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Jun 10 2010

Thought you might like to know that Kingsway have just released The Ultimate Delirious Songbook - a CD-ROM containing printable sheet music, chord charts and word masters for fifty Delirious songs. 
As the blurb says "The band may have come to an end, but the songs keep on stirring the Church. For almost two decades Delirious brought a new style of worship to the table; unashamed yet vulnerable, full of passion yet with a sound that drifted far beyond the walls of the church. From ‘My Soul Sings’ to ‘Majesty’, ‘My Glorious’ to ‘Lord You Have My Heart’, ‘I Could Sing Of Your Love Forever’ and ‘Did You Feel The Mountains Tremble?’ – this is a collection unlike any other."
It's available now from
http://www.purashop.com/Shop/Products/155424/Home/Books/Songbooks/Digital_Songbooks/The_Ultimate_Delirious_Songbook.aspx or pre-order in North America at http://www.christianbook.com/the-ultimate-delirious-digital-songbook/delirious-/pd/914229?item_code=WW&netp_id=827036&event=ESRCN&view=details

 

 

May 24 2010
Thought you might like to see what the critics are saying about the Farewell Show... they like it!
http://radarradio.net/blog/dvd-review-delirious-farewell-show/
http://live.hollywoodjesus.com/?p=5465
http://www.jesusfreakhideout.com/cdreviews/FarewellShowLiveInLondon.asp
http://www.newreleasetuesday.com/albumdetail.php?al...bum_id=8903


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May 18 2010

Delirious?, the UK-based band regarded internationally as the galvanizing force that changed the face of worship worldwide and mentoring many of today’s influential worship musicians,  releases today amidst wide acclaim its Farewell Show – Live in London 2-CD, DVD and Blu-ray throughout North America.  The award winning band captured its final, farewell concert at London’s HMV Hammersmith Apollo Nov. 29 on a recording that CCM magazine declares is “an essential purchase for anyone who’s ever followed the band, plus a brilliant bookend to an extraordinary career.”

 

Delirious? lead vocalist Martin Smith, guitarist Stu G, keyboardist Tim Jupp, bassist Jon Thatcher and drummers Stew Smith and Paul Evans, who took over for Delirious? founding member Stew Smith in 2008, engaged the sold-out, 5,000-seat Hammersmith Apollo with in a rousing 26-song grand finale that included all the hits that launched the band to international acclaim.  Arguably the most well-known Christian rock band in the world, and called “the most influential modern worship band in the history of Christian music" by NewReleaseTuesday.com and “one of the greatest worship groups of all time” by JesusFreakHideout.com, Delirious? helped score a whole new soundtrack for the church around the world.

 

“Ages before there was David Crowder Band or the Passion conferences, a British band named Delirious? changed the way we worship…Now, a new 26-song release covers the band’s amazing 17-year journey,” says YouthWorker.com as Delirious? peers reflect on the band’s farewell in the current issue of CCM:

 

“What an amazing band – and great friends of mine who I have had the privilege to minister with over the years.  Delirious? broke the mold and made history...as they wrote and performed songs that truly inspired the church...” – Michael W. Smith

 

“…I cannot recall another band who has had the ability to prophecy and declare through music, a sound that literally calls out to missionary and worshipper in all of us to stand taller, sing louder and declare the Kingdom of God…I will always count it a great privilege to call you mentors, friends and family.” – Darlene Zschech

 

“Delirious? is the band that has continued to set me on fire when I hear their music.  I love these guys.  My first tour was with them, and I still count those days as some of the most important days of my music-life…” – Chris Tomlin 

 

“Delirious? is one of the most important bands in the past 10 -15 years, not to mention my all-time favorite band. They have worn their passionate love for Christ on their sleeves while making some of the most creative music of any genre.” – Bart Millard, MercyMe

 

“Martin and the Delirious? team have had a profound effect on worship music globally, and I’m thankful to call them my friends.” – Israel Houghton 

 

“…Delirious? were a band whose impact cannot be measured simply in terms of album sales, crowd sizes or air miles racked up. Their influential style and substance went deep into the hearts of many, many young worship bands around the earth, and the echoes of their ministry will therefore keep resounding for many years to come.” Matt Redman

“Everywhere you go around the world, you see the impact of Delirious? in encouraging and releasing creativity, but also great passion and hunger for God. Their willingness and risk in ‘Taking it Wherever it Goes’ was inspirational, not only for me but for many worship leaders around the globe. They have been fire-starters and encouraged many to believe that the best is yet to come.” – Tim Hughes

Worship has always been at the heart of Delirious?, and that focus is throughout the Farewell Show – Live in London recording.  Along with the music, the 145-minute Farewell Show – Live in London DVD features an exclusive “On the Road - The Farewell Tour” documentary that includes behind-the-scenes footage and individual band member interviews. The 199-minute Blu-ray disc further includes the band’s compelling, in-depth interview with GOD TV’s youth presenters Chip-K and Emma Owen, “Making History - The Final Interview.”  This interview gives the viewer a chance to see Delirious?' career from the band’s perspective, and gives a glimpse into the individual members’ future.  The full GOD TV interview can also be viewed online at http://www.god.tv/video/play?video=1069.

Churches around the world will also be able to share this interview, and the whole DVD/Blue-ray, as Delirious?’s label, Kingsway, is offering churches the license to publicly run the Delirious? Farewell Show – Live in London DVD/Blu-ray through CCLI’s Church Video License (CVLI) program.  This is available in all CCLI territories including North America.

After nearly two decades of traveling around the world performing thousands of concerts to millions of fans, Delirious? was never about itself, the accolades, the tours or even the songs.

“All the 17 years that the band was together, we never existed just to get in the charts or sell sell sell,” says Martin Smith.  “Our best motives and highest calling was to try to be a voice that made others think, that called out praise and tried to chase down the smile of God.”

Having released 14 albums, earning two Top 30 general market UK chart albums and selling over three million recordings, Delirious? also garnered it’s eighth Top 40 general market UK chart single just last month with the release of  “History Makers,” a song featured on the Farewell Show recording.  With Billboard reporting the song at No. 4, marking the highest charting single of the band’s career, the song simultaneously became the No. 3 iTunes UK best-seller, with the studio version and live version taking both the No. 1 and No. 2 positions respectively on the Amazon.com UK sales chart. 

Delirious? grew out of the UK “Cutting Edge” youth meetings in the early 1990s and currently have 22 songs on the CCLI charts. Known as the forerunners of the modern worship movement and as one of the industry’s best live bands, Delirious? over the last decade have closed for the Pope in front of a million people in Germany, played in front of hundreds of thousands in India, headlined the 2004 Olympic Celebrations at the Omonia Square in Athens, Greece, toured with Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams and Matchbox 20, and headlined at SWR3’s Arena of Sound 2004 music festival, where more than 80,000 fans filled the Schlossplatz in Stuttgart, Germany.  With its music being played and sold in over 100 countries, the band has also been honored with two Gospel Music Association International Awards.

 

May 12 2010
There’s this ‘thing’ we refer to as the presence of God. I’m not sure if there is another way of labeling it or a more clever turn of phrase to correctly describe it. But then again I like the phrase the presence of God: that’s exactly what it is. It does what it says on the tin. It’s when God is near, it’s when God feels closer than the air in a steam room. It’s when all this talk about ‘it’ becomes talk about ‘Him’. And if we believe that God is not dead but alive, it is the most precious ‘commodity’ we have. When Jesus left earth to be with his father again he said that he would leave his ‘spirit’ with us. The Holy Spirit. The Holy Ghost, our comforter. It’s the ‘spirit’ that breathes life into the law. Now, laws are good but we know from the whole of human history that no one can keep them all. The law is just half the story – that’s all it can only ever be. The ‘bestsellers’ – the ones that have the whole story -  always have the ‘spirit’ imbedded in the plot. It’s in the presence of the living God that we are convicted of our sin. It is there that we realise how it’s good to have boundaries, that it’s good to stay out of trouble, that it’s good to not pick the apple off the tree. It’s when we make the choices to obey the law in the light of ‘his face’ that we start to understand freedom. I am enthralled by the story of Moses and the moment he heard the very voice of God coming from a burning bush. God always speaks in the most unusual of places and here was Moses taking his sandals off next to some tumbleweed that was on fire but not actually burning! [A complete aside: I wonder if I’ve ever appeared to be on fire but not been ‘on fire’, so to speak.] Anyhow, the thing that got Moses’ attention was the very ‘presence’ of God.After realizing he was in the company of his maker he asked him a simple question. “Who shall I say has sent me?” “I AM WHO I AM”, “I AM has sent me to you”.  Enough said. In the last 20 years we have had a revolution in the way we present ourselves as church. When I was a kid I remember the first time I asked if we could have a drum kit in the evening service and whether I could play a ‘real’ guitar, the kind you plugged into a Vox AC30. The organist, a very sweet lady, thought that everyone had gone to the ‘dark side’, but to be fair to her she soldiered on believing that without her the sound would be ‘dull’. Nowadays it is commonplace for there to be Coldplay sound-alike worship bands all across the world playing modern hymns on a Sunday morning. I love it, I celebrate it and I think God loves it too. I also think God loves the creativity. Skinny-fit jeans for socks and sandals, sculptured haircuts instead of comb-overs, tattoos for rainbow straps and ‘church news’ on a video screen the width of Tower bridge. I love it all.  But I sometimes get nervous. I worry that we don’t need God anymore. We don’t feel the need to take our shoes off. Do we really miss him these days? After all our church meetings have become ‘perfect’ now, we have learnt how to ‘do it’, we have got the thing down at last.And anyway, who needs God when we can sing ‘Historymaker’ to make us feel good underneath the new lighting rig?  I am not a cynic, I am part of the problem. We have led ourselves to believe that these things will attract the ‘non churched’ or make Jesus ‘cool’ again to a post modern secular society. I’m sorry if the ‘show’ ever got in the way of the ‘nooma’. Humans want to be loved not impressed. I am glad of the pioneering spirit that has taken church into a new century but we must never forget the most powerful thing we have, our distinctive, our joy our prize… the presence of God.  Let’s not retreat into old nostalgic patterns but keep pushing the creative boundaries, but in it all let’s know deep in our bellies that ‘apart from you, we are nothing’ We can have ‘everything’ but nothing if we leave God at stage left. Even Wayne Rooney can’t score from the bench. God wants to be involved, to breathe life into people, to heal cancers, to open blind eyes, to help someone out of debt or help them through the pain of betrayal.  He can take our ‘foolishness’ and make it great. He can live in the chaos and bring truth. He can take an old lady on the organ and breathe life into her ageing fingers so that when she plays the peoples hearts break.  God is not impressed with excellence, but purity. God is bored with air-brushed worship and just delights in a sacrifice of praise. This means anyone can do it, everyone is included. All we have to do is invite God to the party and we will see a tsunami of his power flood the earth once more. Believe me, we are not going back, we must go forward. When anyone asks who sent us, we can confidently reply, “I AM has sent me to you”. This goes for the old geezer on the tambourine (yes he seems to get around!) or Chris Tomlin crooning in a stadium. Our trust is not in the sound system but in the voice of God. No longer the songs but the one who sings over us. God can do amazing things when he’s on the pitch, and you know what?

He never misses.



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Apr 21 2010
Check out the review at The Joint and add this to your essential Delirious? collection! http://thejointreview.com/2010/04/19/delirious-farewell-show-live-in-london-dvd/

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