Thanks to the year we lived in San Ramon, California, outside of San Francisco/Oakland, I got introduced to a lot of great music through a tremendous radio station, KFOG. One artist that really caught my attention was the Old 97’s. This was 1999, the year the band released, Fight Songs.
The Old 97’s are deep from the heart Texas, with full-country twang—except that is tempered by a lot of rock ‘n’ roll. This is Alt.Country at its finest. Sure, you could label them as country, but why would you? If you’re like me, calling it country music leaves you with the wrong impression when you trying to talk about a band that can jam, that rocks, that moves beyond the twang to incorporate distortion.
After moving to Manitowoc, Wisconsin, I got the chance to see the Old 97’s in concert at Shank Hall in Milwaukee. It was April 11, 2001. Yeah, it was Wednesday night of Holy Week. Sure that’s the busiest week in the church and as a pastor, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from seeing a great show.
Well, I ended up using the story of that night’s concert as a sermon. You can click over to my sermon site to read the story. Even if you’re not into sermons and all of that, you might get a kick out the story which is the first part of the story. This sermon may also help some who have asked how a pastor could be into some of this music, music that you wouldn’t guess a pastor listens to.
Click here for the rest of the story!
