First off, let me just say that I have been a confirmed Pethead since 1983. I was 14 when the youth leader at our church introduced me to Petra by playing his More Power To Ya tape on the way to a ski trip. Soon I had all of Petra’s tapes and I experienced the thrill of seeing them live at concerts in 1984 and ’85.

That was the last time I had seen Petra live—almost 19 years—until August 4, 2004, when I saw them at the Kingdom Bound music festival at Six Flags Darien Lake in western New York. Since they’ve never made it back to the Albany area and don’t get to the Northeast much anyway, I haven’t had the opportunity to see them until now.

Kingdom Bound is an awesome festival, with several of the most popular Christian artists and bands playing in a three-day span, including Third Day, Audio Adrenaline, Jeremy Camp, Relient K, etc.
Petra played the last night of the festival, basically as the opening act for the final concert, the Newsboys.

The Performing Arts Center at Six Flags Darien Lake is an open-air ampitheater that seats a few thousand—basically it looks like a big white tent open on three sides with a stage and light rig at one end, with plenty of room for lawn seats outside. We chose lawn seats the first two nights, but it rained all day before the Petra concert so we sat inside near the back. But just before Petra took the stage for their 8:15 p.m. show, the sun came out and left a rainbow as a treat.

All four current members of Petra were onstage during the sound check, all wearing jeans and T-shirts—Bob Hartman stage right on guitar, Greg Bailey stage left on bass, John Schlitt in between on vocals and Paul Simmons hammering away on the drums. And no keyboards at all! The light show was OK, but it was only sunset and dusk whent Petra played, so some of the effect was lost.
Without much of an introduction, Petra launched a 45-minute set with the crunching power chords of “Test of Time,” played at ear-ringing volume. They swept straight into “Right Place” without missing a beat. John was in great voice and he worked the crowd well, several times encouraging us to sing part of the chorus. And Bob can still absolutely shred on guitar!

After “Right Place,” John introduced Petra’s “newest” member, Bob Hartman. Bob said they would be playing some old stuff and some new stuff, and hoped we enjoyed it. The band did “Amazing Grace” from “Revival” next, capped off by a blazing Bob guitar solo.

Petra rocked on with “All About Who You Know” from the new album, then played a fantastic medley, beginning with the first half of “Sight Unseen”, then into “It Is Finished”—my particular favorite Petra song, which I had never heard without synthesizers, just crunching power chords, bass and drums. After playing about half of “It Is Finished,” John talked about the kind of war—spiritual war—we are now waging, and on cue, Paul started the thundering drumbeats of an almost thrash-metal version of “This Means War.” And that song blended seamlessly back into the final verse and chorus of “It Is Finished”, again capped off by a searing guitar solo by Bob.
During their next song, “The Noise We Make,” John got the crowd into it singing “You are worthy! Worthy!” and “You are holy! Holy!” from the chorus. He spoke briefly about singing praises to the Lord, then the band launched into “Perfect World,” which sounded right from the album, right down to the “backwards” guitar effect at the beginning.

From there, Petra played a hard-rocking version of “Dance.”

The crowd response was surprisingly good, considering the relative youth of the audience, although there were plenty of “old folks” like myself there, as well. Petra got their biggest cheer when Bob started playing the opening notes of “Beyond Belief.” The crowd erupted and sang along. It was great to hear another Petra favorite without keyboards. Bob finished off with an extended solo that included flashes of classical music riffs.

Petra finished off their set with “Lord I Lift Your Name On High” from Petra Praise 2, another sing-along favorite for the crowd, and then an album-true version of “Jekyll & Hyde,” which had my 6-year-old daughter dancing on her seat (It’s her favorite Petra song).

Overall, the boys in Petra seemed to genuinely enjoy playing hard-rocking music together, smiling at each other as they laid down a thundering wall of sound. This was definitely the heaviest Petra I have ever heard, and it was a real treat to hear the versions of classic synthesizer-era Petra standards given the “Jekyll & Hyde” treatment with crunching guitar and bass.

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