LOOKING BACK AT THE '26 INDIANA GOSPEL MUSIC FESTIVAL AND A COMPARISON BETWEEN IGMF AND KINGDOM COME FESTIVAL.

Eric Shaw, emcee of the '26 IGMF, center, flanked by Revival Road Quartet

Becky and I moved to Indianapolis in '95, and for a while, we had no knowledge of two different music festivals. A little over a month ago, I gave you a pair of blogs dealing with the Kingdom Come Festival (aka KCF), which I was unaware of until '21 and didn't attend for another two years. Now, I attend most of it on the third weekend of June. The event is Thursday night and goes from 10am to about midnight Friday and Saturday; since I don't like driving after dark, I avoid the Thursday night set and leave the other nights no later than 7; earlier if I start getting sleepy. It is located at the Howard County Vietnam Veterans Grounds, and I drive the hour long trip back and forth.

Around that time, I also became familiar with the Indiana Gospel Music Festival (referred to as the IGMF). Actually, that familiarity was more with the Indiana Gospel Music Association (IGMA), and there is an overlap between the two. This event is, I believe, the 4th Saturday of July at the Hamilton County Fairgrounds Exhibition Hall, half the distance KCF is.. 

This year, IGMF was hosted by Eric Shaw, and included Ginny Spellman, Revival Road Quartet, Victorious Trio, Jeff Shelburne, the Worthen Family, Witness Quartet, By Faith Quartet, The Riddells, and the David Melton Family Singers. I'll admit I got drowsy, so I missed the final act and the finale. I first attended the '24 IGMF, and returned after missing last year's.

I wrote a summary of the '24 IGMF, and promised a blog of comparing the two festivals. That promised blog was posted... uh, now. I forgot all about it, so I'll mention the comparisons between the two.

1. MUSICAL GENRE. KCF is eclectic style wise, though it's mostly metal/hard rock (there also was rap, country, and pop. IGMF is Southern Gospel. I could be wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised if I was the only person who attended both events. (In fact, I'd be shocked if I wasn't.)
2. THE GROUNDS. KCF currently has three stages: The outdoor Main Stage, an indoor stage in a metal barn, and an acoustic stage under a tent. Only the Acoustic stage has seats set up in the area. IGMF, on the other hand, is indoors, with seats set up for the audience, who help put up those chairs when the festival is over.
3. DURATION. I mentioned KCF's duration above. IGMF is four hours.
4. SCHEDULE. KCF's sets mostly are half an hour, with some of the Acoustic Stage's being 20 minutes, and the bigger names having 45 minute to an hour sets. The Main Stage has 15 minutes between sets, while the other stages have a 30 minute break. This year, each IGMF artist had 4 song sets (the final act, which I missed, may have been longer). The emcee gave a few announcements and jokes, but there probably was no more than five minutes between acts. The reason why follows.
5. INSTRUMENTS OF CHOICE. Here, I'll start with the IGMF: the accompaniment of choice most of the time is back-ground tapes. When I left this year, the only live instrument was Jeff Shelburne's trumpet; in '24 one act had a piano player, and soloist Curtis Pruett played both guitar and keyboards - in one case, on the same song. The performers at KCF were mostly bands, and I believe that any who used tracks also had live instruments.
6. TIME TO VISIT WITH THE ARTISTS. Simply put, if you want to mingle with the artists at IGMF, plan on getting there at least a half hour early, because the transitions between acts aren't long enough to do much moving around. As for KCF, they have a large merchandise tent separate from the stages, where it's easy to get merchandise and talk to the artists, with time to spend in that tent.
7. FINALLY, THE FINALE. I've been to three IGMF events (one of which had Eric Shaw as emcee and three artists performing), and I left early for one, but my hunch is they always end with all the artists getting on the stage and the emcee leading the singers and audience in singing a few traditional songs everyone knows. I've always left KCF hours before the final act, but the logistics seem to be against them having the same type of conclusion (KCF has 50 or so different artists in the three days, IGMF has approximately a dozen).

Allow me to close with a few photos from the IGMF Festival.

EmCee Eric Shaw and Ginny Spellman

Victorious Trio

Justin Riddell of The Riddells with his wife and children. Not pictured is the rest of the group - Justin's sister and mother.

The Worthen Family 

By Faith Quartet, with Eric Shaw emceeing.

The Witness Quartet. The young men in the back row on the left are brothers, and took turns filling in for their normal bass singer (one commented they never had a normal bass singer). 
  

Jeff Shelburne

REPORT ON INDIANA GOSPEL MUSIC FESTIVAL, 25TH ANNIVERSARY (JULY 27, '24)

Me with Divinity Trio.

 Okay, how is it that a music lover like me spends a quarter of a century in Indianapolis being unaware of either the Kingdom Come Festival (KCF) or the Indiana Gospel Music Festival? Well, I managed to go to both this year!

You can say I in a sense attended an IGMF event. In '21, they had a set at my home church (Northside Baptist Church) which featured the Victorious Trio, Devin Cunningham (then IGMF President), and the Divinity Trio, with my friend and fellow church member Eric Shaw emceeing. After the three artists finished their set, Devin led the group in  various songs.

The next year, they were back at having the festival at the Hamilton County Fairgrounds Exhibition Hall. I didn't get to go then or last year, but this year I made up my mind to go. After all, I've enjoyed hanging out with the rockers at KCF; I definitely should have a turn at IGMF!

The artists this year were Revival Road Quartet, His Grace Trio, The Sinclairs, Victorious Trio, By Faith Quartet, Ginny Pugh Spillman, Witness Quartet, Judith Montgomery, The Riddells, Curtis Pruett, David Melton Family Singers, The Cunninghams (Devin got married between '21 and now), and Divinity Trio.

I can write a blog comparing the two festivals, so I won't deal with that now. But I do want to share some highlights from the IGMF, which happened to be the 25th Anniversary edition:

• There were several great songs. Some of them were written by the artists, some may not have been, but these include "I'm Going There" (Revival Road Quartet), "Broken Ones," Somebody Oughta Testify (both by Victorious Trio), "My King Is Known By His Love" (By Faith Quartet), "Pull Up A Chair," "Called Out" (both by Witness Quartet), "Won't Stay In The Boat Anymore" (the Riddells), "Do You Know Who I Am," "At The Foot Of The Cross" (both by Curtis Pruett), "Walk By Faith," and "There Is A River" (both by Divinity Trio)
• On the Sinclairs final song, they were accompanied by a friend who signed the song while they were singing.
• Most of the songs were accompanied by tracks; there were only two artists that had any live instrumentalists (though both also had tracks.) Divinity Trio had a pianist (so if you were wondering why there were four people with me in my above picture with a trio). Curtis Pruett played piano and guitar. On the same song.
• I forgot to mention the emceeing. This was done by Eric Shaw and Devin Cunningham.
• We had three soloists, two duets, four trios, three quartets, and a sextet do the first thirteen sets. For those who like math, you'd realize that included 37 people. The final set had... 38 people. Yes, that included all the artists that sang plus Eric, with Devin leading them  and the audience in some familiar songs: "Victory In Jesus," "Amazing Grace," and a medley of "Soon and Very Soon" and the chorus of Russ Taff's "We Will Stand." This wasn't the first festival I attended that closed with "We Will Stand" - in December of '88 I attended a benefit which concluded with the involved artists - Steve Camp, Steven Curtis Chapman, First Call, Geoff Moore, White Heart, Margaret Becker, Michael Card, Paul Overstreet, and BeBe and CeCe Winan - join Russ Taff on that song, with Petra's John Lawry on the piano. That definitely brought back memories.

As for comparing the two festivals... that's another blog that will be coming shortly. 

ALBUM REVIEW - "ON THE RIGHT ROAD" BY THE RIGHT ROAD QUARTET

 

 In the fall of 2021, I had the privilege of attending an Indiana Gospel Music Festival event at my home church, Northside Baptist Church. One of the three performers was then IGMF President, Devin Cunningham. (By the way, it was hosted by Indiana Gospel Music Association President and good friend Eric Shaw.) A large part included Cunningham leading in impromptu singings mixing him and Eric with the members of the other groups (the Victorious Trio and the Divinity Trio). Cunningham made an impression on me and I've added him to my regular prayer list and keep up with him on Facebook.(You can click on this link to see my interview with Devin from Nov. '21.)

Devin Cunningham is currently tenor for the Right Road Quartet, and I'm honored to review their project "On The Right Road." If you like good quartet singing, you'll enjoy this. It starts with the Michael Card song "I Have Decided" (maybe better known for Amy Grant covering it on "Age to Age"), and goes through with a few jazzy songs and some country sounding songs, closing with a delightful aca pella "Jesus Name Medley."

My favorite songs on the project are "Sing A Little Bit More," "Step Out Of The Boat" (both co-written by Cunningham) and the needs-to-be-listened-to "Pray For Revival."

I highly recommend this album.

By the way, I recently met Jerrod Cunningham of the Christian rock band I Am The Pendragon. Are Devin and Jerrod related? Maybe not, but I'd love to hear a collaboration of the two.