#jamtour

Yesterday was the third stop of the 2015 Winterjam Tour in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I got my Jam Nation passes and headed out to line up at 9am in a snowstorm and a -15 windchill.   The "Pre-Jam party" started around 5pm after a quick Q&A session with John Cooper (Skillet), Jason Roy (Building 429), and Blanca (formerly of Group1Crew, now solo). Up and coming rock band Veridia kicked off the tour with a surprisingly impressive start! Ending with their radio single "Disconnected", I was thoroughly impressed by them! The musicianship was decent and the overall atmosphere they created was consistent and fit them well. Up next was the new-to-radio CCM band About A Mile. The three brothers from Pennsylvania did a good job showcasing their overall sound. I was very impressed by the musicianship and skill that they had. Lead singer Adam Klutinoty showed his guitar playing abilities while pulling off a decent job of frontman at the same time. I would like to see more from this band! I think their downfall is their weak lyrics that fall into the stereotypical CCM category. The third and final act of the pre-jam party was former Group1Crew member Blanca. This solo career is a "new start" for her and she was promoting her new EP with every opportunity she had. She even came out to the Jam Nation line and performed her lead single with an acoustic guitar and then tried to sell us her new album. I was least impressed with the performance here. She made quite a spectacle of herself, with one of the friends I attended with commenting that they "think she's trying to be a Christian Beyonce". The analogy is not far off.       Once the road pastor came out and prayed a blessing on the night, For King & Country started the night officially. With a diverse musical blend, a huge mix of instrumentation, and a fairly large band, fK&C was my favorite act of the night. Much like Tenth Avenue North's 22 1/2 minute performance at WinterJam 2014, I was left wanting a full hour-long concert by the end of their set. WinterJam founders Newsong played a small set at the centerstage after fk&C cleared out. Newsong was promoting their new live worship record. The band has teamed up with Nathan Nockels from Passion to record a "new worship album" for the church. As a worship arts major, I was excited to hear this, but left disappointed by the blandness of the experience. What we have here was a copy-cat sound of your typical big-band worship record with very shallow writing. The dynamics were just bad. After two of their new worship songs, the band played their dated sounding gospel hit "Arise" (which never ceases to instill goose bumps), a cover of United's "Oceans" featuring Jen Ledger from Skillet, and an all-piano cover of "10,000 Reasons". After years of hearing the same thing form Newsong, I honestly think it's time that they just run WinterJam behind the scenes and open up their slot for another popular band.     While Newsong played the centerstage, Family Force 5 was setting up for their slice of the show. Opening with BZRK from their latest record "Time Stands Still", they put on just as great of a show in their small time frame as they did when I saw them back at Alive Fest 2014 when they played a full 45 minute set. FF5 has the gift of entertainment. I honestly think they are one of the greatest evangelism tools of the night to non-christian teens. Winding down after FF5 was speaker Tony Nolan. I already had a bad taste in my mouth from hearing his scare-tactic message at Camp Electric 2013 and being force fed his new book "GASP!" when I was looking at the merch before the show. While the message wasn't as harsh, it still was fear driven. I would have preferred a more graceful speaker like Nick Hall, who has spoken for the last two years at WJ. I'd love to see them get ahold of someone like Jefferson Bethke or Matt Chandler for a WJ in the future. After Tony Nolan's short message, Building 429 played a satisfying set. I was going to see them at Alive Fest 2014 day 1, but a tornado shut down the festival in the middle of their first song. They have greatly improved their showmanship since I saw them last at Big Ticket Festival 2011. I was so impressed that I joined their official fan-club at their merch table. After B429, popular CCM artist Jeremy Camp delivered a hit-filled set list that, while I'm not a fan, was satisfying. While Francesca Battistelli played, I walked out of the show to get some food and browse the merch tables that weren't in full swing before the show. While I wasn't directly in the arena, I can tell you that it was bad enough having concrete walls to buffer some of the sound.  

  Headliner Skillet finally came out around 8:45 and delivered a great set list filled with a great mix of oldies and newer songs from their 2013 release "Rise". Ending with their hit "Rebirthing", the band played for a great time frame that fell just short of a full set, but was long enough to satisfy fans who waited hours and hours in line just to see them.