10
Daily Nebraskan
Monday, February 28, 1983
entertainment
rock
t'OlI
By Chris Burbach and Chris Wclsch
Instead of the usual pre-concert cloud
of ganja smoke, bubble-gum baited breath
tilled the Centennial Room of the
Nebraska Union Friday night. The crowd
anticipated righteous rock'n'roll and
indeed they got it. Oregon-based Servant
played upright Christian tunes to a full
house .
Servant led off with several high-energy
songs. "I'm Gonna Live" set the pace for
the first half-hour of the show. The band
played tightly and aggressively, letting the
Music Review
crowd,know that Christians can rock with
the best. Strobe lights and exploding
smoke bombs accompanied the churning
guitars and lively stage antics of the group.
The songs carried religious messages
in spite of the hellacious beat. "Two
Masters" decried the evils of believing
in both Christ and materialism.
"New Revolution" was Servant's reli
gious aerobic song. Vocalist Sandie Brock
told the crowd it was time to get "fit
J or the king."
"Let's see you become firm believers"
tonight," she said. The entire crowd, save
two (who?), rose and danced on Brock's
command.
Lead guitarist Bruce Wright highlighted
the show by ripping through "Holy Roller
Blues" with a vengeful solo that would put
t.ric Clapton to shame. Like Moses parting
the -Red Sea with his staff, Wright and his
c guitar rent the background music asunder.
The band displayed its musical prowess
in a real rocker .called "Why Should the
Devil Have all the Good Music?", probably
the best group performance of the night.
The rhythm section - two guitars, a bass
and drums - provided driving background
to hearty vocals by each member of the
band.
The band's stage antics, while energetic
and sometimes acrobatic, lacked spon
taneity and seemed forced.
Brock took over the final portion of the
show with a grating rendition of "Come
Jesus." Although loud, her voice reverber
ated on the reviewers' eardrums like a belt
sander gone awry. She followed that song
with a twenty-minute scrmonette which
ended in a sort of emotional rapture for
the entire crowd, save two (who?).
The warm-up groups for Servant turned
in contrasting sets.
Lloyd Thogmartin involved the crowd
extensively in his short performance,
in "My Yahweh," Thogmartin's voice was
well-suited for his material, bluesy, and
gritty. When he attempted a shift to
ballads he lost the crowd - his voice just
.didn't jibe.
Will McFarlane, impressive at first, soon
became very boring. McFarlane, formerly a
guitarist for Bonnie Raitt, had a good
Allman Brothers-style of guitar playing.
However, his material was too laden with
religious pap to ever get off the stage.
One bright spot in McFarlane's meager
set was sax -man Ronnie Fades. Fades has
played as a session man with Aretha
Franklin, Flton Jehn and Bob Dylan.
His excellent sax solos dominated the
group's set. Fades played baritone sax on
most of the songs, and turned in wailing
solos on alto and tenor horns. The
combination of McFarlane's incessant
preaching, and scoffing at non-believers
with jfnost churchy lyrics made his set
sound like a Christian radio broadcast.
Owen Brock, rhythm guitarist with
Servant, said "Ultimately Christianity is
supposed to be a way of life and not a
religion." He said it was difficult to
r- " '
-;
fit)
-V
7 r
s ",
c:
ft J
Mekanik Destruktiw Komandoh
West (German amiti-fascists
play hopefyl hardcore rode
By Billy Shaffer
Fans of new music were treated to a
nice slice of rock-cum-politics this weekend
at the Drumstick.
Mekanik Destruktiw Komandoh, a West
German band touring the states currently,
turned in a couple of performances not to
be forgotten soon by those in attendance.
Get ready, music fans. Here comes a
short history of Bed hi.
The Kreuzeberg area of the divided city
is a section of low-income housing, simi
lar to what the United States calls a ghetto.
In 1979, the founding members of MDK
started an anti-fascist street theater
centered in Kreuzeberg. The area has
become a spawning ground for new music
and artists.
The group's early idealisticsocialistic-anti-nihilistic
goals are evident throughout
their lyrics, which are evidently lost on
the majority of American listeners. The
group the Police's theory of "one world,
not three" permeates the MDK. The "rock
star" has no place in the socialistic society.
The MDK's current U.S. tour,
surprisingly enough, is being financed by
the West German government.
Continued on Page 1 1
V
I
y 4
I IT",
X-4
Stalt photo by Joel bartore
Members of the Christian rock group Servant, from left to right, are Owen Brock,
Rob Martens, Sandie Brock, Bob Hardy, drummer David Holmes, Bruce Wright and
Matt Spransy. Hie group performed Friday night in the Nebraska Union Centennial
Room.
separate his band's show from its message,
although the show can stand on its own.
Brock said the band's purpose is three
fold. Servant tries to present the Gospel
to non-believers in a way they can relate
to it, they want to provide Christians with
an entertainment alternative to secular
sex. drugs and rock'n'roll and they want to
challenge Christians to live a more
committed life to each other and God.
"People's Jives are changed by what
they see on stage ."Brock said. He said that
Servant's audience is mostly Christians,
but, depending on promotion, the crowd
may be .up to 40 percent non-believers.
For this show, (lie non-believers were few
(who?). '
Servant is billed as "The Largest
Christian Rock -Gospel Show in America."
According to Contemporary Christian
Music magazine, Servant's 1983 three
month tour is one of the largest ever by a
Christian group.
Overall, the three groups provided
sound entertainment, aside from the
church-like atmosphere during Sandie
Brock's sermon and her plea for recruits
into the small Oregon CJirisstian
community of the Highway Missionary
Society.
MtVAtVE-3 postponed,
pending release
captives
By Pat Clark
Last week: Nielsen, Spinoff and a
television network executive named Brews
ter were taken captive by Dr. Donahue.
Donahue, a member, and possibly the
only member, of the dreaded February
28 Organization, wants Congress to pass
legislation mandating that every American
watch the last episode of "MASH"
and believes that keeping our troika of
video magnates hostage at Saint Dinista
Hopsital and -Video Game Arcade will
somehow help his cause. It is a vapor-
Television
thin line of reasoning, to be sure, but as
veterans of years upon years of television
viewing, both Donahue and his captives
put considerable stock in vapor-thin
lines of reasoning.
This week: Dr. Donahue has spared no
expense during the past week to convert
Saint Dinista into a facsimile of the
4077th, without the minefield. Where a
heart-lung machine once stood, a do-it-yourself
still brews gin, the yummy poi
son preferred by the medical Marx
Brothers on the show. Khaki has replaced
the standard white of the walls, clothes,
towels and bedding. As for our heroes!
Nielsen, Spinoff and Brewster find them
selves living in a hastily erected and easily
collapsed tent, in one room of a five
story concrete and steel hospital building.
Nielsen found it difficult to complain
about the treatment he had been given
the hospital food was close enough to'
the cardboard texture and taste of his
i beloved TV dinners that he rapidly ad
justed. Besides, he got to watch tele
vision all the time. With the 24-hour
cable stations available in the hospital,
Nielsen often had to be coaxed into going
to sleep. "Don't think of it as missing a
TV show, think of it as being refreshed
for the next one," Spinoff would say to
him calmly, reminding him that everyone's
eyes got tired eventually, even his.
Nielsen would have none of it. "I'm
out of shape," he would say, on the verge
of a tantrum. "You should have seen me
when 'Roots' came around the first time.
1 stayed up and watched the whole week,
even between episodes."
For his part, Brewster was making the
most of the situation. "1 worried about
being taken captive at first - I didn't
want one of those Gen. Dozier rescues
or anything," he confided to Nielsen one
afternoon. "But let's face it. I've got
everything to gain from having everybody
in the United States watch the last episode
of MASH Let's not forget that the
president of a certain major television net
work on which this show will air also
signs my substantial paychecks. So if this
Dr. Donahue should somehow get the
legislation passed that he wants - and I'm
not saying he will - I'll have to make some
noncommital public statement about it,
sure, but in my heart of hearts there will
be a five-piece band playing 'Happy Days
Are Here Again'."
"MASH" mania was getting quite a
bit of media attention and beside every
story was a little sidebar about the Nielsen
captivity with a rhetorical question
headline like, "Nielsen: Could Korea Be His
Waterloo?" While news accounts never said
what Donahue was doing, he was doing it
right, as five different Congressmen had
drafted bills that would make "MASH"
mandatory viewing and finance reusability
studies for possible sequels. ?
v Continued on Pace
