July 21, 2009

Just Your Average Christian Rock Concert: Price-Gouging, Blaspheming, Head-Banging, Ear-Busting Clatter

OK, I admit it. I’m pretty square. My tastes run more to Beatles than Black Eyed Peas, Four Seasons than 50 Cent, Johnny Cash than Jay Z, Motown than Metallica.

But I’m not totally out of it. I can totally get into listening to some of the harder-edged and hip-hoppier bands – especially Christian rock – with my four teenagers. Not to mention that my son’s garage band is actually a basement band that practices right next door to my office. So I happily agreed to drive the van transporting our church’s middle-and-high-schoolers to KingsFest, a Christian rock festival.

Big mistake.

First of all, the venue of KingsFest is the Kings Dominion amusement park near Richmond, Virginia. Now that advanced middle age and easily rattled vertebrae have drained the rapture from roller coasters, I’ve come to appreciate that theme parks are pure money traps deploying thrill rides to lure in young people – with their underdeveloped brains and insatiable stimulus joneses – in order to separate their parents from their cash with $4.50 lemonades, $7 funnel cakes, $10 locker fees and the like.

KingsFest is simply additional bait, hooking in particular large church youth groups who rove the park clad in matching t-shirts that feature cool slogans playing off scripture verses. For these all-too-willing victims, the price-gouging only accelerates around the concert area, which one pays an additional $20-plus to enter, and where you think Christians would be more sensitive to giving a “brother” a break.

Fat chance. More $4 drinks and other wallet-wrecking refreshments – not to mention endless marketing.

Yo. This isn’t your father’s Tennessee Ernie Ford and “How Great Thou Art.” Christian music ain’t just about Jesus these days, and not even about bands. It’s about brands. Each of the acts – whose “Christian” labels are now universally owned by slick global entertainment conglomerates – has its own slick shtick, complete with professionally designed logo perfectly suited for big-time sales of t-shirts, hats and other paraphernalia. (The merchandise lines for Skillet, one particularly hard-rock group, were about five across and 20 deep when I happened by after their set.)

Still, that I could deal with. The really bad news is that the amphitheater area is also jammed with vendors hawking “can-you-top-this” t-shirts, signs and other merchandise leveraging popular culture (and heisting its intellectual property) to bag a buck off the Lord. The garment that left me, as the Brits would put it, utterly gobsmacked portrayed a pair of familiar Golden Arches (you know, the gates to Hamburger Heaven). Along with the words: “McJesus – Billions Served.”

“McJesus?” Hey, I’ve got an even better idea for a t-shirt: “B is for Blasphemy.”

Or how about Banging Heads or Busting Ears? Because let’s not forget the main event – where, other than words that are barely understandable anyway, there is little separating the bands from their secular counterparts (except, thank God, no women in the crowd flashing).

Simulated smoke rising; blinding light shows; tight or revealing outfits on women; singers climbing onto speakers and drum kits; raucous, simulated “head-banging” among the musicians – and most disturbing of all to this father of six, piercingly, painfully, eardrum-splittingly loud music.

According to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, sounds louder than 80 decibels can cause permanent hearing loss – and rock concerts can peak at 150. Just slightly louder than, say, a gun discharging, an air-raid siren, a jet engine or a jackhammer.

Hey, I’ve already admitted to squareness. But excuse me for thinking that there is nothing Christian about doing physical harm to young people. Yeah, yeah. I get that it’s about reaching out to the next generation. Still, the least we can do is make sure that when we reach them, they can hear what we’re telling them.

If Christian musicians want to remain worthy of the name – not to mention the Name – it’s time to think about dialing it back a bit. And I don’t just mean the sound.