Lee University is a Church of God school in the hometown of the denomination: Cleveland, Tn. The folks at Lee took great care of us on this our first stop of the White Flag Tour. Jason Morant opened for Kendall Payne who opened for me. This was Jason’s only date on this tour with us - he’s from New Orleans and so his life’s logistics are a little up in the air right now along with his schedule. I’d never heard Jason live before and I was struck by how different his live show is from his album. Live he sounds much more like Chris Martin and Rufus Wainwright than I’d realized listening to his disc. He bleeds these wonderfully melancholy aching mid tempos and ballads. Long phrases sung in the lowest parts of his range and occasionally swooping up into falsetto. Very reflective of European music at the moment, and of course completely out of step with the bulk of American CCM. Needless to say, I loved his set.
Then it was Kendall’s turn. There’s nothing subtle about Mrs. Payne. She bursts onto the stage the way she busts into a room of strangers - there needs to be a word beyond “extrovert” to describe her. I envied her last night. I miss playing the twenty minute set before the artist everyone paid to see (supposedly). It’s hard to mess up a twenty minute set, so easy to sprint for such a short time without having to think about what you’ll transition to when running gets old for you and the audience. And an opener without a band has the ability to interact with a crowd in ways a headliner just doesn’t. Kendall used all of this to her advantage, being interactive and self-deprecating in the best way and her songs sounded remarkably complete played only on an acoustic. I might just become a groupie and quit this whole SHLOG thing - travel around making bootlegs of one of the best alt chick singer-songwriters there is. She deserves a tour with Ani Difranco or Lucinda Williams and not me. Check her out if you ever get the chance.
The show itself was packed out. Students at the University are forced to go to a certain number of “Chapel” services and this concert counted as one such credit. The only problem of this otherwise stellar night was the surprise revelation from faculty that Chapel services are only an hour long. Somehow in all the advance calls made setting up the details of this show this detail was not communicated. So, being unable to fit three artists into one hour, we knew that some, maybe all, of the crowd would leave when the hour mark was reached, getting their credit for time spent and heading back to the dorms to complete homework shoved aside by Saturday’s fun and Sunday’s nap. ABout a fourth of the crowd did just that, getting up in twos and threes over about a twenty minute span of time until finally those who felt sorry for me or had nothing better to do sat attentively. Honestly, I would have bailed too. I always had cramming or writing to do before Monday morning classes. I completely understand.
For the first night of a tour, with new openers, new logistics and a new set list to work with, the night was great. Even for not being the first night of a tour I enjoyed myself. I got to be a fan of my openers and be inspired to perform at their level. I’m not there yet but it was fun trying.
See you in Texas on the next stops of the White Flag Tour with Kendall Payne.
Heading to Cleveland, TN today with my band. We’ll be playing mainly for students but the show is also open to the public. I’m using a new second guitar player for the first time ever. We’ve never met and never rehearsed. So that should be interesting. (Pray for Josh, my usual second. He is with his father who is having health problems.)
You can go to shaungroves.com any time to see where we’re heading next and how to get tickets.
Hope to see you at Lee. Pics and more when I return.
-SG
Yesterday “What’s Wrong With This World” went for adds at CHR and ROCK radio. Here’s an excerpt from an article I recently wrote on the beatitudes explaining what’s behind the lyrics:
MATTHEW 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Jesus addressed the spectators scattered on the hillside. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” he announced. How strange. How seeker insensitive of Him. This is His first opportunity after all to make a good impression on such an enormous number of potential converts, a multitude of spiritual seekers. Why start like this, with poverty? He might as well have said, “You’re a loser. There’s nothing good in you and you have nothing of value to offer me or anyone else. You’re worthless inside.”
And well, that’s what He meant. The first step in being a disciple of Christ, the thing we must know first is not, “God loves you and has a plan for your life.” That’s true: God loves us no matter how messed up we are. But apparently what Jesus wants us to know first is just how messed up we are. Perhaps that’s because love is more precious when we understand how little we deserve it.
I watched Billy Graham on Larry King Live shortly after teen gunmen had slaughtered their classmates in Littleton, Colorado. Larry was racked by the same question that kept so many millions up at night, “Why did this happen?” And as Reverend Graham paused to collect his answer, I raised my hand at home, ready to rant. I just knew it was Marilyn Manson, video game violence, MTV, absent fathers… That was the list evangelical America had raised me to recite at moments like this. The problem, it had been taught to me, was always out there in “the world”, in need of legislation or a good boycott. But Billy Graham, much wiser than I, seemed to hear me and calmly explained what’s really wrong with the world, “Thousands of years ago, a young couple in love lived in a garden called Eden, and God placed a tree in the Garden and told them not to eat from the tree….” As it turns out, this world is not what’s wrong with me. I’m WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS WORLD.
I’m poor in spirit, nothing good in me when I entered the world, incapable of thinking and acting rightly. My heart’s twisted, torn, tempted. And aren’t we all. For all have sinned and don’t come close to measuring up to God’s perfection. As Calvin wrote, “He only who is reduced to nothing in himself, and relies on the mercy of God, is poor in spirit.” [Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark and Luke, I, by John Calvin (1558: translated by William Pringle, 1845: Eerdmans, n.d.) p. 261] So I pray to God with him… “Nothing in my hand I bring/Simply to thy cross I cling/Naked, come to thee for dress/Helpless, look to thee for grace/Foul, I to the fountain fly/Wash me, Saviour, or I die.”
Suppose later today a news item scrolls across the bottom of CNN “Archaeologist disproves the bible.” You search the internet for more and find that in fact scientists and scholars agree that the ancient scrolls found somewhere in the Middle East recently predate the oldest versions of scripture known to exist. The scrolls contain discernible bits of Matthew that read differently from the bible we have always accepted as true. The most troubling difference? A passage in which the Pharisees press Jesus about the after-life. According to Jesus, according to these ancient scrolls, there is no Heaven. None. We die and that’s all.
If these scrolls are proven to be authentic and true, do you still choose to believe everything else about Christianity? Do you still follow Jesus?
I presented this scenario to a small group of youth at my church years ago and a guy I considered one of the leaders, the most mature and knowledgeable of the crowd, answered first: “No. Why would I?”
Is the only reason for following Jesus the assurance that I will follow Him beyond the grave into Paradise? I’d answer NO. But that’s because my motivation for following is deeper than what I get from following. But it wasn’t at one time. It got that way by asking the question of myself one day: “If there was no Heaven I wonder if I would...”
This same kind of question, adapted for the moment’s situation, is helpful in getting at my real motivations. I find myself wondering WHY I do and believe so many things. And this is how I peel back the layers of myself to reveal the heart of my motivations. I remove the benefit to myself from the situation (Y), the obvious prize (X), and ask “Now, without X, would I keep doing Y? Why? What would still motivate me if X went away tomorrow?”
With no need for a paycheck why would I do my job? Without need for sex why would I marry this person? Without a need for applause why would I write this song?
This kind of questioning has so often lead me to the most important answer: Why. So go ahead. Imagine there’s no Heaven.
This is some of what you’ll find at brand new Lowercase People, an on-line magazine focused on music, arts, literature and social justice.
AN EXCERPT FROM THE “REGULARS” SECTION:
“Two hundred years or so before we began to fancy ourselves the occupiers of a No Spin Zone, William Blake talked about “mind-forged manacles,” metal clasps forged by the mind and for the mind. He heard the clank of the manacles whenever human beings opened their mouths; the dirty trick whereby we pull the wool over our own eyes, denying ourselves the ability to think carefully or handing over to a talking head, a career politician, or an ideological authority our capacity to say two and two make four. Or as Simon and Garfunkel tell us, we hear what we want to hear and disregard the rest. News networks understand as much. They have to sell the news, after all. What’s news? Whatever they can sell as news. They can’t change what we’ll buy into. They have to anticipate it. If we want to hear tell of Michael Jackson’s woes more than we want to know about a genocide in Darfur, the Jackson trial will be the news. To survive, the networks have to play to our “felt needs.” In this sense, we are the newsmakers. They’re the sales force.” From “Are You Reality Based?” by david dark
AN EXCERPT FROM THE “JUSTICE” SECTION:
“We walked alongside a man named Cassie—a white man who has thrown himself into the Kayamandi community: a man who has slept in its shacks and whose daughter attends its schools (a decision that caused an outrage among the white community). Cassie calls Victor his boss, and an especially good one at that. Together they work for the good of Kayamandi. Black and white, rich and poor. The best friends have big dreams for the future. “ (From “Out Of Africa” by jon foreman)
AN EXCERPT FROM THE “MUSIC” SECTION:
“I’ve heard of painters who have torched all of their art, set it all on fire to start painting with a clean slate. That’s not really an option for a band.” (Feature by reeve oliver)
Then it was Kendall’s turn. There’s nothing subtle about Mrs. Payne. She bursts onto the stage the way she busts into a room of strangers - there needs to be a word beyond “extrovert” to describe her. I envied her last night. I miss playing the twenty minute set before the artist everyone paid to see (supposedly). It’s hard to mess up a twenty minute set, so easy to sprint for such a short time without having to think about what you’ll transition to when running gets old for you and the audience. And an opener without a band has the ability to interact with a crowd in ways a headliner just doesn’t. Kendall used all of this to her advantage, being interactive and self-deprecating in the best way and her songs sounded remarkably complete played only on an acoustic. I might just become a groupie and quit this whole SHLOG thing - travel around making bootlegs of one of the best alt chick singer-songwriters there is. She deserves a tour with Ani Difranco or Lucinda Williams and not me. Check her out if you ever get the chance.
The show itself was packed out. Students at the University are forced to go to a certain number of “Chapel” services and this concert counted as one such credit. The only problem of this otherwise stellar night was the surprise revelation from faculty that Chapel services are only an hour long. Somehow in all the advance calls made setting up the details of this show this detail was not communicated. So, being unable to fit three artists into one hour, we knew that some, maybe all, of the crowd would leave when the hour mark was reached, getting their credit for time spent and heading back to the dorms to complete homework shoved aside by Saturday’s fun and Sunday’s nap. ABout a fourth of the crowd did just that, getting up in twos and threes over about a twenty minute span of time until finally those who felt sorry for me or had nothing better to do sat attentively. Honestly, I would have bailed too. I always had cramming or writing to do before Monday morning classes. I completely understand.
