NQC 2010: Thursday Night

I arrived late to NQC last night, so I missed quite a few sets. Also I had an interview with Gus Gaches of Legacy Five which took about an hour. So I did not make it into Freedom Hall until the end of Jason Crabb’s set. I will post my thoughts below on some of the sets that I was able to catch.

• Jason Crabb did pretty well in his first main-stage appearance as a soloist. The crowd really seemed to love him and he knows how to really work a crowd that is for sure. He closed with “Through The Fire” which of course was good and of course got a big response. I could definitely see Jason making a return appearance to the main-stage again next year.
• The Booth Brothers who followed Jason started their set with “Absolute Peace” which was a perfect song to follow Jason Crabbs big hit. “All Over The World” was very well received by the crowd, that was one that could have received a not so great crowd response due to the unique style of the song, but my worries were gone when the crowd soaked it up and gave them a great ovation for it. They closed with “When I Met The Master” which I am loving more every time I hear it sung live… That is one the best songs ever written and while it has been performed by many groups I don’t think any groups version touches the Booth Brothers version… The crowd gave one of the biggest responses of the week to this particular song.
• Brian Free and Assurance turned in a very nice set, they once again featured the full band, it was Adam Borden on Bass, Matthew Holt on the piano and of course Ricky Free on drums, as I said about this on Monday I would love to see them continue this. BFA covered a couple of new tunes in their set that went over very well, one was called “The Part Where You Come In” that is a great song featuring Bill Shivers. The other song may be my new favorite BFA song, it is called “Never Walk Alone” featuring Brian Free, with just Bill Shivers backing him up towards the end, those two have some very nice harmony together. The song itself is a slow reflective song that just has some very beautiful lyrics that really touched me. I was glad to see BFA end their set with something other than “Long As I Got King Jesus” while I have nothing against that song, it was just a nice change of pace for BFA.
• Greater Vision had a strong set that featured quite the variety of songs. The highlight for me was their version of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” they had Lari Goss do an orchestration on that song and it went over very well… It featured some nice high notes for Chris Allman, he sounded great tonight, he has tone all day I just can’t get over how good he is… Gus Gaches told me that they are just scratching the surface with what Chris is capable of!
• The Mark Trammel Quartet had a nice set for their first one at the National Quartet convention as a quartet… The highlight of their set was the song “It’s Almost Over”, Mark Trammel is probably the only singer in the business that could take a Glen Payne hit and make it his very own, and he does that here. The song went over very well and received one of the bigger responses of the week.
• The Perry’s had a very similar set to what they did on Monday night. Except for one song it was the same set… “If You Knew Him” once again evoked a huge crowd response… Joseph Habedank just seems to get better every time I hear him sing, he has great tone placement and he has gotten better at painting the picture of a song… The Perry’s are always consistent and you have to respect that about them.

I left after the Perry’s set so I could take care of some things at home before being gone all day tommorow and Saturday. I did have someone feeding me live updates on the home via text messages… They said that the Kings Heralds turned in a very nice performance and that the Greene’s were impressive as well…

Today I will be covering the Gaither Sing Along, and of course the evening sets.