CONCERT REVIEW: Booths, Talleys, Greater Vision

Date: Sunday, November 3
Location: Orlando, Florida
Setting: First Baptist Church, Orlando
Occasion: FBC-O Free Gospel Concert event
Average age guesstimate: 58
Opening act: mercifully, none, but while I killed time before the show, I found this wonderful note scrawled in child’s script inside the Praise! Our Songs and Hymns book in the book rack: “OZZIE: Where is my gameboy? […]

Averyfineline on the Frontlines: Gaither Homecoming Tour

Date: Thursday, January 25, 2007
Location: Fort Myers, FL
Setting: Germain Arena
Occasion: Gaither Homecoming Tour, part of a big swing through Florida to catch all the snowbirds
Average age guesstimate: 61
Opening act: The very funny Kevin Williams cracked not a single joke in the entire 10 minutes he stood on the stage playing a few hymns from […]

Averyfineline on the frontlines: KM, Perrys, BFA

Date: Saturday, January 6
Location: Fort Myers, FL
Setting: Riverdale High School auditorium (a nice venue, but waiting for the show to start I was struck by how ugly and sad-looking the typical gospel music stage is)
Occasion: Bill Bailey event, part of a package of concerts Bailey put on with these groups in Florida
Average age guesstimate: 62
Opening […]

The Concert Crank Says: Sit Down

I had a chance to catch Gaither’s The Best of Anthony Burger on Saturday night. The most striking thing about it was how much the interview with AB turned into a pretext for Gaither to talk and talk and talk. But anyway, watching the old clips of some of AB’s big moments I … or […]

Averyline on the Frontlines: Talleys, Anthony Burger, The Booth Brothers

Location: Dix, Ill. I grew up the middle of the nowhere and this place, trust me, is in the middle of the middle of nowhere.
Setting: Boyd Christian Church gymnasium
Occasion: A Reunion of Homecoming […]

Averyfineline goes to the Frontlines: The Crabb Family

Location: Bonne Terre, Mo.
Setting: North County High School auditorium
Occasion: Leadbelt Pentecostal Church event
Average age guesstimate: 42 (!)
Opening acts: Two local church groups: Patterson Family (a mixed trio that had the baldfaced temerity to […]

Averyfineline on the frontlines: Anchormen and DBQ

Location: Belleville, IL
Setting: St. Matthew United Methodist Church, mid-sized, formalish
Occasion: Gospel concert series (this one is dubbed “Quartet Heaven,” by DBQ and Anchormen, apropos the all-sing at the end […]

Averyfineline on the frontlines: GV

Location: Arnold, Mo.
Setting: First Baptist Church; large but informal
Occasion: Real Evangelism Conference
Average age guesstimate: 57
Opening act: local choir (despite some infelecities, choir gets more sustained applause than GV)
Attendance: ca 500-600
Cost: whatever you […]

SSQ in concert

A note from reader FK, who attended an SSQ concert a bit ago and whose opinion I deeply respect:
What a refreshing concert!! I haven’t been so entertained in a very long time. […]