[caedmonscall.net]

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.]

Here’s the setlist from opening night, courtesy of Mike Terry. (this doesn’t include Derek’s opening solo set)

here’s a great shot of some of the band with a few members of or Rumor Forum

(Todd, Garett, Andy, Cliff, Derek, David, Mike Terry, Katie, Jeff, and Michael)

The show tonight in Lincoln, Nebraska promises to be a fun one, as Andy O pointed out on his blog earlier today.

A little birdie just told me, in fact, that there will be as many as 7 cameras on location tonight to film the show. Rumor also has it that video footage of the event will be made available to caedmonscall.net at some point in the near future.

You know how rumor can be, so unpredictable at times, but as of this point we have no reason to believe that this won’t happen. By all means, we’ll keep you in the loop on whether or not this will be become a reality.

If it doesn’t end up happening, well, pretend we never mentioned it.

If it does, it will be pretty rad.

More on this story as it develops

…bryan

The Overdressed Tour kicked off last night in Arkansas, and rumor had it that the band was going to open the show with “My Calm, Your Storm”, the first song from the first CD they ever recorded. We hope to have more to tell you about it, but we have not received any reviews yet. (Though Rumor Forum member Michael did mention that the crowd was kinda dead last night…booo) When we do, we’ll pass them along.

Remember, if you are fortunate enough to make it out to a show on this tour, email us your review at OverdressedTour-at-gmail-dot-com and we’ll post it here for everyone to read. You can also share your show photos with the world at the Flickr Group we set up.

Andrew hinted at it today:

Time for photos of tour rehearsal! The bus will roll tonight and we’ll have a few more hours of running through tunes before we have to break stuff down and get it loaded up.

These first few shows will be LONG. Just so you know. We’re having trouble cutting songs, so we’re just not going to for a while. I hope that’s ok.

Cliff and I were talking earlier, and he told me that the band started with 32 [!] songs on the list, and trimmed it down to 24 [!!!]. That’s gonna be great. Given that there’ll be eight people on stage, four of whom have been known to babble on and on on-stage [Cliff, Derek, Andrew, and Josh], well … that show might go three or four hours.

Bring provisions, people. Trail mix, Gatorade, asthma inhalers, and those foam seat cushions you get at high school football games. It’s gonna be long, but awesome.

The band sent out an email today, presumably to everyone on their mailing list. In case you missed it, here’s what it said:

Our release tour will kick off on February 7th (this Thursday) in Conway, AR.  Former member, Derek Webb, will be joining the tour as opener and band member.  Andrew Osenga will also be featured during the headlining set.  A complete list of cities and dates can be found at www.caedmonscall.com.

We wish the Overdressed Tour was something that every one of our fans could experience, but unfortunately we can’t make it out to all 50 states. That’s why we’re calling on y’all, our fans, to help us make the Overdressed Tour something that every one of our fans can enjoy. If you’re able to make it out to a show, here’s 3 ways that you can be a part and help other Caedmon’s fans experience the Overdressed Tour:

1 - Send a writeup of the show to OverdressedTour@gmail.com. You can write about the setlist, the banter, the songs, and whatever else you’d like to write about. If we like your review, we’ll post it on caedmonscall.net

2 - You can share your photos from the tour with the rest of the world. We’ve set up this Flickr Group Photo Pool.

3 - If you’re into recording concerts, the band is okay with you taping shows on the Overdressed Tour.  We’d love for you to share any recordings you make with the rest of our fans over at indieriver.net.

For more details on how you can submit reviews, photos, and recordings of the Overdressed Tour, visit The Caedmon’s Call Message Board on the Rumor Forum.

We hope to see you on the road!
Grace and Peace,

Caedmon’s Call

So, to sum things up, we want this to be the most interactive tour the band has ever done. It has to be, because this tour is going to be amazing, and we want everyone to be able to experience it in some way.

The tour kicks off in two days…keep it tuned here for all the info, updates, and experiences that you can handle.

bryan

Many of have been watching the tour dates page closely, hoping that the empty dates before and after the February 23rd show in Pennsylvania are going to be filled with shows in New York, New Jersey, and/or New England. Unfortunately, we don’t have any news for you. You’re going to have to keep watching.

While CC Management has confirmed that the band has several pitches for potential shows north of PA, nothing has materialized yet…and there’s no guarantee that something will. So should you buy your tickets for the New Holland, PA show this week and start making travel plans? I don’t think you need to yet. Keep an eye out on the tour dates page (also on our sidebar here) and watch your email. You should be getting something from CC next week regarding the tour.

And if a show does get booked in New Haven, Boston, Albany, or Newark, we’ll let you know here. That would be wicked cool.

i was browsing through the Caedmon’s Flickr account and came across this picture, which made me laugh. No, not at Cliff without a hat. There is nothing wrong with Cliff’s head, and if there was, why would i laugh at that? That would be rude. And besides, Cliff is a stud. (So save the “Cliff needs to put a hat on” jokes for some other time)

What i was laughing at was Andy’s expression. He looks so unamused with David Dobson, the photographer. That Andy O is such a rock star! And while we’re here, Derek and the rest of the band don’t look very thrilled either…

What’s that? You didn’t know there was a Caedmon’s Flickr account?

Well now you do…

INO asked us to pass along this link, and so we gladly do…

There’s a site on the interwebs called iLike, and on it you can do stuff involving music and interaction and stuff. It’s like MySpace meets your CD collection, only your CDs kick the snot out of myspace and leave it bleeding in the boys bathroom.

All that to say that we have no idea what iLike is, but if you’re interested click on through and see which Caedmon’s songs their users have deemed the best.

bryan

Here’s the skinny:

1. Guild Rooms will be open after the show for 20 minutes in a room to be decided.
2. The location of the room will be announced before the show.
3. Bring your Guild card to come hang out.