In spite of (or perhaps because of) growing up Catholic, due to a couple of bad experiences in my youth, I tend to have a healthy skepticism of all things that smack of evangelism. I am fully aware that this a bias, and probably unfair, and that there are just as many nice Christians as there are nice Atheists, Pagans, or other human beings struggling through life and trying to maintain a connection with the spiritual side of things. But the bias is still there, deeply rooted since I was about fourteen, so when Scott told me he booked us a show at his friend Chip’s Christian coffeehouse, called Bread, on the Emory campus, I was a bit hesitant. First of all, we aren’t exactly a Christian band. Second, the show was smack in the middle of finals, which meant none of our law school fans were likely to show, and third. . . Ok, third is not rational. I simply had an immediate, visceral reaction to the idea that was something akin to “run away, run away”!
I am happy to say that I was very pleasantly surprised and disabused of my fears. Bread was probably the most fun we’ve had in months. We were greeted with enthusiasm and dinner when we walked in. (we’d unfortunately already eaten, but it looked great) The space is like a cool little rock club out of “Empire Records”, with CDs covering the walls, shag carpets, and a teensy stage in one corner of what feels like a great big living room; complete with couches and a coffee table.
I was not accosted by crazy people wearing “repent” signs around their necks and waving leather-bound books like weapons, nor was the subject of spirituality even brought up. Their website has a good explanation of their m.o., which is basically to be there with free coffee and goodies, and if you want to talk God, you can bring it up. Which I think is fantastic. More power to them. The result is an incredibly comfortable room, full of people we didn’t know who were happy to have us there . . . who listened to the music! After several months of bar shows and half empty clubs, having people actually focus on what we were doing and respond was positively invigorating.
We played sans drums, since there wasn’t really space, but I brought Molly and Scott played his new Taylor in public for the first time, and was quite fantastic. Chip, the extremely enthusiastic proprietor of the establishment, videos all his music shows and puts them up on the Bread channel on Youtube. So, for those of you many miles away, there is now an audio/video record of J&S, which you can check out here. The whole show is uploaded, song by song. Yay!
So here’s a shout-out to Bread and the people behind it; they’ve created a positive place which, regardless of your opinions or denomination, is warm and welcoming. To me, that is more indicative of spirituality than any specific creed or leather-bound book, and we definitely will be going back. (and not just to pick up the stands we accidentally left there. . .)
