“MOUNTAINS COME OUT OF THE SKY….”
I’ve never been to Birmingham before, so when the opportunity came, who am I to deny it? After all, one of closest friends lives there now, and any excuse to visit her is enough to send me driving. Knowing my love of the road and welling up with a healthy dose of wanderlust, I was off and gone with my good fraternity brother on the way to the Land of Vulcan.
The journey was far shorter than we imagined! Beautiful mountains rose in the distance and disappeared, but I don’t ever remember crossing over them! Woodland and sparkling lakes sprawled out across our path and captured our attention during the journey. Birmingham is quite the scenic town, at least the parts we visited. Flush against the hills, homes and towns rose around us as we drove in the valleys below.
KEAGGY, KING, AND DENTE AT SAMFORD UNIVERSITY
MARCH 14, 1998
The concert was performed at Wright Center, Samford’s auditorium which seats approx. 1000 plus. The venue was about three-fourths full.
Out of the Grey took the stage first. Christine Dente’s voice was in fine form, if she was a little more daring, she could really have an awesome voice, but she stayed mostly conservative with a sweet swoon and a smile every now and then. Scott played a black acoustic (too far back to see the brand) throwing in some of his trademark tapping on the frets. For some of the songs, he had a nice distortion effect for his acoustic guitar through foot-pedals. Drummer Ken Lewis and Chagall alumnus Wade Jaynes on bass rounded out the stage.
Song list: (not complete or in order!)
Missed the name of the first song, (from their new album?)
Disappear
Into The Deep(?)
Constantly
Not A Chance
After their set, Wes King took the stage with an acoustic and played some songs from his solo albums. He threw in a country-twang accent for a shortened version of “I Believe” and somberly explained the story behind “Thought You’d Be Here” as he and his wife waited years before finally having a child. King played alone on stage.
Wes King’s Set List:
Remember
I Believe
The Robe
Universe Next Door
Thought You’d Be Here
Simplify
Third on stage was Phil Keaggy with his Jam-man. After setting up the machine and making a few runs to test the machine, Keaggy launched into his set.
True Believers
Jam in the Pocket
Sign Came Through the Window
Song from _Master and the Musican_ (Deep Calls Unto Deep?)
(maybe one more song here, can’t remember)
Let Everything Else Go
Keaggy was phenomenal, earning applause from the mostly sedate audience during his songs.
After Christine Dente brought her three children onto stage, she introduced a short video by WorldVision, followed by a short intermission.
After intermission, Keaggy, King and Dente took stage for their concert. All of them were in a lighthearted, joking mood throughout the concert and had a _lot_ of energy, considering they are winding down a long tour. Keaggy played little rifts while Dente spoke. At one time, Dente stopped and said “Will you stop that? I’m trying to speak!” As Scott started to speak again, the rift played again, this time backwards through the Jam-Man and we all got a good laugh. Keaggy held up his hands with a look of “It wasn’t me!” Dente looked up and said something like “Keaggy fans, please don’t send me hate mail. I really do love the guy, but doesn’t that drive you crazy?” Dente and Keaggy really enjoyed playing together, while Wes King often looked like he was concentrating hard to keep up. Ken Smith and Wade Jaynes remained in the background for the show.
King played a Zion Telecaster electric. Keaggy alternated between a Zion (strat?) and his Parker Fly. Dente played his black acoustic guitar throughout the set.
Set list:
Watch My Back
Isle Of Skye
Dente played rhythm on his guitar using pencils.
“I recommend only No. 2’s for this.” he says.
Perspicuity
This was written by Wes King. “We were going to
call these songs Instrumental #1 and #2 and so on,
but Phil had some experience naming instrumentals.”
More To Be Revealed
Angel Treads
Everyone played acoustic guitar on this one.
Budapest Control
River Of Life
Encore:
Something, Somewhere
Hold Me Jesus
Lots of improv and soloing, often they would signal to the rhythm section and just jam and then nod again when it was time to wrap it up. Their final song was a cover of Rich Mullin’s song, “Hold Me Jesus”
A great concert with a really relaxed and humorous attitude. Wes, Phil, and Scott were a lot of fun to watch as they spent the entire night cutting up and jamming. Sometimes those execs at record companies _do_ get good ideas!