ROCK ‘N’ RELIGION

Michael W. Smith’s music is based on the idea that Christian kids like to rock too. Smith’s show Saturday at the Greek Theatre featured the usual rock show trappings--fog, strobe lights, power chords--but his songs also conveyed religious messages.

In fact, Smith was so conscious of appearing hip and contemporary that he and his five-man band didn’t really connect until a third of the way through the set. His opening songs were anonymous, overblown techno-rock, but he later scored with a series of tender ballads, including his best-known song, “Friends.”

The West Virginia native, who won a Grammy last year for best male gospel performance, is in many ways the male equivalent of Amy Grant--whose shows he opened for 2 1/2 years. Neither is a particularly striking vocalist, but both compensate with natural, unaffected charm.

The show was opened by Elim Hall, a Canadian power rock trio whose most biting song was a protest against the teaching of evolution as a science.