At The Scream The Prayer Tour, there's no better way to express your love for the lord than to yell loudly at people about how Jesus Christ died for your sins.
Jesus Christ. I'm not kidding.
Yes, this scene actually exists, and, from what we saw last night at Marquee Theatre it attracts a better crowd than we thought a Christian metalcore show could -- admittedly, though, our expectations were not high.
So, about the name: I guess the names ChristFest '09 or JesusStock '09 were already taken. nevertheless, this whole situation just begs the question, should the words "Scream" and "Prayer" even be spoken in the same breath?
Speaking of screaming, I could not understand a single thing coming out of the mouths of any lead singer. If I had to guess though, I'd say the words, "God," "Christ," "Holy," "Praise," Glory," "Heavenly," and "Eternal" were thrown in there amongst sounds reminiscent of the gurgles one makes in the throws of violent nausea.
At one point, a band (I'm not sure who -- they all kind of blended together in one holy power of putridness) remarked: "If you know the words to this next song, please sing along," to which my girlfriend replied, "There are words? ... Wait! I know the words! AAAAAAAAAAAH AAAAHHHHH JESUS!"
If we're going merely on the look of the crowd, you'd think this were just any normal metal show (As normal as a metal show is, anyway). People with crazy, spiked, and dyed hair, people in black shirts with printscreened bloodstains on them, piercings, tattoos, and the like. But unlike at any run of the mill metal show, the folks here wore purity rings, and probably voted for McCain.
A highlight for me was looking at all of the crazy T-shirts for sale at the merch tables. One band, A Graceful, had a shirt with "Drug Free For Christ" written on it, and one ripping off Barack Obama's "Hope" picture, aptly replacing the president's profile with a drawing of the the other Savior.
Corpus Christi (the metalcore Christian band, not the shitty city in Texas) had shirts parodying The Big Lebowski, one with Jesus riding a monster truck, and for the low, low price of $9.50, you can own a shirt that says "Double Pedal JESUS Medal." And just to prove that I am not making this up:
One more shirt that caught my eye was Sleeping Giant's plea, "Don't You Judge Me!" which I find ironic considering Christians judge people on a daily basis.
Critic's Notebook
Last Night: The Scream The Prayer Tour at The Marquee Theatre
Better Than: I guess I'd rather be humored at a concert than bored at Church.
Personal Bias: Two words that apart don't appeal to me, and together appeal to me even less: Scream and Prayer.
Random Fact: Telling a friend about the show he responded: "Just write, 'All the bands were dumb and it sucked, then I went home.'," As terribly accurate as that may be, I felt it was my duty to give you the full picture.
Further Listening: I'm going to skip this. Trust me on this one.
One More Thing: There was no mosh pit... Instead people just ran around in a circle. What?
