Newsboys

First order of business: yes, they are now known simply as ‘newsboys,’ not ‘The’ newsboys - and no capital ‘N.’ Somebody at Inpop must hate grammar checkers. Grammatical awkwardness aside, newsboys have always been a band out to please their target audience, and their newest project is a bumper-crop of newsboys, to be sure. Newsboys Live: Houston We Are Go features not one, but two discs – the almost seventy-seven minute live concert audio CD and the hour and twenty minute long companion DVD. The performances on the two discs are from the same show, recorded on the Houston, Texas stop of the ‘Go’ tour (just in case you were wondering about the title). Since the audio CD is essentially a concert soundtrack, I’ll concentrate on the DVD.

This being at least the band’s third live concert DVD (there was newboys’ Shine – Greatest Hits Live One Night in Pennsylvania and 2002’s Thrive, Live From the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum) the boys from down under made sure to include no less than five songs from their excellent Go CD in addition to the expected must-perform newsboys standards such as “Shine,” “Entertaining Angels,” and “Breakfast,” as well as recent concert favorites “He Reigns,” and the concert-closer, “I Am Free.”

The band is smaller by one (Phil Joel is gone and bass lines are being handled by Jeff Frankenstein on keys) but the big stage antics and special effects are still there, and the band once again has provided a colorful stage set with guitarist Paul Colman running ramps, huge video screens and the inevitable percussion duel between front-man Furler and long-time newsboys drummer Duncan Phillips – and, yes, Phillips does the rising, tilting, rotating drum kit routine. Have we seen it before? Sure – but I’m a sucker for seeing a guy play a drum solo high in the air, at a 90 degree angle to the ground, while spinning: isn’t everybody?

The concert is well-covered photographically, and the sound is crystal-clear to an almost disturbing degree. If this sounds odd, my point is that a live concert recording needs something to distinguish it from the studio versions of the same songs, if not in the arrangements (and the arrangements don’t vary very much) then certainly in the ‘live’ quality of the performance – warts and all. No warts here, which is ok, but there isn’t even the ambiance of ‘the hall’ in the vocals – it’s as if the ambient sound of the venue was removed from the mix in post-production, rendering it a bit sterile and even a bit suspect.

Those who love newsboys will be very happy with this double-disc package, while those who think that the band’s music and stage show is little more than a youth-group outing won’t even bother. Both groups will get what they expect. Fans will get to hear and see the classics, as well as all of the expected antics and crowd-teasing by Furler, who certainly knows how to get a ‘cheap pop’ from an audience (does Houston really have the nicest, best looking, loudest people in the United States? I thought that was Pennsylvania!) …but wouldn’t the fans be disappointed if that didn’t happen? Sure, the ‘Stage Medley’ is a bit contrived and certainly not a very musical moment, but the crowd appeared to be entertained.

I suppose there will always be debate about just how much ‘testimony’ should be included on a project like this, but there are those who will judge the legitimacy of the band’s ministry value by such moments and an equal number of people who, on the negative side, will judge the artistic validity of the band by the inclusion of the lengthy ‘altar call.’ Maybe Furler gives the best answer in the song, “Your Love is Better Than Life,” when he sings, “…Dunno when it’s a ministry and when it’s a show / Maybe neither, maybe both / I dunno, I dunno / But this one thing I know – Your love is better than life…” Yeah – I think he’s got it right.

Tagged as: Houston We Are Go, Newsboys

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