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News Latest News The Four Minute Concert
News Latest News The Four Minute Concert
| The Four Minute Concert |
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| Written by Russ Speiser | |||||
| Tuesday, 17 June 2008 12:05 | |||||
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A challenging concert finally comes together only to be rained out. To really understand the confused mix of feelings I felt driving back home from Strasbourg in the evening of May 31, 2008, I need to start about three years ago. That was when the project "HopeNow" was launched with the goal of promoting evangelistic efforts in Strasbourg and surroundings through partnerships with international groups. PROCLAIM! International was one of those founding groups and has participated with all the planning meetings, the last of which was in March . We struggled with how to best serve the churches, and at one of the meetings, Daniel Rivaud, the organiser for the annual March for Jesus in the city of Strasbourg, said he was willing to have the March for Jesus be advertised as one of the HopeNow activities. The March for Jesus has been seen as more of a worship event, but the high publicity value of having hundreds of people waving flags and singing while marching through the European Parliment capital is also a way of generating interest and conversations, both of which are necessary parts of evangelism.I immediately suggested that PROCLAIM could help provide a music group to do a concert at the end of the parade that would be more evangelistic in nature, to help to really capitalize on the interest generated, show some international partnership, and fully reflect the goals of the HopeNow movement. I didn't hear anything from Daniel until he called a few weeks later. I had found out in the meantime that there was another outreach music tour happening at the same time with the Proclaim sound system and personnel, so I was thinking we probably couldn't participate, but Daniel said he had already counted us in and put it in the publicity and was reserving a spot in the middle of town for the concert. Obviously this man has a talent for organising. I immediately started contacting musicians, and lined up a second singer to share half the songs with me, bass player,  keyboard and drummer. I started trying to find some way of getting a sound system, and eventually Janz Team, another mission that Proclaim works with closely, lent us their sound technician and sound system, so I was able to phone Daniel back and tell him it was a Go.It was at that time that the problems started; about two weeks later the first bass player and keyboard player said they  couldn't play because they had a concert the same night that was supposed to be cancelled but was now going to happen. I contacted a Swiss friend of mine, Matthias, who pays great electric guitar and played on the worship albums I've done, but he had a big birthday party celebration planned that day and plus living 600kms away from us, he wasn't too keen on coming all the way to Paris to practise only to drive all the way back to Strasbourg the next day.Time was running out, and we were now down to just myself, the French female singer and the drummer. I started contacting people I knew trying to put something good together as it isn't every day that you have the opportunity to do an evangelistic concert in the middle of a major city in France, and we had already given our word to Daniel. I finally found a bass player who came highly recommended from another musician friend, and Todd Smalley, a full-time musician with PROCLAIM, agreed to play keyboards. Matthias graciously but reluctantly agreed to play electric guitar "if I couldn't find anyone else", so it looked like we were back on again. I prepared all the songs, timed everything (Daniel had said we only had a one-hour window from 5:00pm to 6:00pm for the concert), prepared lead sheets and mp3s and travel arrangements and sent all this information out to everyone about two weeks before the weekend. The plan was to have everyone (except Matthias) practise in our basement Friday night, and then drive the 500kms to Strasbourg the next morning, do the concert, and then drive back. The Janz Team gear and tech would meet us at the concert site. Then ten days before the concert, the bass player wrote and said he couldn't participate "for family reasons", and the french female singer wrote and said she couldn't participate because there was something important on at the church that same weekend.  Without a bass player and with a bunch of the material specifically chosen for a female vocalist, I was in trouble again and after agonizing for about two days I finally concluded we couldn't do the concert with the quality I felt we needed and wrote Daniel that we were going to have to cancel our participation and that he might try and find a last minute replacement, because we already had the sound system lined up.Then another musician friend of mine responded to one of my frantic emails saying he would be glad to come and help with the vocals, and Matthias said he had a friend that was a really good bass player that was willing to do the concert, but could only show up with him about two hours before we were going to play. My roller coaster planning cycle went back on the upswing as I sent another email to Daniel saying that it seems God provided a solution and we were prepared to do the concert again. He actually was out of town for the three days in which this took place and received both emails in his inbox at the same time. I redid some of the songs, rethought the one hour presentation, and sent out new information. Three days before the concert, my singer friend emailed back to say he had spoken too soon, couldn't get time off work, and couldn't come, but by this time it didn't phase me as I knew we couldn't back out this late. Marjorie graciously volunteered to step in for singing harmonies, playing flute and a second keyboard, so at least there was a second singer that would be there. She originally was planning to video the event. We practised Friday night, packed up the gear in the van, and left the next morning. On the drive in, it rained several times, and we started wondering if the weather would hold for the outdoor concert so we prayed about it several times during the trip. Arriving at the location, the sun was shining, the sound gear was already almost set up, and as we started putting everything together and doing sound checks, Matthias and Robert, his bass playing friend, showed up. As we finished our sound checks, Daniel came by to say Hello and to tell us that the March for Jesus parade would be coming by, and that they had about 800 people who would be arriving at the concert site at 5:10pm just a few minutes behind schedule, but that we could continue playing past 6:00pm if we wished; he had permission from the city to go as late as 7:30pm. At about 5:05 people started arriving, and at 5:10 Daniel welcomed everyone, introduced us as the "Proclaim band" and  thanked us for coming all the way from Paris and around the world, and said if by chance it started raining, that people should first come forward to help get the equipment safely away before seeking shelter themselves.We opened with a French translation of "You are Amazing", a Chris Tomlin song. Even though this was the first time we had played together, everyone played well, and I was relieved that after all the challenges and problems finding people, that we were finally there with a full band that sounded good, and able to share about Christ in the middle of Strasbourg. As I sang, on the horizon a big black cloud was heading our way, and I was thinking we might not get too far. As I reached the last line of the song; "Tu es surprenant, Seigneur" (translates as "You are surprisingly impressive, Lord"), there were a few drops of rain that came down and I thought to myself, well, we'll finish this and then decide whether we should wait a bit or continue. As I was thinking this, the sky opened, and the big black cloud dumped its entire contents on us like someone was pouring a giant bucket of water. We learned later that this was part of one of the worst storms the region had had, causing flooding, closing highways and train stations and closing down our concert in a very definitive way. People ran for cover, we grabbed our instruments and gear and threw them in the vehicles and then sat in them, marvelling at the rivers of water flowing where we just were standing. After about 40 minutes it slowed down enough and the water receded enough that we could start getting out and sifting through everything, redistributing and repacking. At about 19h30 we were back on the road heading home, trying to make sense of what had happened.  So much effort, so much time, to have it all end after about four minutes.On the other hand, as we picked it apart we found many good things; we persevered and were able to put together something good in spite of many cancellations; this was the first public partnership between Proclaim and the Strasbourg HopeNow project and we worked well together; we encouraged the churches by coming all that way and doing all that work to be a part of their event; the drummer that participated is a strong believer who is now interested in being a part of Proclaim; and the people that were there from all these different churches got a (very short) taste of what we do which was good publicity for doing future events. It wasn't until we were almost home that I suddenly laughed aloud thinking about the irony of the last phrase I sang at the concert; indeed, Lord, You are surprisingly impressive, making the sun to shine, the clouds to pour down rain (!!!), giving us hope even when things don't go as planned, and helping us to live above the circumstances of the moment. Thanks for your prayers and support that make this work possible. Russ
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