Review by Doug Carroll
Photos by Darryl Webb
GCU News Bureau
Listen closely to the Canadian band Thousand Foot Krutch, and you can hear bits of metal, rap, rock and pop, sometimes all in the same song.
Of course, listening closely isn’t so easy when TFK — as the band’s fans know them — is coming at you with all the subtlety of a freight train, as was the case Saturday night in the first concert of the new Thunderground series on campus.
Thunder Alley survived the sonic assault, thankfully, and it’s hard to imagine a more successful opener for the series, which will bring an additional five shows to campus in the first semester.
With songs featuring fist-in-the-air choruses and hyperkinetic front man Trevor McNevan pumping up the crowd as the best showmen do, Thousand Foot Krutch is as good as it gets for the college hard-rock set. The band’s connection to GCU, begun last year when McNevan wrote the anthem “Feel the Place Go Boom” for the Antelope basketball teams’ games in the Arena, should only deepen as a result of this hard-charging, 70-minute weekend performance.
“Are we gonna do this or what?!” the 34-year-old McNevan challenged the enthusiastic audience early on. “Let’s let the sweat fly!”
The Toronto-based band, which was formed in 1995, ripped through a decent amount of older material (“Rawkfist,” “Already Home,” “Bring Me to Life,” “Fire It Up”). But it devoted much of its set to songs from its sixth and most recent album, “The End Is Where We Begin,” which it released independently in April to favorable reviews.
More than half a dozen selections from the new album made the set list, including “We Are,” “War of Change,” “Let the Sparks Fly,” “Light Up the Sky” and the beautiful “Be Somebody,” a poignant ballad that seems destined to appeal to more than TFK’s Christian fan base. McNevan is a prolific, gifted songwriter, with plenty to say, and he’s the reason the mash of genres works so well for the band.
As a venue, Thunderground was a pleasant surprise. The stage was set along the lower level’s east wall, and there was plenty of room to accommodate the 300 students who made it in. The sound quality will be better for other acts than it was for TFK, although the finer points of acoustics aren’t too big of a deal with a roaring hard-rock act such as this one.
Kudos to Scott Fehrenbacher, Bret Ceren and Clint Van Wuffen of the faith-based development team for their role in bringing top-tier Christian music to campus. We’re looking forward to more of it.
Contact Doug Carroll at 639.8011 or [email protected].
