Concert Reviews

Venue: Northwestern College, St. Paul, Minnesota USA
Source: cMusicWeb
Author: Dan Ficker
Date: 02 Mar 2002

Despite poor venue quality, Delirious? delivered an amazing show full of soaring guitars, flashing lights, and beautiful images. Of course, being in the third row always helps the experienced concert-goer to like it even more. Thankfully, Delirious? did not back down from their mission to rock when they are invited to Northwestern College.

The early blips of 'Sanctify' told people that the real show was gearing up. This quickly faded into a slight variation of the 'Game Over?' track used on their d:tour 1997 release. Revealed at this time was the fulfillment of the plea of hardcore fans for years: the video screen! Although most of the video footage was recycled from their 1997 UK tour, flickering random images was just the start. Jumping right into their title track, 'Deeper', they ripped through that and went straight into 'History Maker'. Although it was weird to get this track at the front of the show, Martin talked a bit about God and revival and sang a bit of 'Revival Town' in there. 'Did You Feel The Mountains Tremble?' came up next, with their usual 'Dance In The River' bit finishing it off and a bit of the 'Glory, Glory' from Mezzamorphis's 'Blindfold'.

Showing off the video screen, the band played 'Everything' along with the stellar music video. They continued, plowing through 'Hang On To You' and 'My Glorious', both rockin' non-stop while pointing all the glory to God. Martin and Tim let the rest of the boys take a break while Tim provided a keyboard background and Martin shared about his family, the tour, and what God was doing. He also spent a little while talking publicly to somebody in the front row, who he seemed to have a word from God about. Giving the guys a bit more time to refresh themselves, Tim and Martin did it solo on 'Thank You For Saving Me', a classic Cutting Edge track.

Bringing us the video again, 'Sanctify' featured the live music video of d: at Wembley Stadium, and Martin incessantly tried to get us to KEEP waving our hands back and forth - this far into a concert, that is tiring! Getting the crowd back into the jumping mode were the futuristic squeal of 'Bliss' and the crunchy guitars of 'God's Romance'. Closing off the rock was the fantastic Stu G. solos of 'I'm Not Ashamed'.

Slowing down the show for only seconds was the thumping bass of 'Obsession', which featured a digital oscilloscope (ya know, those sound wave gadgets) that was well put together, but refreshed erratically as part of visuals man Andy Hutch's great ideas. Delirious? finished off with their recent Top 40 hit, the re-recorded rock version of 'I Could Sing of Your Love Forever'. After venturing into the crowd and singing the last few bars, everyone cleared the stage, while the video screen was sporting a waving American flag.

After the usual minute of loud cheering just to make sure the crowd actually liked the show, Delirious? came back for a 4-song encore set. But, to give them a bit more time, a video of them performing an acoustic version of 'Revival Town' came on, with Stu G, Tim, and Jon providing some hilarious antics in the background of Martin and Stew spinning around on a merry-go-round at a playground. They then jumped on-stage for the full-blown rock version, then deciding to play a 'new' song, which turned out to be 'Fire' from Audio Lessonover? And their updated punk rock version of 'The Happy Song'. 'Investigate' brought this worshipful night to a close, asking us to 'fly away' on eagle's wings.

Overall, this concert was amazing. While it is definitely the best live production seen by Delirious? yet in the States, it was still lacking a bit. The emphasis of the worship background makes many scared of the lack of hype for this summer's US release of Audio Lessonover?, which can only be dubbed 'the future of delirious?'. But, I hope you can catch this tour.

Dan Ficker is the Webmaster at cMusicWeb.com.
Many thanks to Dan for the use of his review.