Leeland, Brandon Heath, and special guest Francesca Battistelli at Remingtons, in Springfield MO, on October 31, 2009.
To get the concert rolling, everybody came out at once and did a couple songs, though I’m not sure what they were. Also, because this concert happened on Halloween, the bands decided to dress up as The Goonies. Leeland Mooring as Mouth, Brandon Heath as Brand, Franny as Andy, keyboardist as Mama Fratelli, Leeland bassist and drummer respectively, Sloth and Chunk, Jack Mooring as Mikey, and Brandon and Franny’s guitarist as Data.
Francesca Battistelli came next, starting with I’m Letting Go. Her set was pretty short, only playing her radio singles, It’s Your Life, Free to Be Me, along with Beautiful Beautiful and Blue Sky. The performance wasn’t much, but her vocals still excelled through a sickness.
Leeland followed up with the opener from their newest album, Love is On The Move. The Door is one of the stronger tracks from the sub-par album. I was surprised by the amount of crowd participation, but of course, I was helping quite a bit (ha ha). Count Me In, a great song to get the crowd going, followed by Lift Your Eyes Up, not to be confused with a song from their debut, Lift Your Eyes. This song set up the worshipful Via Dolorosa. Following is oddly the only selection from their debut album for this set, Yes You Have, Leeland taught the crowd the chorus of the next song, New Creation, before playing it. This is personally my favorite song from the set, but I was surprised when the set ended right there.
When Brandon Heath came out onto stage, the only other stage change was a new keyboardist, so they give you the feeling that they’re all a team. I’m not exactly sure what song he opened up with, but followed up with Sunrise. I don’t know what the next song was either, but Wait and See, one of my favorites, came next. After talking a little, he played Red Sky, a song about a homeless family that lived on his street. As an intro to Give Me Your Eyes, he did a cover of the beginning of In the Air Tonight. It got the crowd going pretty good, and Leeland came out again to perform Follow You, with Brandon Heath’s help. When the song was over, they played a video of their recent trip to Cambodia, where they met the kids that they were sponsoring through Food For the Hungry, the main sponsor. A 15 minute intermission followed.
Leeland came back out, and went right into Tears of the Saints. A fantastic performance of Pure Bride followed. Next, they played the hymn Blessed Assurance. I was shocked to find that was the end of their set, after only playing 10 songs total. Everybody came out once again and did the same beginning song, which I absolutely LOVE.
Brandon Heath took over the stage once again, and opened up with a song I think is called Where Were You, but I’m not sure. I’m Not Who I Was came next, one of my personal favorites, followed up by Love Never Fails. He paused to talk about Christmas time, and about his original Christmas song, Send Me. It’s about what Jesus must’ve been saying to God before he was sent to earth. He brought out Francesca again to help him, and then left for her to perform her original Christmas song, Time In Between.
Overall, it was a pretty good concert. I can’t wait to see what these young artists will be in the future, but I’ll predict that Leeland will be the most successfull. Check out pictures from that night here.
