The Diverse City Worldwide Tour @ Concordia College (St. Paul, MN)
When: May 5th, 2005
With:TobyMac, Audio Adrenaline, Kutless, Hawk Nelson
My Grade: 4.5

I am a big fan of Audio Adrenaline, so when I heard that they were picked to co-headline a tour with another artist I am a fan of- Tobymac, I ordered tickets to what I knew would be a good show. Even though I'm not a huge fan of the opening bands Hawk Nelson or Kutless, I knew I could survive them for the headliners.

Hawk Nelson

These boys play pop/punk at in it's most true form: The same way EVERYBODY ELSE DOES. Same sound, different words as about a thousand other bands out there. Just to make sure everyone knew that they were playing for 13 and 14 year old girls, they were wearing light pink vests over white T-shirts. 'Nuff said on that.

I will admit that I'm not a total pop/punk hater. It's far from my favorite genre, but I do indulge in it every once in a while. There's something about Hawk Nelson that just dosn't do it for me though. So, not the best start to the concert for me. They left after 5 or 6 songs.

Performance: 3
Sound: 3
Song/Lyrical Content: 3

Kutless

Melodic hard rockers Kutless were up next. They came out with quite a bit of stage energy and got the crowd going, so good job on that part. They ripped through a few head-banging tunes, broke out the acoustic guitar for a ballad (their hit "Sea of Faces"), played a few more mellow songs, and closed with a couple more rock songs.

One observation: At one point in one of the songs, theirs a nice long scream, and on CD, this scream is done with good control of the voice, not straying too bad, and never turning into an emo shriek. Not so in concert. I wept for mercy as my ears were tortured by the sound of an extremely emo-ish shriek, over melodic hard rock guitars. Please, NO.

Other than that though, Kutless was a decent warm up band.


Performance: 4
Sound: 3.5
Song/Lyrical Content: 4

Tobymac

Hip-hopper Tobymac took the stage with his rather large crew (I think I counted 7 other people besides him) amidst many cheers and screams from the crowd, and opened with the obvious choice for an opener from Toby, "Get This Party Started." Toby was very impressive live. He's one of the few artists/bands I think, that at times, actually looks like he's having more fun than the audience! But not in a "look at me! I'm a famous rapper!" but in just a good ol' fashion party kinda way. It was great. He was extremely entertaining, lots of crowd interaction ("When I say 'Diverse!' you say 'City!' 'Diverse!' 'City!!' 'Diverse!' 'City!!'"), good stage presence and groovy tunage.

Overall it was a great show.

Performance: 5
Sound: 4
Song/Lyrical Content: 4.5

Audio Adrenaline

AudioA has been rocking the world of Christian music for over 12 years now, and they seem to be only getting better. They had the most crowd interaction of any band, and everybody was loving it. They provided the best memory of the night when they pulled people from the crowd up on stage for one song. The lead singer, Mark picked two guys, white guys with afros, to sing the song with him. Mark sang up to the regular point, put his mic in front of "Afro # 1" and waited for him to sing. "Afro # 1" didn't say anything for a second.. then he looked at Mark and in a small (very small) voice said "I don't know the words." Mark pulled back from the guy, with a disgusted and amazed look on his face. He pointed towards the crowd and yelled "GET OFF THE STAGE!!" So "Afro # 1" left the stage amidst much laughter and a few jeers. "Afro # 2" fared quite a bit better though. He knew all the words quite well, and didn't have too bad a singing voice to boot. He took full advantage of his 15 minutes (more like 2) of fame and hammed it up quite a bit.

Another highlight of each and every AudioA show is The Cowbell. Right at the end of their set, the singer does a cowbell solo. He started off really slow, with a steady tempo, and kept it up unti the guitarist told him "Hey! Stop that! That is SO not right." He stopped playing, and the guitarist gave a little spiel about the crowd coming for a rock and roll show, not what we were currently getting. He then procedes to say "I have a FEVER. And the only prescription.. is MORE COWBELL!!"

Enter one wicked cowbell solo, and once again - I was blown away by AudioA.

Performance: 5
Sound: 4.5
Song/Lyrical Content: 5

Reviewed by: Christian