness of our lives much more than most worship bands. The original “Stopping Short” takes this brooding style to flesh out their own melody and vision, giving us a true sense of walking through the world as a Christian.