Risky show pays off for Amy Grant

The concept of Amy Grant’s new show is a risky one. Essentially, she is recreating her 1988 Lead Me On tour, down to regrouping the original band and sticking to the original arrangements. It also means skipping material that she has created in the past two decades, including such crowd-pleasing favorites as “Baby Baby” and “Takes a Little Time.”

“I don’t know if this is a hideous idea,” Grant confessed during the opening night of the tour at the Celebrity Theatre on Thursday. But if the point was to rekindle memories and to leave the crowd feeling energized and uplifted, she achieved all she set out to do.

Grant joked about the nostalgic nature of the evening. “I’m going to be 48 next month,” she announced. “What am I doing?” And while the show did proudly revel in the trappings of the era, with arena-rock guitars, booming drums and even some dreaded audience participation, it also felt remarkably vital.

Much of that was due to the power of Grant’s music. The best of her early material is timeless, including the stirring “El Shaddai” and “Sing Your Praise to the Lord,” a classic written by the late Rich Mullins. The songs from the Lead Me On album are often darker, but equally effective. The self-penned “Shadows” boldly addresses the subject of temptation, while Janis Ian’s “What About the Love” is stark and chilling in Grant’s hands. There’s a reason the disc was named the No. 1 Christian-music album of all time by industry publication CCM Magazine; the material is mostly wonderful.

The arrangements offered by her eight band members were pretty much unchanged from the original tour. “Shadows” boasted a hypnotic keyboard hook that lodges in your brain permanently. The reassuring gospel rocker “All Right” featured some screaming guitar work from Jerry McPherson and Chris Rodriguez; the latter looks like he hasn’t aged a day in 20 years. Keyboardist Chris Eaton, a solo performer in his own right, got a moment in the spotlight with a devotional number called "I Will." It broke the evening's no-new-songs rule, but it was sweetly plaintive.

In recent years, Grant has mellowed into a folksy performer whose shows have an almost Lilith Fair quality. However, she seemed completely revitalized by the night’s theme, singing with a ferocious intensity. During the reggae tinged “Everywhere I Go,” she even swayed her hips like a teenager. “This was about as much as a Church of Christ girl could do,” she cracked. Even better was the cautionary “Wise Up,” which sported a bass-heavy Paisley Park vibe that was completely infectious. Grant flubbed the lyric at one point, but who cared? It was simply fun, and the entire crowd was on its feet.

One of Grant’s gifts is the ability to make people in a big venue feel like they’re in an intimate, one-on-one setting with the singer. She achieved that several times during the night, but particularly on a lovely and understated reading of “Say Once More” that she used during the encore. Even fans who have followed her career for decades probably walked away feeling that they knew her a little better.

Set list: My Father’s Eyes
Love of Another Kind
Wait For the Healing
Shadows
1974
Everywhere I Go
Saved By Love
What About the Love
All Right
El Shaddai
Sing Your Praise to the Lord
All I Ever Have to Be
I Will (Chris Eaton solo)
Lead Me On
Find a Way
Wise Up
Angels
Fight

Encore:

Stay For Awhile
What Would They Think
Say Once More

Second Encore:

Turn! Turn! Turn!

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