Marty Manous Tickets Alpharetta

Surprisingly Good Concert

But Marty Manous was playing nearby and I wanted to go with her. My musical/christian music tastes tend to run more in the classic rock/progressive rock direction(Kansas, The Who, Mark Heard, The 77's, DC Talk, etc.) And I was pleasantly surprised that they waited 4 songs before stopping to speak.

From the first notes, the evening was enjoyable. Marty Manous, as all bands do, was promoting their most recent album so most concert offerings were from that album. The songs they chose, and the backing videos they had created, were fun tunes. My wife wanted to see them. So here I was at Addition Arena wondering how long the night might seem.

When he did speak Bart Millard, the lead vocalist and frontman, was worth listening to(which, in my experience, has not usually been the case at CCM concerts.) He did a genuinely funny bit about the band's decision to include a disco song on the recent album. He even faked us out and made us think Gloria Gaynor was there in the arena to sing her vocal part on the song. Millard has genuinely good comic timing. Some CCM acts are infamous for talking more than they sing(nobody comes to hear these guys preach.)

Mark Stuart, the former lead singer for Audio Adrenaline, spoke between sets(there were 2 lead in acts) about his missionary work in Haiti, particularly in regard to helping needy children find adoptive parents. The second highest point of the evening wasn't even musical. A later monologue sequed into the acoustic set with a replica of the fire pit around which the band frequently gathers(complete with real fire.)

He shared that their best experience in this work involved a baby girl who had been "thrown away" by her 14 year old mom immediately after her birth. In Haiti if a child's parents cannot afford to support him or her the baby is either given away, sold(into slavery) or thrown away, sometimes in an outhouse toilet. This was the fate of the baby girl about which Mark spoke. Her 14 year old mom dropped her into a 30 foot deep outhouse toilet. And there she would have died had it not been for a 14 year old boy who saw what happened.

As if this all weren't dramatic enough what Mark said next really hit me, "The best part of this whole story is that I get to be this little girls father!" Yes, he and his wife had adopted that baby, who is now 15. She walked out on stage and spoke in behalf of the children that Mark is helping. They connected this all to Marty Manous's song "Say I Won't" which the band played during their set.

The high point of the evening was all about musical quality. The only song of Marty Manous's that I knew was "I Can Only Imagine", their big hit. But, after leading the audience in a verse of "It is Well With My Soul" the band played "Even If" from their "Lifer" album. It deals with the same theme as the hymn. Well, sometimes the way a writer expresses a thought just totally connects with you and the way Millard expressed his thoughts here really hit me.

So I found myself in a situation I thought I would never experience, crying at a Marty Manous concert. Surprising but not shocking I guess. I've cried singing "It is Well With My Soul", I've cried listening to Michael Card's "The Job Suite", and I cried here. It's a powerful theme and Millard does an excellent job with it.

I know what I like but I'm glad I'm not too old to be surprised. Not yet, anyway.