Date: 30 July 1999
To: MitchMailList
From: Danl Blackwood
Subject: [MitchMailList 038]: Boulder, CO 07/09 reviews

• Richard Grable's Boulder, CO review
• Forrest Cramer's Boulder, CO review

Richard Grable's Boulder, CO review
as posted to the Ragamuffin Mailing List

From: Richard Grable
Subject: [ragamuffin] Mitch concert Boulder, CO 07/09
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 12:04:11

Hey guys!

We saw Mitch last Friday in Boulder at the First Pres. Church. It was a
concert that my family and I had been waiting to see since first hearing of
it a couple of months ago. It was billed as a free concert (love offering)
and was to start at 7pm. Well, being in Denver (about 30 miles away) I was
very nervous as to whether we would be able to be there in time to find
seating, since it would be close to 7pm when we arrived. After a mad rush to
get there (made my Jetta feel like a sports car 8^)) we arrived to a
virtually empty church. Great! maybe we got the time wrong. Then a couple
sang some praise songs. Mitch peeked out to see if it was time yet, then
praise songs again... Finally, he and Brad came out and started the show. I
would guess that the total attendance, including Mitch & Brad, the couple
from Compassion Int'l, and the whole audience was may 16-18 people! And no
one else showed up thru the entire show! Mitch took it in stride, and even
made light of it a couple times (his "double vision" remark was particularly
appropriate), but it was obvious that he was bothered (and maybe a little
hurt) by the turnout. I just cannot understand such a poor showing! Where
were (at least) the members of that church's congregation? Anyway, I don't
mean to dwell on it, but I was embarrassed for him and ashamed of the church
for such lousy promotion. He was an *invited guest* and, in my opinion,
treated poorly. End of rant....
On the positive side, Mitch and Brad were wonderful! I was a fan of his
music going in but after seeing him perform live I am absolutely in love
with his music and ministry. I won't give a list of what all they played,
except to note a few favorites. They did a great job with "Only Love Will"
and "New Mexico". He of course did "The Lemonade Song" and it was wonderful,
even though he had trouble with his harmonica and kept laughing about it. He
also played three or four unrecorded songs that I'm hoping will be on his
next CD, including his "Rich Song" (made me cry...). He didn't play "My
Deliverer" during the show, but we did here them practicing it backstage
before the concert. I was really looking forward to hearing him sing it, but
we at least got to catch a little snip of it.
Anyway, the plus side to the attendance numbers was that we had Mitch & Brad
pretty much all to ourselves after the show. Mitch is (as I'm sure you all
know) a very warm & caring individual and I felt particularly honored to get
to meet and speak with him.

God Bless
Rich
<`}}}>-{
rgrable1@earthlink.net
ICQ#29455951

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Forrest Cramer's Boulder, CO review
as fowarded to the Ragamuffin Mailing List by Beverly

From: Forrest Cramer
Subject: [ragamuffin] Re: Mitch concert Boulder
Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 13:37:42 EDT

I did go to Mitch McVicker's concert.  It was a wonderful concert, and if
I'd known what it was going to be like, I would have invited my whole
church to go.  I went with my girlfriend and my sister...  Sarah (my
sister) loved Rich's music almost as much as I do, and so when the
opportunity to go to Mitch's concert came, she was excited.  Lindy (my
girlfriend) had never heard of Mitch, other than the fact that he was in
the car wreck with Rich, and that he sang on the Canticle CD.
Anyway, the concert was scheduled to start at 7:00.  We had a little bit
of an adventure getting to Boulder, because on the way through Longmont
we turned on the wrong street and ended up way out in the country on a
road that we THOUGHT would bring us back to the highway.  We ended up
having to turn around and backtrack, but we got to the church about 6:30.
 I was taken by surprise by the sheer number of people there!  When we
got there there were three people... (sorry, twisted humor, maybe). 
There were a couple people from the Presbyterian church on stage singing
some worship songs.  What we didn't know is that they were warming up...
they came back around 7:30 and led us in a time of worship, and then
Mitch came up.  By that time there were 20 people there, including me and
my little "party."
Mitch started out with "Here and Now" and then three more from his
album... sorry I can't remember which ones he did in which order.  By the
end of the concert he'd sung all of the songs off his CD and two off the
Canticle CD.  He played about six or so new songs that he says will be on
his new album, whenever that comes out.  There was one song that he sang
(he didn't have a name for it yet because he just wrote it a few weeks
before the concert) about burning the fields of Kansas, and he related it
to allowing God to burn away the old dead stuff in our life so that the
new can spring up in beauty.  It was such a cool song!  He had one guy
touring with him... Brad was his name I think.  Brad played the Hammered
Dulcimer (and for a side note... he's MUCH better than I ever was or ever
hope to be on it!!!) and the guitar and sang some too.  Mitch joked a
couple times about how he was surprised that anybody came to his
concerts, but with his double vision, twenty looked like a big crowd.
About half way through the concert Mitch talked some about Compassion. 
Then they did an acappella rendition of and old hymn (Nothing But the
Blood, I think - this is awful that I can't remember!) and they played
their guitars as percussion.  It was cool.  Then he talked about the
accident and the struggles that he's gone through since then, emotionally
and physically.  He talked about the frustrations of not healing very
fast and how he still can't do things that he loves like playing
basketball and he still can't sing as well as he used to be able to. 
When he got to the point where he talked about Rich, he started crying
(despite how hard he tried to think "happy thoughts about care-bears
flying around on clouds" as he put it) and finally he just had to say, "I
miss him so much."  He sang "New Mexico," which was unexpected.  He said
he hadn't sung it in almost two years, and he could barely remember how
to play it.  It was awesome, though, even though it made me wish so much
that Rich was still with us.  Somehow in my mind that song is a Rich
song, and I'll never think of it without thinking of him.  When Mitch
sang "Heaven is Waiting" I don't think there was one person there (yeah,
I know there weren't very many of us there) that wasn't affected... it's
like it was a closure on Rich's life, as if Mitch was saying that he was
ready to go, and Heaven was there beckoning to him.  And maybe that's how
it was, I don't know.  Mitch said that one thing that he envied Rich for
was that Rich walked with God.  And not just in a "church" sense... Rich
really did walk with Him.
But is this about Rich or Mitch...?  Okay.  The concert ended around
9:30, and (this was the cool part about only having 20 people there) I
got to stay and talk to Mitch for a few minutes.  He reminds me so much
of Rich... he's just so humble, and I don't really know how to describe
it beyond that.  My sister thought he was cute, so Lindy and I were
bugging her to go and get his autograph.  She chickened out, though, and
so we just went home.
So that was the night...  The concert was awesome, and the only
disappointing part at all was the fact that there were only 20 people
there.  I wish that I would have brought my whole church down... we could
have at least had 80 or 100 people then, and they all would have enjoyed it!

Forrest Cramer             http://www.geocities.com/vienna/strasse/9400
                                                forrest.cramer@juno.com

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