Festival Con Dios’ Diversity of Music, if Not Message

Festival Con Dios is billed as the “Christian Lollapalooza,” a daylong concert spanning the spectrum of alternative Christian pop and rock.

So what’s the difference between the religious and the secular rock fests?

At the tour’s stop at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater on Sunday it certainly wasn’t the physical appearance of the thousands of fans in their teens and young 20s, many of whom were pierced, tattooed, coiffed and outfitted like the best of the Lollapaloozers.

The two biggest distinctions were families and language. A good 10% to 20% of the youths who made up the core audience of around 5,000 came with mom, dad or both, plus siblings down to preschool age.

Many among the older set seemed to be as familiar with the various bands’ songs as their offspring were.

Language paved the way for the family atmosphere, both in what wasn’t said--the only four-letter word shouted from this stage was “Lord”--and what was: repeated exhortations for fans to join the performers in celebrating their Christian beliefs.

Celebrating, rather than examining, added up to roughly seven hours of generally upbeat preaching to the choir. There was little of the full-spectrum explorations by the likes of Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, U2 and a few other pop-world artists who have looked hard at faith and its role in dealing with struggles and doubts.

What the day lacked in thematic diversity was at least partially made up for by the impressive range of musical styles on hand. Message evidently outweighs medium for the Christian crowd, which displayed equal enthusiasm for the catchy guitar rock of the Elms, the garage pop-punk of Superchic[k] and the Christian rap of T-Bone, whose periodic machine-gun bursts of word play rivaled those of DJ Quik.

Australian modern-rock band the Newsboys, which launched the festival this year, shared headliner status with Stones-Aerosmith-school rock group Audio Adrenaline, along with ska outfit the O.C. (for Orange County) Supertones. That trio of acts had the audience literally hopping after sundown following performances by such rising Christian acts as Switchfoot, PAX 217, Melissa Tawlks, the Benjamin Gate and Ill Harmonics.