Sunday, August 14th open thread: ‘Would it Matter’

  Here is the open thread for Sunday, August 14th. Please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.

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  A week ago Thursday I went to see Skillet play at the annual Christian music festival in Gilford, New Hampshire called Soulfest. I wanted to post a video from the show during last week’s open thread but there was not much posted from the show at that time. I have posted a couple of Skillet songs in the past but this one is a little different; Skillet is a pretty heavy band but about midway through their set the band left the stage and John Cooper stood alone with an acoustic guitar. Something was different here and we were about to learn what it was.

  About an hour before Skillet took the stage the band held a meet and greet with their fans and a young man named Brian who is a bone cancer survivor requested a song called “Would it Matter?” This is an old Skillet song and it had never been performed live before: John Cooper introduced the song by telling us Brian’s story and about how he was going to do something he has never done before in playing a song he hadn’t rehearsed. He went on to say he had about 35 minutes to relearn the lyrics and the music but if Brian could fight his way through bone cancer this was nothing compared to what Brian went through. He then joked “this is awesome” before going into the song.

  As he played the song and I listened to the lyrics (I hadn’t heard the song before) it really touched me because I couldn’t help but think about what was probably going through Brian’s mind as he fought this  disease and how the lyrics must have hit a personal note with him when he was not sure if he was going to live or die.

frui diem