15 January 2009

Fiction Family

I went to see Fiction Family at the Ladies Literary Club on Wednesday. The band was created by Jon Foreman from Switchfoot and Sean Watkins of Nickel Creek. They are a very new band and this was their second concert ever, so almost no one had ever heard any of their music before. I wouldn't say that their music was explicitly Christian but the themes were good and their belief in Christ showed through their work. They each did solo stuff during the concert as well as playing together. There was another band that opened for Fiction Family but I don't remember their name.

Many of their songs spoke of girls, sadness and suffering. The songs were all new and I don’t remember the lyrics to many of them, but those things were the ideas I picked up from their music. There music did seem to be crying out for the kingdom and I think that the more I listen to them in the future the more I will see how they did that specifically. I think they wanted to portray that there is pain in life and in relationships but there is hope that we should hold on to.

I also stayed for the conversation with the artists after the show. One of the things that they said was that making music and connecting with the audience are intertwined. They said that when the lyrics connect with people in the audience then they were successful. I think that they tried to show redemption through their songs. They never tried to fake it, meaning that they honestly meant the words that they were saying. They are making money but they said that they started this project because it felt like they had a lot of chemistry together in making music. I liked that they didn’t shy away from tough issues in their songs and confronted the evil in the world. I felt like they criticized the worldly way of life that some people buy into and tried to show that it doesn’t lead anywhere.