MercyMe keyboardist Jim Bryson
MercyMe keyboardist Jim Bryson looked at the crowd during a recent show and saw his 3-year-old son sleeping in his wife’s lap.
Fans who head out tonight to see the Christian rock band headline the Wachovia Arena in Wilkes-Barre Township, one can hope, will be a little more awake.
The show starts at 7:30, and Aaron Shust and Audio Adrenaline, the latter of which is playing its final tour, will open it.
“Tour has been awesome; it’s going great,” Audio A’s bassist, Will McGinniss, said. “MercyMe has given us a great platform to go out on.”
The “Coming Up To Breathe” tour, named after MercyMe’s newest album, began in February and continues through next month.
MercyMe, if you’re unfamiliar with the Texas band or the Christian-music scene, has released seven albums on INO Records and has five Christian radio chart-toppers. It has sold more than 4 million records and released “I See Love” with Third Day and Steven Curtis Chapman as the lead track off the “The Passion of the Christ: Songs” album to accompany Mel Gibson’s 2004 movie.
It’s also had two albums certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America and one certified double platinum.
Not bad for a band that hasn’t sold out during its 13-year tenure.
“We have not changed who we are, and the message that is being delivered is the same,” Bryson said. “We are really the same guys, too. We matured and have gotten older; we’ve got families and life has changed, but we’re 100 percent the same.”
The tour has been to the Dallas Symphony Center for a crowd of 2,500 and has arenas on the schedule. There isn’t anywhere it won’t go.
“We’ve done a few churches if it’s big enough to handle the production,” Bryson said.
Speaking of churches, what will MercyMe –made up of Bryson, vocalist Bart Millart, guitarist Barry Grail, bassist Nathan Cochran and drummer Robby Shaffer – do today? It is a Sunday, a day of obligation for Christians.
“We have a road pastor who travels with us full time, so if we’re ever to the point of needing someone to talk to or advice, he is there,” Bryson said. “We hold each other accountable, and everybody is responsible for their own quiet time. It’s not as drastic as it was when we first started missing Sundays.
“At the other end of the scale, we’re at church whenever we are at home. Half the year, we’re involved with the home church. There are times where I wish I was actually sitting in the congregation instead of on stage.”
But when the band is on the road, it’s like many other rock bands. It travels on a bus with a bunk for each member. Bryson has a flip-down 7-inch television, a PlayStation and an Xbox.
It’s more of a lush lifestyle than when the band members were seven single guys living together, going out on the road and coming home to a dark apartment.
“We’d come back to our electricity being shut off because we didn’t pay our bill on time,” Bryson said. “We prefer this much over that.”