Charlie Hall / Phil Wickham Concert
April 28, 2009 – 9:43 pmI saw the poster for this concert early on, and it said $2 for students, $10 for others. 2 bucks? I’m in! And so I got the ticket, and went to the concert. Obviously.
I got there the moment the doors opened. Not really because I was that eager to sit way in the front, but because I didn’t have anywhere else to go after dinner, and I really didn’t want to walk all the way back to the dorms. Anyway, that being there an hour early is indeed an overkill. But I spent that hour reading Orwell’s 1984 on the iPod touch, which eventually gave me a headache. Ebooks are nice and convenient especially when the environment is dark, but nothing compares to ink and paper. There’s the smell, the turning of the pages.. (By the way, the smell of a book is very important. Before buying a book, I flip through the pages and sniff it. Because honestly, I’ve come across a book or two that stank, which obviously subtracted from the overall enjoyment of reading.)
So Charlie Hall and his band played first. Then after a break, Phil Wickham and his band played. The difference between the two is that Charlie Hall is more ‘conventional’. Well, actually, I don’t know how to say it. Phil Wickham was more like a ’stage person’. More flamboyant. Kind of.
They played their own songs, obviously. Which to non-fans, takes a while to actually singalong. In fact, Charlie Hall’s songs are probably a tad more singalong-able.
Towards the end, Phil Wickham got everybody raising their hands like you see in Hillsong videos. Was pretty awesome seeing hands lifted to God all over the place - well, at least the couple of rows in front of me.
Although I must admit, I was a tad disappointed. Not sure why. Maybe it’s because my view of the electric guitarist was blocked nearly completely (dang!). Maybe because for some reason, this type of praise & worship isn’t my type. Or maybe I’d expected something more.
Anyway, it was a good 2 dollars spent. Good music (I won’t say great), and tired legs from standing at least 2 and a half hours.
(Looking back over the post, I realize that I actually spend a third or so of it talking about ebooks and books. Strange.)