Switchfoot Rocks Cowtown

"Switchfoot," a surfing term meaning to shift your feet on the board to take a new stance facing the opposite direction. It's also a band if you've been in Africa and haven't been up on pop-culture for the past 10 years. They’re from San Diego, you know... take it for what it’s worth. They played a great sold-out show in Calgary that I was privileged enough to attend.

The concert was phenomenal. One weird thing, however – Switchfoot played upstairs while Jars of Clay played downstairs. Their tours crossed in Calgary, and they played the same night in the same venue. Both concerts were with different labels, advertisers, sponsors, radio stations, and all in all, different people. Not to say that there weren’t some fans that were torn! Switchfoot had the better venue this time, hands down. I've been downstairs for a concert before. Relient K AND Switchfoot have both played there on previous occasions.

But Switchfoot rocked the house. They're a fan's band if you ever get to see them live. They made you realize why the opening band was still an opening band. Copeland didn't have a chance - and if you've seen the show 'Criminal Minds', the lead singer looks and acts like Reid, the socially inept super-nerd geek who is kinda likeable. Spitting image of him. Whether he's inept socially or just acted that way like Reid, I don't know if the verdict has come in on that one yet.

The energy and flare Switchfoot exuded was incredible, their musicianship was great, and they even 'bootlegged' the first 7 songs of the concert for the fans. Since the fans got to pick what they played prior to the concert, it was a lot of older material mixed in with the new and blended together as a cohesive musical masterpiece. The mosh pit was a little tame, but the intimacy and closeness with the band was impressive. The lead singer even walked through the crowd to the back, sang at the sound board for a while, and walked back through the crowd. He was up on the drums, on the keyboard, on the speaker towers, and leaning out over the crowd when he wasn't playing his guitar. He even gave a guitar away that night to a group who had followed them for the last 3 cities!

The messages of reality and salvation were definitely there, and they generated a lot of good questions for seekers even though they don't have blatantly Christian lyrics or 'preach' to the crowd. Sometimes its about the music, sometimes its message, sometimes its theraputic, sometimes its everything. Coming from a songwriter and musician, I know the pressure is there to make something other people like instead of loving who you are and are becoming. In the end you find out that people love you for you, not for what you think they want you to be.

This is your life, are you who you want to be?