CD review: Thousand Foot Krutch – LIVE

“Live at The Mas­quer­ade,” Thou­sand Foot Krutch, Tooth and Nail Records, Release date: June 7, 2011

For its first live CD-DVD, Cana­di­an band Thou­sand Foot Krutch picked Edmon­ton’s Rex­all Place for the venue. Lead singer Trevor McNevan, a sports fan, notes on the CD sleeve “Live at The Mas­quer­ade” that Rex­all Place is home to the NHL’s Oil­ers and Wayne Gret­zky‘s major accom­plish­ments. It was a place that rocked with four Stan­ley Cup win­ners and now comes to life with TFK as an excel­lent venue for a con­cert.

I’m not a fan of live CDs, but this CD offers crisp music that lacks the dis­tor­tion that is often on live music CDs. McNevan’s high ener­gy also comes through loud and clear. It’s a fist-pump­ing, wan­na-scream-and-dance evok­ing expe­ri­ence. (I was head-bang­ing at my desk while edit­ing sports copy, prob­a­bly not a good look.)

The live show fea­tures all the favorites – “Fire It Up,” “Bring Me to Life,” “E for Extinc­tion,” and the title track – from “Wel­come to the Mas­quer­ade,” one of the best hard-rock Chris­t­ian CDs that has come across my desk in the few years that I have been doing this blog. Going old school, McNevan turns to “Rawk­fist,” and “Pup­pet.”

As for not being a fan of live CDs, this one just made me a con­vert.

The DVD por­tion of the con­cert gives the view­er a true sense of McNevan and the band’s ener­gy — it’s non­stop. But I would have liked to have seen more back­stage or behind the scenes video of the band such as:
What the band does to tune­up before a show?
Where do the eat?
Do they take naps like hock­ey play­ers before a big game?
I’d like to see them putting on their make­up.
Stuff like that would put the view­er behind the scenes.

One of my col­leagues is just get­ting into Chris­t­ian rock, so I’m going to pass this along to him and I’ll let you know what he thinks of this live CD.