Brian Tedder, Collegian Staff

For faithful fans, Friday night’s Casting Crowns concert promised to be a family-friendly evening showcasing the band’s blend of ’90 alt-rock pop songs and religious overtones. The band showed no sign of slowing down on its current tour, as the Mullins Center was packed to the brim with eager audience members.

For the average concert-goer, however, the Casting Crowns concert would have proved an unusual experience. While the band played many of their hits, they spent large amounts of time doing unrelated things. Halfway through the first set, the band left the stage abruptly, and the audience was greeted with dim lights and a commercial about reusable drinking water in Africa. This was not the intermission, which would come later, but part of the band’s “concert.”

In fact, the word concert isn’t the best word to describe the event at all. The show was a multimedia event that combined various forms of entertainment with a strong focus on Catholic religious doctrine. The band’s leader Mark Hall played equal parts singer, stand-up comic and televangelist, each with varying degrees of success.

Casting Crowns did their best to keep the crowd guessing, turning the Mullins Center into their own church as fans sang along to just about every song.

Halfway through the concert, one audience member spontaneously proposed to his girlfriend on stage. The spectacle was met with uproarious applause when the bride-to-be said yes. This was far from the most out-of-the-ordinary occurrence of the night, as many audience members seemed to be having their own religious experiences, singing along, holding hands and dancing.

The band does more than just preach about the Word, they actively engage in it. During intermission, the band directed fans to World Vision booths outside where for the price of a dollar a day, and far less than the actual concert, they could help give food and clean water to African children in need.

After this short intermission, in which the audience members spent their time adopting foreign children, they quickly returned to their seats where the band launched into the title track off their second album, “Lifesong.” The band made frequent references to their back catalog, playing songs off their earlier albums such as “Who am I?” and “If We are the Body,” while taking the time to promote new songs like “Slow Fade” and “The Word is Alive,” all of which could have passed for songs by ’90s stadium rockers Creed.

The opening acts put more emphasis on the music, using the time to promote themselves in hope of one day headlining a Christian tour of their own, or gaining a spot at “Soulfest,” the Christian equivalent of Lollapalooza. Leeland’s sound and appearance was reminiscent of Taking Back Sunday, and their sound was laced with an MTV, emo flair. John Waller, the first to go on stage, used his time to showcase songs from his upcoming album and also to build anticipation for the main attraction.

All in all, the event had a carnival-like atmosphere which would have been surprising even to veteran concert-goers. The band also did an admirable job of trying to balance their music with their real passion for religion.

Pete Rizzo can be reached at [email protected].