Delirious? Say Farewell
Last modified: 05 Mar 2010
Artist: Delirious?
Title: Farewell Show
Release: 19th April 2010
Format: 2CD / DVD & Blu-ray
Style: Worship
Distribution: World
Label: Survivor Records
Where do you start when the ending is like this? How do you begin to do justice to a seventeen year voyage of discovery that has invited all of us along? What do you say when this Dove-award winning, Grammy nominated, RIAA Certified-Gold-selling band have already had so much written about them?
For the five thousand fans who squeezed into London’s HMV Hammersmith Apollo at the end of November 2009, this one night was the last ever chance to experience Delirious? live and in concert. With expectations high, one thing above all else was clear: this was a time for worship.
Worship has always been at the heart of what goes on when Delirious? get up on stage. Sunday 29th November was no different. Running throughout each of these three releases (one with two CDs, another that adds a beautifully shot, full-length DVD of the show into mix, and the third that offers all the above in breathtaking Blu-ray) – is a sense that the crowd (and the band) is there to do something more than belt out a few tunes and soak up the atmosphere. They are there – all of them – to connect with someone far bigger than any of them.
And so the night became the ultimate Delirious? gig. It started – just as the band themselves began – with the Cutting Edge Band. On came Tim, Stu G, Martin, Paul and Jon, dressed down but ready to lift the abandonment up high. All those songs that they taught us in school halls and leisure centers were there: I Could Sing Of Your Love Forever, Thank You For Saving Me, Did You Feel The Mountains Tremble?, and – by popular demand – The Happy Song. It was like old times again; the band on stage simply adding a little extra noise and rhythm as the crowd surged upward with their worship.
Then, after the interval, the evening changed. Out came Delirious? – with all their lights and their suits and their ability to plug the crowd right into the mains. The screens fired up, the epic anthems unloaded and the whole venue found itself whipped up into a Rain Down/Historymaking/Town-painting/Deeper-Going/Majesty-singing frenzy. And when it came time for the intergalactic glory of Investigate, one drummer was simply not enough, and out came Stew Smith, joining Evans for an 8-minute adventure that will last a lifetime.
The evening was larger than any press release can capture, yet across the double CD, the DVD and the Blu-ray, there’s every bit of the sense of passion and excitement that this celebration of Delirious? evoked. And its heart beats with the same force that has been in play whenever the band has stepped up to the microphone. It sends us up and it sends us out, giving the historymakers something to go and get excited about.
"Fabula est vestri" said Martin Smith on the night. "The story is yours." He's right. After nearly two decades of giving the church fresh words and tunes to sing, the time is now right for Delirious? to step back and allow the next generation of stories to come through. It's time, like the song says, to raise the flag again.