10 Albums, 10 Days: Behold the Lamb of God

I got tagged on Facebook to do this project – share ten albums that greatly influenced my taste in music. One album per day for ten consecutive days. In theory for the Facebook version this is supposed to be without explanation… but I want to explain! So I’m going to blog the explanations here.

Yesterday I left off by saying that my Caedmon’s Call fandom led me to Andrew Osenga, who in turn led me to Andrew Peterson. Today it’s time to tell a little more of that story.

Andrew Osenga wasn’t an original member of Caedmon’s Call. He had a band called The Normals which opened for Caedmon’s on occasion. At some point after The Normals stopped making records, Andy was invited to join Caedmon’s. Once I became familiar with Andy as a member of Caedmon’s, I quickly picked up his two available solo CDs - an EP called Souvenirs and Postcards, and a full-length CD called Photographs. They quickly became favorites.

In late 2005 I caught wind (maybe on the Caedmon’s fan forum?) that Andy Osenga was coming to Iowa to play a show with Andrew Peterson at a little start-up Christian music festival on the side of a hill in Clermont, Iowa. So, my wife and I bundled up our one-year-old daughter and drove the 90 minutes up to hear them (along with Ben Shive) play a two-hour concert from a flatbed trailer on the side of the hill. It was, in retrospect, a really weird gig for them. As Peterson said at the time, “it’s the first time I’ve ever played a concert with somebody riding a cow in the background”. No joke. I was thrilled to meet them that day and a little extra happy when AO said he recognized me from the fan forum. (Did I mention I was a big fanboy?)

Andy Osenga on the left, me on the right. October 2005. We both still had hair.

But I’m telling a lot of stories and not getting to my album for today. Anyway, at that show I ran into a co-worker who was there to see Andrew Peterson play, and we visited a bit. Fast-forward a year or so and that co-worker emailed me. She was bringing Andrew Peterson and friends to town to play a concert. Would I be interested in helping out with it for the day? Well, that was a no-brainer. And that gave me my first opportunity to hear the Christmas record and tour that would become a tradition: Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb of God.

What can I even say about this record? It’s a concept album that tells the story of Jesus from both the Old Testament and the New, with creative songwriting, smart lyrics, beautiful melodies, amazing musicianship, and a sense of humor. Every year for 20 years now Andrew Peterson and his friends have taken this record on the road for a series of concerts between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I think I’ve been 5 times? But nothing will compare to that first time I saw it in a high school auditorium in Cedar Rapids. I’d never heard the record before I hear them play it live that night.

This record is influential to me not just for the brilliant songs, but also because of how it represents Peterson’s commitment to artistic community. He toured with the same musicians for almost all of those 20 years. They were not just co-workers but friends. Peterson would later expand the vision of that community into The Rabbit Room. But none of that would’ve happened without him nurturing those relationships on tours built around this one amazing album.

Listen to Behold the Lamb of God on YouTube.

Andrew Peterson and Friends: The Ragamuffin Album, Live at the Ryman

Last Sunday night I had the privilege of attending an Andrew Peterson-organized and -led concert honoring the legacy of Rich Mullins at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Peterson and his cadre are roughly my age, and we share a deep debt to Mullins, who in his all-too-short musical career penned songs that showed that Christian music could be artistic, poetic, and honest in ways we hadn’t before seen. (Andrew wrote an essay for the concert booklet telling his Rich Mullins story that’s well worth a read. It’s posted on The Rabbit Room.)

This year is the 20th anniversary of Mullins’ death in a car accident, and served as an opportunity for Peterson to round up his friends and prepare the music. The Ryman was packed to capacity with an audience that clearly loves Rich’s music just as much as the musicians themselves do; the concert was punctuated with opportunities for the audience to sing along, starting from an impromptu acapella chorus of “Awesome God”, which Peterson led “just to get it out of the way”. (While it’s perhaps Mullins’ best known song to the general public, it’s certainly not his favorite among his more devoted fans.)

Peterson and friends followed a concert format that he has perfected over years of touring his Behold The Lamb of God Christmas tour. The first half of the concert rotated in each of the guest artists to sing a Mullins song of their choice, with AP sneaking a few of his own choices in along the way.

When we hit intermission I told my wife that I couldn’t think of another Rich song that I was disappointed that they hadn’t played in the first half. The set list:

  • “Awesome God” - AP
  • “Calling Out Your Name” - AP
  • “Boy Like Me/Man Like You” - AP
  • “Hard to Get” - Andy Gullahorn
  • “Cry The Name” - Jill Phillips
  • “What Susan Said” - Andrew Osenga
  • “The Howling” - Jeremy Casella
  • “Screen Door” (complete w/ cups) - Brandon Heath & Mitch McVicker
  • “You Did Not Have A Home” - Finnegan Bell
  • “Elijah” - Matt Giraud
  • “Buenos Noches from Nacogdoches” - Leigh Nash
  • “Bound to Come Some Trouble” - Mitch McVicker
  • “If I Stand” - AP

The second half of the concert brought each of those artists back out in turn to perform note-for-note versions of each song from Rich’s masterpiece A Liturgy, A Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band. A string section played the original string charts as provided by Rich’s producer Reed Arvin (who himself was present and played the piano on “Creed” midway through the second half).

To my critical ear they were indeed almost exactly note-for-note and lick-for-lick. Gabe Scott had his hammered dulcimer skills tested and found awesome. My specific criteria for this evaluation was the little turn from the second verse into the pre-chorus of “Peace” - there’s a drum fill, a bass slide, and a little guitar riff that come together in a sublime little moment that I’m probably the only person in the world who cares about. They nailed it. The only place they diverged was I think they gave Andy Osenga an extra couple choruses to play a smoking guitar solo on the end of “How To Grow Up Big and Strong”… but ain’t nobody gonna complain about that.

The second half setlist:

  • “Here In America” - AP
  • “Isaiah 52:10” - Jill Phillips
  • “The Color Green” - AP
  • “Hold Me Jesus” - Brandon Heath
  • “Creed” - AP, Andy Gullahorn, and Jill Phillips
  • “Peace” - Andy Gullahorn
  • “78 Eatonwood Green” - Gabe Scott on the hammered dulcimer
  • “Hard” - Finnegan Bell
  • “I’ll Carry On” - Jeremy Casella
  • “You Gotta Get Up” - Leigh Nash
  • “How To Grow Up Big and Strong” - Andrew Osenga
  • “Land of My Sojourn” - AP

Even they they weren’t quite done. Peterson brought the full cast of musicians out and led the (now standing) audience in “Step By Step” (with guest vocals by Peterson’s daughter Skye) and the call-and-response of “I See You”, which itself leads back in to one final chorus of “Step By Step”. After some final applause, Peterson did his trademark exit, singing the first line of the Doxology, and then exiting the stage as the audience finished singing it. (1200 people singing the Doxology in the old Ryman auditorium: chills.)

Hearing so many of Rich’s songs in one sitting highlighted both the artistry and prophetic nature of his lyrics. For instance, the last few lines from “Hard”:

I am a good midwestern boy
I give an honest day’s work when I can get it
I don’t cheat on my taxes, I don’t cheat on my girl
I’ve got values that would make the White House jealous

Peterson wondered aloud (perhaps just as much as he dared) whether Rich had any idea those words would still resonate so loudly 25 years after he wrote them. But the lines that stood out even more loudly to me were from “Land of My Sojourn”:

And the lady in the harbor
She still holds her torch out
To those huddled masses who are
Yearning for a freedom that still eludes them
The immigrant’s children see their brightest dreams shattered
Here on the New Jersey shoreline in the
Greed and the glitter of those high-tech casinos
Some mendicants wander off into a cathedral
And they stoop in the silence
And there their prayers are still whispered
And I’ll sing their song, and I’ll sing their song
In the land of my sojourn

The list of concerts I’ve attended isn’t as long as I’d like - and shorter thanks to the U2 concert in St. Louis getting cancelled last weekend - but Sunday night at the Ryman has to be right up there at the top of the list. Peterson posted on Facebook the next day that it might have been his favorite concert ever. I’d be inclined to agree with him.

Deliver Us

I’ve felt a need for Advent far more keenly this year than I recall from previous years. Perhaps it’s the tumult of the times - with religious violence abroad and racial tension at home, it is so clear that we need the peace, deliverance, and salvation that Jesus brings now more than ever.

That brings me to Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb of God. It’s long been my favorite Christmas record; in my estimation it’s one of only two or three perfect Christian records to have been made. Early in the record as Andrew tells the story of Christ, the song “Deliver Us” introduces the longing cry of God’s people for God’s salvation. And the lyrics seem as appropriate today as ever:

Our enemy, our captor is no pharaoh on the Nile Our toil is neither mud nor brick nor sand Our ankles bear no calluses from chains, yet Lord, we’re bound Imprisoned here, we dwell in our own land

Deliver us, deliver us Oh Yahweh, hear our cry > And gather us beneath your wings tonight

Our sins they are more numerous than all the lambs we slay
These shackles they were made with our own hands Our toil is our atonement and our freedom yours to give So Yahweh, break your silence if you can

Deliver us, deliver us Oh Yahweh, hear our cry > And gather us beneath your wings tonight

[Response:] ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem How often I have longed To gather you beneath my gentle wings’

Come, Lord Jesus.

Andrew Peterson - Light for the Lost Boy

Andrew Peterson’s new record, Light for the Lost Boy, came out last week, but a business trip and a busy weekend conspired against me. So, my first listen to the record didn’t come until this morning. There is so much I could say about this record that I don’t even really know where to begin.

Great records seem to come out of pain. Much as I love Peterson’s earlier records, they’ve succeeded due to their beautiful melodies and tightly-crafted lyrics. The truth is present in his word-art, but it hasn’t as often fully resonated with the deep soul ache of a man wrestling with the fallenness of the world and the goodness of God.

Light for the Lost Boy, though, changes all that. From the opening line of the record (“I remember the day of the Tennessee flood…”), Peterson examines the fallen beauty of the world, the joy of childhood, and the loss of innocence that comes as we grow up. (I’d highly recommend Jonathan Rogers’ piece on this record over on The Rabbit Room. Jonathan says it way better than I can.)

In “The Cornerstone”, he examines the experience of colliding with Jesus in a life-changing way. “The Voice of Jesus” sits in contrast as a lullaby to a child, recognizing how God speaks to her through “the ache in your bones”. The final track, “Don’t You Want to Thank Someone?” is epic in length (9 minutes 57 seconds!) and in scope, tracing the course of human history from the goodness of creation through the fall and finally to the ultimate reckoning.

Sonically this record breaks some new ground for Peterson. While some tracks (including the official pre-release, “Rest Easy”) will sound familiar to the ears of long-time Peterson fans, at least half of the record builds energy with electric guitars and electronic beats. While the record was produced by Ben Shive and Cason Cooley, the opening track had me thinking that my friend Andy Osenga had a hand in it. (The song “Carry the Fire” is AP’s nearly exact corollary to Andy O’s “Hold The Light”. This is a good thing.)

If it isn’t clear enough from my review already, Light for the Lost Boy is highly, highly recommended. It would be presumptuous of me to declare it my new favorite Andrew Peterson record after only one listen. However, given that after one listen I can remember every song and a particular way that it stuck with me, I think that future listens (of which there will be many) will only cement this record as a long-time favorite from Peterson.

You can buy the record from The Rabbit Room, or on iTunes.

Road trip time!

Tomorrow morning I will get in the car and, rather than heading to work, I will embark on one of my signature crazy-man concert road trips. Previous editions of the road trips have taken me to Chicago and Nashville… this time I’m heading west, to Omaha. The goal this time: the kickoff concert of the 2008 Behold the Lamb of God Christmas tour, featuring Andrew Peterson and friends.

My current plans are to leave Cedar Rapids first thing in the morning, meet Curt McLey for lunch in Elkhorn (suburban Omaha) around 11:30, and then head over to the church where the concert will take place. It will be good to catch up a bit with the gang of musicians who make up this tour - Andy Osenga, Andy Gullahorn, Jill Phillips, Ben Shive… talented songwriters and musicians, all… and when you put them all on the same stage… amazing things happen. The concert is at 7 pm and then it’s just 4 short hours on I-80 back home. Good times.

If you haven’t heard Behold the Lamb before, you should go buy yourself a copy from the Rabbit Room store. Best Christmas album I own, hands down. I’ll be bleary-eyed and saddle sore come Wednesday morning, but it will definitely have been worth it. Hopefully I’ll have some good pictures to post when I get back. Only 18 more hours to wait…

On The Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness

Read to the end of the blog post - I’m giving away a copy of the book!

Just when you think you’re familiar with a guy’s talents… then this happens.

I’ve been an Andrew Peterson fan for a few years now. He is an amazingly-talented songwriter; albums to his credit include my all-time favorite Christmas album, Behold the Lamb of God. He’s shown himself to be a bit of a thinker and writer, too; he launched The Rabbit Room a few months ago and it is now a must-read site with book and music reviews and essays on the arts and faith.

Then I hear the latest news: AP’s writing a book. I actually think I got wind of it about 18 months ago from a friend who knows Andy, but had kinda forgotten about it. Now it’s for real: On The Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness.

OTEOTSDOD focuses on the quiet land of Skree, the Igiby children Janner, his younger brother Tink, and their crippled sister Leeli. Oh, and their ex-pirate (are you ever really an “ex”- pirate?) grandfather. There’s something about lost jewels, and a dude whose name is Gnag the Nameless. (How is he nameless, again?) Oh, and there’s this thing about toothy cows. Amazing.

OTEOTSDOD is a work of fantasy and adventure. It feels a little bit like Narnia, but with much more humor and much less allegory. It feels a bit like Monty Python, but without all the naughty bits that you wouldn’t want your kids to see. It feels a bit like The Princess Bride, but without Andre the Giant. And there are footnotes. Can’t forget the footnotes.

Being over 30 I might not be in the target demographic for this book, but I loved it none the less. The cover of the book promises that this is just book one of the saga, and talking to Andrew before a concert the other night he confirmed he’s working on the next volume. This is a set to add to your bookshelves. Fun to read, probably even more fun to read aloud - I just hope AP doesn’t get so popular as an author that he stops making music.

Full disclosure: the publisher gave me a copy of this book to review. Can’t say it influenced my review, though - the book really is good.

And now for the giveaway: they gave me an extra copy to giveaway. It’s gonna be real simple: leave a comment in reply to this post anytime through March 19. I’ll randomly select a winner and send you the copy.

Oh, if you don’t win the giveaway, you can buy the book from Amazon.

Happy Birthday to me... a little early/late

Yeah, so my birthday isn’t until Friday, but finalized plans yesterday to be able to not just attend the Andrew Peterson concert here in Cedar Rapids on Saturday, but also to be the runner for the day, which basically means just hanging out there at the church as they set up and then driving AP and company around anyplace they need to go. I was runner a couple years ago when AP and gang came for the Behold the Lamb of God tour, and it was a blast.

I was afraid it wasn’t going to work out, mainly because I have been unable to find a replacement worship leader, so I still have to setup and then lead music for the 5:30 service at Imago. In stepped Becky, who awesomely volunteered to be the runner for me for a couple hours while I do the church service, then I can make it back just in time for the concert. Too much fun.

Andrew Peterson will be touring with Andy Gullahorn, Jill Phillips, Ben Shive, and maybe some others, and will be doing music from his upcoming album Resurrection Letters, Vol. 2. I’m listening to a few songs from it right now on a Michael Card podcast and there’s some amazing new stuff. Saturday is going to be fun.

An AP Concert Weekend

Last Friday Becky and I headed out to Omaha, NE to see Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb of God tour. (OK, so it was officially in Elkorn, NE, but that’s just suburban Omaha these days.) My mom graciously agreed to come down and stay with the girls for a couple of days, so we got up Friday morning and headed west. A four-hour drive later we arrived in Omaha, checked into our hotel, ate some lunch, wandered around a mall, etc. Then we headed over to the church for the concert.

This is the second consecutive year that AP and company have played at Bethany Lutheran there in Elkhorn. It’s a beautiful church, a good venue for a concert like this. They were all decorated for Christmas, and their sanctuary, which seats by my estimate around 600 people, was nearly full. So, a good start.

As we were waiting in line for the doors to be opened, one of the organizers came by with little tour fliers and informed us that the artists would be doing a meet-and-greet in the church gym after the doors opened. So, we could go in, stake out a seat, then go “get an autograph”. Since I have 2 autographed posters from last year’s concert stop in Cedar Rapids, once more with a Sharpie didn’t interest me that much; but I was looking forward to greeting some of them who I haven’t seen since last year’s concert. Fortunately for me, there were few attendees for the meet-and-greet, which allowed me some time to talk to Andrew Peterson, Andy & Jill (Phillips) Gullahorn, Cason Cooley, Ben Shive, and to meet Eric Peters for the first time. I found Eric to be a very personable guy and had a good time chatting with him. I had two different fans come up to me and ask which band member I was. :-) As the meet-and-greet was wrapping up, Cason dug a basketball out of a closet and he and Eric and I shot hoops for a few minutes. Those guys have some game, but I could spank ’em if it came to it - they’re so short! (Props to Andy G for being the token tall guy on the tour, he’s my height; come to think of it, I guess AP is fairly tall as well. But Derek, Sandra, Cason, Eric, Jill? Short. All of em. :-) )

The concert itself was phenomenal as expected. The first half was the usual “rounds” of songs from each individual. Each time one of them finished a song, I was thinking “wow, that’s gonna be hard to top…”. And then the next person would come up and be just as good, if not better. The second half, as usual, was the Behold the Lamb of God album, played straight through. I will confess to missing Andy Osenga, who is back home in Nashville with his due-any-day wife, but Andy G filled in admirably on the electric guitar. Good stuff, all the way through. (If you’re not familiar with this album, you can stream it live from Andy’s website: www.andrew-peterson.com.)

After the concert I spent too much money at the merch table buying Christmas presents and a few albums to fill out my collection. They had a Square Peg Alliance t-shirt, but it came in only one color: Powder Blue. This guy doesn’t look good in Powder Blue. Maybe you can do a more neutral color next time, folks?

I’ve yet to download the pics from the camera to see if any of them turned out; if they did I’ll put them up on Flickr and link them here.

I met the Queen of Iowa

I met the Queen of Iowa, She was dying on a couch in the suburbs. And of all the things she was dying of, She was more alive than the others…

-- Andrew Peterson, The Queen of Iowa

The Queen of Iowa is a real person. I met her this past Saturday. Her name is Jody. Her story is tragic; she contracted HIV after being assaulted fifteen years ago. Her story is also beautiful; knowing full well that she had HIV, her high school sweetheart decided to marry her anyway. That was eleven years ago. Jody is now in what appears to me to be the last stage of her life. She can’t move. She can’t talk. She can just barely communicate single letters at a time. Her husband cares for her at their home here in the Cedar Rapids area.

It also ends up that Jody is a big Andrew Peterson fan. Over a year ago, as she started going downhill, a couple of friends arranged to have Andrew and his trusty sidekick Ben Shive flown to Iowa to meet her. They came, visited, sang her some songs. Out of that experience, Andrew wrote his song The Queen of Iowa, which he then recorded on his latest album, The Far Country. It’s a good song.

Last Saturday Andrew was in town with a bunch of his musical compatriots on the Behold the Lamb Christmas tour. In the afternoon, before the concert, he wanted to make a trip out to visit Jody again and sing her the song. So I (as the driver) got to go along as he and his friends Andy and Jill (Phillips) Gullahorn went out to visit her. (The local friends who had coordinated last year’s visit were there, too.) I was not prepared, and I doubt I could have really been prepared, for the emotions and power of that visit.

To even enter their house, you have to take off your shoes and leave them in the garage. (Can’t chance tracking some germs in.) Then, you have to do a thorough hand-washing before you come into the living room. Jody was lying on the couch, wrapped in blankets. She couldn’t really move, only could turn her head a bit. But she had a smile that lit up the whole room. She was so excited to get to see Andrew again and hear his music. She had made a “set list” of requested songs she wanted to hear. So Andrew and Andy pulled out their guitars, and started at the top of the list.

I think they sang for somewhere near 40 minutes. They started with Gather ‘Round, Ye Children, Come from Behold the Lamb. It was a treat to hear that simple version: two guitars and three part harmony, all in the intimacy of a living room. Jill sang Labor of Love, also from Behold the Lamb. I doubt I’ll ever hear a more beautiful performance of that song. Words can’t really do it justice. Jill sang another song or two of hers. We were all choking up as Andrew sang Lay Me Down, which contains these poignant lines, even more meaningful in this setting:

When you lay me down to die, I’ll miss my boys, I’ll miss my girls, But lay me down And let me say goodbye to this world. When you lay me down to die, You must remember this: When you lay me down to die, You lay me down to live.

There were a few times during the visit where Jody began to cough, and her body was just wracked with pain. It was difficult to sit there and see it, knowing that there was nothing that we could do but pray and watch as her husband held her and comforted her. Then the pain would pass, and as she regained her strength her smile would come out again.

Saturday’s visit was a moving experience; one that will stick with me for a long, long time. We insulate ourselves too much from pain and death here in America. Last Saturday’s visit was a vivid reminder of that to which I assent but often forget: that life is short, that death will reach us all, but death is not the end.

Parting is the price, it is the price that I must pay To harbor far beyond the Havens Grey.

-- Andrew Peterson, The Havens Grey

ok, so I'm a little bit excited...

Tomorrow the Andrew Peterson Behold the Lamb Christmas tour is hitting Cedar Rapids! I couldn’t believe it when I first heard about it months ago, and I’m still a bit in awe of the fact that Andrew Peterson, Derek Webb, Sandra McCracken, Andrew Osenga, Jill Phillips, and some others will all be in concert on stage less than 3 miles from my house. (Only 1 block away from the previous place we lived!)

In addition to just going to the concert, I’ve volunteered to help out for the day. I’m showing up at 10 AM when the truck shows up, and then will be the “runner” for the day. This will include taking all the aforementioned musical types to their hotel, to the house where they’re eating dinner, etc. I think it’ll be pretty cool.

I’m also looking forward to just getting to meet some of them; I’ve met the Andys before (Peterson and Osenga), but haven’t met Derek or Sandra. I hope it’ll be as cool as I think it will be…. if not, at least I’ll get to see the concert, and that’ll be great in itself. I’ll try to post some pictures or something next week.