Lincoln, NE 2-8-2008 Concert Wrap-up

The second night of the Caedmon’s spring tour brought them to Lincoln Berean Church in Lincoln, NE. With over 1000 tickets sold in advance for a 16002500-seat auditorium, I’m going to estimate 1200 the official estimate is 1800 people in attendance for the show. Lincoln Berean is home to Derek Webb’s brother Brandon (that’s Dr. Brandon Webb, as we learned during the concert), and they had things well-planned and ready to go for the concert. My wife and I showed up in time for sound check around 4:30 and stuck around through the show.

First things first: the set list.

Derek opened with several of his solo songs; he played solo on his 12-string guitar.

1. Lover
2. Nobody Loves Me
3. A New Law
4. King and a Kingdom
5. Name
6. Wedding Dress
7. I Wanna Marry You All Over Again
8. Savior on Capitol Hill
9. This Too Shall Be Made Right

While the crowd most obviously recognized Wedding Dress, the real crowd favorite of Derek’s was I Wanna Marry You, where Derek managed to play that fantastic bass riff along with all the guitar chords. The song works very well live like that – without all the production the lyrics have a chance to jump out and shine.

After Derek’s set and introduction of the band (“so, I hear this group coming up is pretty good…”) Caedmon’s came out to play. They managed to fill up a really big stage with lights, risers for two percussion sets, the bass player, and the keyboards, and then four microphones spread across the stage. The first half of the show went like this:

1. My Calm Your Storm
2. There is a Reason
3. Climb On (A Back That’s Strong)
4. Trouble
5. Expectations
6. Two Weeks In Africa
7. Share In The Blame
8. Hold The Light
9. Forty Acres
10. In God’s Country
11. Share The Well

Cliff did his little talk for the Dalit Freedom Network right before Share The Well. Cliff and Danielle then vacated the stage while Andy Osenga introduced himself and played a couple songs from his solo records:

1. When Will I Run (with Derek singing backups
2. Swing Wide The Glimmering Gates (w/o the band)
3. New Beginning (with Todd, Garret, Jeff, and Josh)

The band then came back out for the second half:

1. There’s Only One (Holy One)
2. Not Enough
3. Faith My Eyes
4. Shifting Sand
5. Hope to Carry On

Then they left the stage in preparation for their encore. This seems a bit ironic to me as I remember Derek’s tirades during solo shows about his dislike for encores. But then Derek was the first one out for the encore:

1. Ten Thousand Angels
2. April Showers
3. Thankful

So, pretty close to the set list from the first night, and amazingly loaded with old songs. And long, too. Counting everyone’s songs, 9 + 11 + 3 + 5 + 3 = 31 songs. A full three hours.

Now some comments on the show itself. As Andy has already admitted, the show was pretty rough. Andy had some serious equipment issues (a short in his pedal board and a broken capo about 20 Acres into the 40 – he just did get a different guitar plugged in in time for the solo), some of the tempos seemed off (mostly slow on the old songs), some vocal parts were forgotten (with Cliff, Danielle, and Andy looking at each other in embarrassment as they all realized it about the same time), and, well, when Derek tried to get the crowd to sing the chorus of Thankful, basically nobody knew it. Ouch.

It was really good to see Derek on stage with Caedmon’s again. Maybe I shouldn’t say again, since I’d never seen Caedmon’s before Derek left the band. He and Cliff have great chemistry on the stage, and it’s quite obvious that they’ve been playing together for years. But there was a weird vibe to the show with all four of them out front; it seemed often (especially on the old, pre-Andy songs) as if Cliff, Danielle, and Derek were doing their thing, and Andy was just left in the background to strum along on another acoustic guitar. Andy’s equipment issues may have contributed to that vibe, too – he didn’t seem very comfortable for the whole first half of the show. I can understand why he would be somewhat excluded on those songs, but it left me wishing that they’d found a way to bring him in more.

Lest I sound too harsh, there were some very good moments in the show. I think the best overall song was Share In The Blame mid-way through the first half. Derek and Danielle sounded fantastic on the vocals, Andy’s guitar solo was excellent, Josh’s organ was cranking, and it was about that point that the whole band felt really tight. Then to end the night everybody seemed to unwind on Thankful as the trash cans were brought out and everybody could let loose – with Andy ripping on the electric, last night’s Thankful was very reminiscent of the version that Derek has on his How to Kill and Be Killed DVD. (Aside: AO or Moak? Wouldn’t want to have to decide.) Cliff and Derek’s interaction between songs was quite funny, and Andy’s monologue between his solo songs was priceless.

So, all in all, a concert worth driving five hours to. I think once the band gets things tightened up a bit more and their equipment issues worked through, there will be some REALLY good shows toward the back end of this tour. Check the schedule and buy your tickets, folks.

[There are some more photos from last night's concert on my Flickr page. I only uploaded 18 of about 100. If anybody asks nicely I can probably up some more.]
[Thanks to Brandon for the corrections on room size and attendance.]