I attended a concert in Lenoir, NC on Friday night. Featured artists included the Kingsmen, Soul’d Out, David Johnson & Dixie Dawn, and Steve Warren (the preacher, not the former Masters V tenor). Fellow blogger Steve Eaton was also in attendance. I expect he’ll have a report on his blog soon.
David Johnson is one of the most gifted studio musicians in Southern Gospel. In fact, the primary reason I wanted to attend this particular event was so I could observe Johnson in a live concert setting. The other three members of his bluegrass band are good quality players as well, though they were playing from cue sheets and searching for notes on at least one song. I would have preferred to see Johnson featured out-front for the entire set (particularly on the singing), but the features were spread out across the entire group. Johnson treated us to some blazing acoustic guitar picking, while his band-mates added banjo, mandolin, and electric bass. The banjo picker in particular was very good.
Soloist Steve Warren pinches his tones and contorts both his body and his syllables. He’s somewhat entertaining, though, due to his “Elvis hair,” his ability to poke fun at his own appearance, and his interaction with the crowd. He’s a pretty good harmonica player, too. On the second half of the program, he gave us an Elvis version of “He Touched Me.”
Soul’d Out is the hottest up-and-coming quartet in Southern Gospel at the moment and a strong contender for Horizon Group in the Singing News Fan Awards. Their mix was somewhat muddy (at least from my seat) on the first half of the program…the sub-woofers were overloaded by their soundtracks, compressors were working overtime, and the EQ could have been better. On the second half, they sang with just piano and bass, which yielded a better overall sound. In spite of the sound imbalances, they still did a great job connecting with the audience. I had a chance to chat with Dusty Barrett and Tanner Stahl at intermission. They’re about to start working on a new CD for a tentative release around the first of the year. I’m expecting good things from this group.
The current single and soon to be number one song by the Kingsmen, “God Saw A Cross,” was met with enthusiastic applause from the crowd in Lenoir. Harold Reed does a fantastic job presenting this lyric. The Kingsmen sound has solidified since Randy Crawford joined the group. “Justified” is becoming a regularly requested feature for him. Bryan Hutson is continuing to get a great response from “When God Ran.” They mixed in a number of Kingsmen classics including “Glory Road” and “When I Wake Up To Sleep No Moore” (1973).
The Broyhill Civic Center is a nice facility that seats about 1070. The crowd tonight looked to be about 300-350. The event continues on Saturday night, with a larger crowd expected in terms of advanced ticket sales. Perhaps two concerts back-to-back is more than the Lenoir area can handle. Overall, the concert was handled professionally with a good emcee who kept the program rolling.
By the way, if you like good beef BBQ and you’re in Lenoir, check out Hannah’s. Before the concert, I was looking for a good place to eat. I spotted a Shoney’s and turned into the lot, but I decided to go elsewhere when I noticed there were only four cars parked outside and no signs of life inside. That’s never a good sign on a Friday at 5:30 PM. I asked my GPS for a list of nearby restaurants and decided to give Hannah’s a try. The parking lot at Hannah’s only had a couple of empty spaces, and I soon found out why. I tried two sandwiches, one beef and one pork. The sliced beef is perfect with traditional western NC style red sauce. I tried some of their eastern NC style vinegar sauce on the pork, which was good, but a little less satisfying than the beef.