As I mentioned in my last Acappella Memories post, we had a rule: Never stop the song. Most people will never catch the mistake if you just finish the song. At best, if they catch it, they will forget it. Just finish the song. This led to some hilarious outcomes.
I remember one concert where Kevin Schaffer came barreling out of the curtain at the edge of the stage and tripped over the legs of the backstage lights. He spilled onto the floor. Kevin, as only he could do, morphed it into a hilarious pose, laying on his side with his head propped up on his arm. He looked like… well, I probably shouldn’t say what he looked like. But we all thought it was hilarious, and all this while the song continued. Kevin turned a potential disaster into a funny event. The only problem was that we were singing for a somewhat new audience who didn’t know Kevin’s personality yet. So, they didn’t get it.
Oh well. You can’t win them all.
Cincinnati: the Twilight Zone
There were certain areas in the country where our popularity just exploded. I mentioned South Bend, IN in an earlier post. Another area similar to this was the Cincinnati-Dayton area. We sang there annually in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Oftentimes we would do 2 (and sometimes 3) concerts per weekend in the same venue.
Brennan Dean was our promoter for that area and he was very good. We always sang at a church in Middletown, halfway between Cincinnati and Dayton. The place sat about 2700 people packed out, and it was almost always packed out. One particular Sunday afternoon in late 1989 was no different.
We had just released the album Growing Up in the Lord and were performing several songs from that album, most notably Water From the Well where all the kids in the building would join us on stage. But that’s another story. We kicked off the song I Can Walk when it happened.
I have lost count of the people who’ve told me I should write a book about my experiences on the road. I spent a total of 11 years on the road with Acappella. By my best reckoning, I performed somewhere north of 1400 concerts. That’s a lot of stories to tell.
I ran across a blog entry by Mike Chin, co-founder of 
A large number of churches have not changed at all. They still proceed with worship as they always have, and more power to them. I suspect that, as the years go by, it’s getting harder and harder to find new song leaders. It’s nice to see motivators like Keith Lancaster pouring themselves into training leaders (see his 