Seize the storm

I had the awesome privilege to run up to St. Paul, MN and see Shawn perform at Bethel University.  Let me start by completely squashing the rumor that Shawn’s shows aren’t very good.  If you truly like his music, you’ll love his concerts.

Quality of Music

Listening to Shawn perform live and on cd is almost exactly the same.  He’s just as good and most likely better than he is on cd.  After every song all I could say was, “Wow.”  He plays with a couple different guitars and I believe he does some different style tuning for each song to make it easier to play.  I can’t say enough though how much I enjoyed the concert - he did a wonderful job and his music really speaks to my soul.  After I ordered my ticket for the concert, I dusted off Ripen and now I love it!  It just took some time of listening to it, reading into the words, etc.  So I went back and re-rated the review and up’ed the stars to 4/5.

Personality

Shawn seems like a very quiet individual.  I don’t know the average size of the crowds he’s performed for.  The Hall he played in at Bethel was packed.  He didn’t talk too much but when he did, he was very simple and to the point.  There was an interesting “tick” that he had when he talked, he tended to fiddle with the tuners and capo on his guitar.  Was this a nervous tick?  I’m not sure.  It was for sure that he was having a lot of fun with his band though.  They had some things happen that they snickered about to each other.  So there was some sense of comfort.

Stage Appearance

This will come out more harsh than it really is - he’s not very stage/crowd friendly.  He didn’t really get the crowd going to sing along with his songs (unless only a few in the crowd actually knew his songs).  He sings every song with his eyes closed and bare feet (at least for this concert).  He did do some beat-boxing and scat - which totally rocked, he’s really good at it!

Encore?

Don’t even think about it.  Shawn does a lot of songs and he says they’re now over-rated because now you have to do five encores to even be “cool”.  “So this is the last song of the night, thanks for coming!”

After the Show

I guess sometimes Shawn doesn’t come back to the merchandise booth after the show.  This was one of those times unfortunately :(  I try and get musicians whom I really admire and really inspire me to sign a guitar given to me by my wife (then girlfriend) on our first Christmas together.  So far, I just have Chris Tomlin but was really looking forward to adding a Shawny Mac sig.  Oh well, hopefully he can get down to SD soon.

This is the second album by Seattle-based Shawn McDonald.  His previous album, Simply Nothing, has seriously come close to wearing out anything I’ve played it on.  I absolutely love Simply Nothing and no other cd has gotten played more - wherever I go.  Every song on it is amazing.  I really do suggest this record, I even requested another copy of it on my Christmas list last year.  I knew it would be so very hard to compete with Simply Nothing with this release of Ripen…

The Review

Shawn takes on a different sound in this album.  He shows he’s willing to experiment and try different things.  There’s a cello in the background that just goes insane sometimes (in a good way).  His lyrics, in keeping with Simply Nothing, are very deep.  They bare his soul and from the music and his words, you can tell that it’s not about him singing music to fit a certain genre or listener, but just him singing his heart out to God and giving Him all the praises.  Shawn talks a lot about the second coming and how he’s looking forward to it.  One of the highlighted songs about this is The Rider on the White Horse.  The way they pulled off the sound (which I have no idea how they did) is awesome.  You can almost hear the hoof steps as the horse gallops.  He also speaks about freedom in Christ and needing Christ in his life every moment of everyday, basically filling his cup daily.  He also has a nice love song to his new wife, Kate McDonald who is Bethany Dillon’s sister.  I like that Shawn is trying some new things out and go with some different sounds.  He has a couple songs on the new record that sound a lot like the flow of Simply Nothing, which is basically more of what I like.  Some of the songs were a little slow or a bit repetative, or had some really funky sounding notes to it.  One of the songs he recorded while he was sick and though you can tell he’s straining, it really sounds good.

Favorite tracks: Free, Salvation, Pour Out, and Imago(an instrumental song), Home

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - It just couldn’t stand up to the awesome-ness of Simply Nothing.  I think this was his learning record as he had to learn how to write his songs on a schedule.  Look forward to the next one

 This is the first album by a Twin Cities (Minnesota) based band called Mainstay.  I happened to be at their very first gig in Brookings when they began touring with John Reuben, The Wedding, and Falling Up.  I was helping out with the concert so I got to talk to Ryan, the drummer, for quite a bit before the concert.  He’s a really nice guy.  We talked shop for a while (as I was about to get my bass at the time) and play guitar and have dabbled just a little bit with the drums.  Justin’s grandparents showed up to the concert however his grandfather couldn’t get too close to the speakers otherwise they would mess with his pacemaker.  I thought it was really nice that they showed up to support him though.  Though I don’t want to make a big deal about this, I think it’s worth mentioning that before the concert, I saw them pray for quite a long time.  I didn’t listen in as they were outside, but I was glad they were making sure of their focus before the tour (and their primetime career) started.  I guess they’ve been around for a while but didn’t sign with a record label until last year.

Sadly, they didn’t have their cd out when they started their tour - what a bummer!  They were predicting a January release of the record.  Well, the lead singer totally lost his voice and it bumped back the release for nearly two months.  They were able to record the music and later, record the vocals.  The minor setback hasn’t really affected their poplularity.  I now hear the single, Take Away, on the Refuge out of the Twin Cities.  I’m not sure what their popularity is outside the midwest.

The Review

Well Meaning Fiction is a short album - eleven songs and one of them is a reprise of Take Away.  That is one of the very few negatives about this album.  The other negatives are just a few spots in various songs where you’re wondering if they should have done what they did there, because it really was a change from the main theme or sound of the song.

Though the length of the songs are fairly short, they are profoundly deep.  I find myself listening more to the sounds of the song and not the words.  Then again, I usually listen to this at work so I’m concentrating on work and not the words of the song.  There are two themes to this record.  The first is that God is all powerful, He doesn’t have to do anything He wants to do.  We try and box him in with all these limits of what WE think He should do and when He should do it.  But it’s not about us.  He gave us everything and He can easily take it all away, and that is His right.  The second theme is about the struggle with living two lives - the lives our friends or other people in the world live, and our godly lives (however godly or not godly they might be).  It talks about how people just make excuses for themselves and keep on sinning when they should just realize that what they’re doing is wrong, simply wrong.  Moreso, the responsibility of telling people this is put on Christian; we shouldn’t dull the edge and talk about their sin as if it’s wrong but not a huge deal at all, and you were just kinda-sorta pointing it out in the event they might be interested in changing their lives and need some motivation.  You see, if we don’t tell them actually how wrong it really is, how are they going to know that God isn’t happy with what they’re doing and that things would be so much better if they’d just stop what they’re doing and listen to what God wants.

I really like what they have to say in their lyrics - the message is deep.  I fear it might be so deep that people might not pick it up and are just lip-sync’ing along with the song.

The sound of the album is pretty much rock but not a harder rock like some of Jeremy Camp’s songs.  Definitely not a Pillar or Thousand Foot Krutch sound.  The vocals are predominantly in a slightly higher range but often transitions back and forth between regular and false setto.  I would say it’s definitely more for a tenor voice as I have trouble singing along at a Baritone/Bass level.  If that was something I could suggest to them on the next record, this would be it: to work on the vocals a bit more so its easier to sing along to.  Do I like it the way it is?  YES!  But I have trouble singing along with it, that’s all.

I’m already looking forward to their next album and seeing what the come up with and change.  In the meantime, I’ll listen to single after single hit the airwaves.

Favorite tracks: Take Away, This Could Be, Mirrors

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - Excellent job guys; I like the album and dig the lyrics. I am expecting more songs and some easier vocals next time.