Stryper: Live at Lincoln Theatre 10/11/2014

Since I was a teenager in the mid-70s and early 80s, hard rock/heavy metal music has been a big part of the my musical history. I blasted Black Sabbath’s “We Sold Our Soul for Rock N’ Roll” on my eight track track tape player in the basement of my Wisconsin home at age 12. I also played air guitar to all my favorite KISS Alive I songs with all the sheer aggression and energy that I could muster.

Some critics called the members of Black Sabbath Satan worshipers and said KISS stood for “Knights in Satan Service.” The critics were known to even paint this music genre with a broader brush saying that it was all Satanic and was leading to the degradation of our youth. This motivated me to dig deeper in this type of music in part to understand whether or not there was a real basis for this analysis as well as it was so much fun. I further investigated these two bands and other bands like Iron Maiden, Dio, Rush, Led Zeppelin, Ozzy, Queensryche, and Judas Priest.

This music was aggressive and sometimes dark and mysterious but was it destroying my friends and me in our youth? I think it is human nature to not trust and potential criticize things that you do not take to the time to fully understand. Did these critics take the time to fully understand what they feared and criticized?

When I started college at UNC- Chapel Hill in 1983 I saw flyers around campus for a Maranatha Ministries rock n’ roll seminar. Members of the Maranatha Ministries could be found in the UNC-Chapel Hill pit preaching their version of Christianity on a daily basis. The seminar advertised that it would prove once and for all that this music was Satanic by scientifically analyzing song lyrics and backward masking messages in the recordings. Ok , now I would have my answers at least I thought so at the time. I decided to attend the session.

Music like many art forms is opened for interpretation. The Pastor had his own interpretation of the meaning of the various songs that he presented. In many cases, he selectively quoted lyrics out of the context of the song. Also he seem to have a bias view of the meanings of lyrics to meet his goal of painting the music as all bad.

For example, in the Led Zeppelin song “Stairway to Heaven” he analyzed the following lyrics:
“Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run
There’s still time to change the road you’re on. “

He argued that the two paths mentioned here were heaven/God and hell/Devil. He stressed that these lyrics advocated that it was OK to head down the path of the devil and procrastinate changing to God. According to him, this was not a good message because it promotes that it is acceptable to sin and not worry about changing. I argued that the lyrics were a positive message where it is never too late to change the road your on and you can still find a path to God. I believe being human by definition means that we are not perfect. There is only one perfect being that is God. Our imperfections allow for us to have these different interpretations.

When analyzing the “backward masking” messages, he passed out a piece paper with what he believed the messages said before he played each song backward. This was not a scientific approach because it pre-disposed the audience to listen for these messages in the barely recognizable audio play back. Again, the attempt was to push his particular interpretation of the meaning and dangerousness of the music.

A few years later, I first heard of the Christian hard rock band Stryper and I bought the “Soldiers Under Command” album. This band was one of the first that I remember that used the hard rock/metal as the tool to spread the word of God. It was refreshing to see the band focused their message on a subject that many of the critics used as a reason for not listening to this vain of music. Some people criticized Stryper for using religion as a gimmick to increase their popularity and record sales.

Fast forward many years to this past Saturday night, I logged on to etix.com and bought tickets to the Stryper show at the Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh. This was the first time that I had seen them live. They are every bit of the real deal that “That Metal Show” Eddie Trunk has touted on his show and my friends had said to me in the past. It was one of the best rock shows that I have seen in a long time! These guys are authentic in their message and show! For those that have not seen them, make sure that you overcome any potentially negative preconceived notions about the band and head to their show. Hopefully, you will find them as uplifting and entertaining as I did.

Here are some of my favorite shots from the evening.