I still remember the first time I heard them, when a missionary friend of mine in Europe pulled out a CD of a band he had just heard in a music store, with the package looking more like a can of chewing tobacco than anything else.
(Ooh, I thought, did I have a good scandal to share with the folks back home … chewing tobacco! Just kidding)
Instead of putting a pinch between cheek and gum, however, the aforementioned missionary friend put on a CD that soon sounded a little like U2, with a strong, very British-sounding singer over a commendable bed of guitars. When I got home, I bought it, and played it constantly for weeks to come.
And in the 12 years since, I’ve done nothing but get to like Delirious? more and more.
That original CD, of course, was “Live & In the Can,” and it was a nice precursor to other live offerings from this excellent, powerful, Spirit-filled and catchy English worship band.
But this month, after 16 years — first as The Cutting Edge Band and then as Delirious? — and 14 albums, the band is getting set to play its last show.
It will be Nov. 30 in London, a show that’s already sold out, and I’m sure the multi-platinum band will do its songs that are among the very best in any genre of music: the driving “Deeper” and “Rain Down,” the catchy “History Makers,” and the ballads “I Could Sing of Your Love Forever” and “Majesty (Here I Am).”
Martin Smith & Co. also produced, for my skekels, one of the best studio albums in the last decade and a half of Christian rock, “Mezzamorphis” from 1999.
And “Glo” (2000) and “World Service” (2003) ain’t too shabby, either.
They are closing out their collective career with a series of shows across Europe, with the last several in the UK, all sold out.
No surprise there, given how big the band has gotten across a general audience, playing for the Pope in front of a million people in Germany, and touring with Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams and Matchbox 20.
It’s been a great run for Delirious?, but just like with the Supertones and dc talk, all excellent things must sometimes step aside for the next phase of music.
I just hope someone out there can step into the now-wide-open void for excellent guitar-led Christian rock worship.
Because this band leaves the hugest of huge shoes to fill.
Thank you, Delirious?