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It’s hard to make much of a comment on the tribute to the victims of the fire at the Station nightclub that aired on VH1 and VH1 Classic over the weekend. It was incredibly depressing; the guy from Tesla was having a rough night voice-wise; “To Be With You” is still a pretty great song. It was largely what you probably expected. However, the highlight for me was seeing the members of Stryper performing with Tom Scholz and Gary Pihl on “Piece Of Mind.” Of course, much to the chagrin of at least one commenter, that means it’s time for a pile of Stryper videos from YouTube!
I wasn’t a huge fan of Stryper as a kid, although their Bible-throwing concert appearance in a high school auditorium was an early concert highlight. My tastes were more aligned with a less jock-rock oriented style of Christian rock, although in retrospect, perhaps making myself an outcast from a niche within a niche wasn’t the wisest decision. Nonetheless, it was hard to avoid the Yellow and Black Attack those days, between my youth pastor condemning them for not being Christian enough and their brief moment of MTV stardom with “Honestly.” If you don’t take time to think about who he’s replacing, Michael Sweet holds up well in the Boston lead singer role, hitting all the right notes at least–and if the band throws “To Hell With The Devil” into the setlist this summer, I’d even consider paying for a ticket to its Tucson casino date.
Calling On You:
Always Stand By You:
Soldiers Under Command:
Stryper [Official site]
God, that Boston video was soooooooooooooo fuckin’ bad.
Stryper dude’s gotta go.
It’s hard to find male singers with clear voices that high. Maybe Dennis DeYoung is free? Squealey male vocals were Stryper’s problem.
annnnddd… despite TheContrairain’s warning, I clicked the link. Wow. That was some shaky, pitchy warbling! Wrong notes on some of the dual-harmony guitar bits, too. I’m guessing Stryper hasn’t rehearsed that one enough… Jesus evidently can’t help you sing like Brad Delp!
In-ear monitors are one thing (although I’ve always suspected it leads to a mild condition I call Stage Autism), but any musician who wears HEADPHONES during a gig is an automatic dork. Unless Scholz was listening to the Celtics game.
“Of course, much to the chagrin of at least one commenter”
Fame at last.
There is a lot of music made by people who consider themselves Christians. And there is a lot of music that is specifically marketed as Christian music. I’ve heard a lot of great music from the first category, but not from the second, despite the CDs a former co-worker kept lending me.
Take the comment above, remove the word “christian” and substitute “black” or “gay” or “women”, and the statement is still true. Try it – it’s fun!
@almostred: pretty much true.
This is all I saw:
“My tastes were more aligned with… Christian rock”
Pretty good post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed reading your blog posts. Any way I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you post again soon.