Spencer, Iowa
October 26, 2007

Thousand Foot Krutch (TFK) opened the Portable Sounds concert with a bang! They had a little trouble with their sound equipment at first, but were able to push past that and really rock out. They really got the crowd going with the songs “The Flame in All of Us” and “New Drug,” but were also able to bring a bit of worship with “What Do We Know.” They had a good balance between rocking out and praising God. The lead singer, Trevor McNevan, seemed to have fun interacting with the crowd while doing some crazy dance moves.
Next was BarlowGirl’s turn at the mic. I’m a fan of BarlowGirl, but was a little disappointed with their set. Those girls are able to rock out, but they had trouble with the worship portion of their set. I know it’s important to have worship and rock songs, but they would repeatedly play one of their well-known rock songs, slow it down for a quiet worship song, then play another rock song. This didn’t go over with the crowd too well. But then Lauren Barlow, the drummer, got up front and gave a talk about the importance of being pure, faithful girls in a world that tells you to dress as provocatively as possible and I think the young girls in the crowd appreciated that message.

I’m not sure if BarlowGirl is a good opener for TobyMac. BarlowGirl seemed to attract a lot of young girls, all wanting to be at the front of the crowd, so when Toby came out they all got smashed when the crowd started to mosh. In my opinion, Barlow Girl should have been first, then TFK.

The headliner for this show started out with just Toby and Nirva (backup vocals) on stage in very low lighting and a black backdrop singing “Turn it up…turn it on…we can ride this storm…” from “Ignition” and when the song kicked into high gear, the black backdrop flew up into the sky, revealing the whole Diverse City Band and the Portable Sounds set up with the dj stand, turn tables, and the drummer. It was a really awesome way to open the concert because no one was expecting it. Toby sang the best songs from the Portable Sounds CD like "Boomin'," "Feeling So Fly," and "No Ordinary Love," as well as songs "The Slam" and "Catchafire/Whoopsi-Daisy" from the Welcome to Diverse City CD. Toby and The Diverse City Band had some awesome dance moves and really looked like they were having fun on stage.

Toby brought the crowd down a little by quoting from the Bible and telling all the single girls in the crowd to wait for a man who respects them and honors God in all he does, a message which was wrapped up nicely into the song “Gone.”

Toby’s encore consisted of a wonderful little talk about how if we gain the whole world, but lose our souls, we have gained nothing. He then (of course) sang “Lose My Soul,” “Made to Love,” and ended with a bang by bringing BarlowGirl guitarist, Rebecca Barlow, back on stage to rock out during “Jesus Freak.”