The Gig in Diamond Bar, Ca
The Crucified, first show since 1995, and a testimony of Faith from Sonny of P.O.D.
Free Show!!!!
Sonny, looking as stoked and amazed as I was, introduces with a “I can’t believe it….The Crucified!”. The band kicks off with the intro to “Hateworld”, Mark Salomon takes the stage, looks at the crowd and says, “You guy’s got old!” That may be the case for many in the crowd that evening, me included. I gotta tell ya, once the song kicked in full, I was 16 till the end of the night. I still get chills when Solomon, with that chilling desperate voice shouts, “This place is Evil, This Place is Evil!” The band still makes me want to pit, and that just doesn’t happen at my age, not that I’m old, just beat up. But this was the good ol’ no pit church show, I sort of get it, it’s still a drag. Ironically the second song was, “The Pit”….yeah. The band was solid and fast for the most part, Chaffin is still one of the most exciting punk drummers ever. Really good to see Greg Minier back in action. Jeff Bellew is a huge influence on Bass for me, The Crucified was my first show, I saw them and said to myself, “I want to do that!” They also challenged me as a growing Christian, with lyrics that I could relate to, that made you dig a little deeper. Highlights of the show for me were: “Power of God”, “Mindbender,” and “Your Image”. The band played for about thirty minutes, then Sonny came out and did a very heartfelt testimony. I was shocked how shy he was. A very humble and easy to relate to man. I can’t do his story justice, so if you have a chance to hear him speak, do it. He also stuck around and talked to a huge mob of fans after the show, signed autographs, and took photos. After the testimony, The Crucified came out and did 2 more songs. Sonny joined them on stage for “Crucial Moment,” chanting “United! United By Christ! United! United By Christ!” and we are, no matter Baptist, Catholic, Universal, Hip Hop, Gnostic, whatever it be, Christianity in a pure form has no Religion, Christ is what brings us together, getting hung up on different histories of the Christ or Jesus the man is pointless, it’s the message that is important. Another cool thing was that about 80% of the crowd had never seen The Crucified, so they won over a lot of new fans and that is what the Forefathers of the scene should get, it’s not what it’s about, but it is a justified love for real disciples of God that traveled the land, spread the word, spoke some truth, and changed the world, they at least changed mine.
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