{"id":4008,"date":"2011-09-23T18:16:05","date_gmt":"2011-09-23T22:16:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/gospelsoundcheck\/?p=4008"},"modified":"2011-09-23T18:28:17","modified_gmt":"2011-09-23T22:28:17","slug":"marc-martels-queen-extravaganza-audition-profiled-in-the-wall-street-journal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gospelsoundcheck\/2011\/09\/marc-martels-queen-extravaganza-audition-profiled-in-the-wall-street-journal.html","title":{"rendered":"Marc Martel&#8217;s Queen Extravaganza audition profiled in the Wall Street Journal"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe title=\"Queen Extravaganza - My &quot;Somebody To Love&quot; audition\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dREKkAk628I?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>Seriously. This is the most cool thing that&#8217;s happened in Christian music in a long time. Marc Martel&#8217;s audition tape for the Queen Extravaganza hasn&#8217;t just captivated fans. The <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/speakeasy\/2011\/09\/23\/marc-martel-channels-freddie-mercury\/?mod=google_news_blog\" target=\"_blank\">Wall Street Journal online did\u00a0a story today on Marc<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Whoo hoo! Way to go, Marc!<\/p>\n<p>Marc added his audition\u00a0video to the Queen Extravaganza competition, where musicians vie for a spot on a 2012 tour featuring the music of one of rock&#8217;s greatest bands, Queen. The band will be made up of musicians hand picked by Queen&#8217;s Roger Taylor. This is not a tribute band. It&#8217;s a touring production of Queen music.<\/p>\n<p>And in about 24 hours, Marc&#8217;s video has gotten 1.2 million views.<\/p>\n<p>I <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/gospelsoundcheck\/2011\/09\/will-downheres-marc-martel-be-the-next-freddie-mercury-you-decide.html\" target=\"_blank\">wrote about this yesterday<\/a>, and was surprised by the comments from readers who questioned whether a Christian artist should participate in this contest. One reader, Deb, wrote:<!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;How is this a good thing? If a pastor leaves a church, and becomes a bartender, and makes more money and has lots of friends, is that a good thing? He was given talent by God to serve him. Tell me how does Queen serve God? Walking away from ministry is not good. I\u2019m glad I got to hear him sing for the Lord.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In the WSJ.com article, Marc addresses that question:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cFreddie Mercury wrote songs that were real and true. Rock and roll reaches people because it\u2019s honest, and doesn\u2019t shy away from the issues. You can have a great voice, but people can spot a fake from a mile away. Our music may come from a biblical standpoint but we don\u2019t shy away from true experiences\u00a0 \u2013 doubt, loss, pain, sorrow \u2013 we want to deal with all of that. Queen\u2019s repertoire deals with those emotions and feelings too and I love singing their music because at the end of the day, it\u2019s just true.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4011\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4011\" style=\"width: 302px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/118\/2011\/09\/downhere.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4011 \" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/118\/2011\/09\/downhere.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"302\" height=\"201\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4011\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Downhere L to R: Glenn Lavender; Jason Germaine; Jeremy Thiessen; Marc Martel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve never listened to Downhere, now is your chance to\u00a0check out some great music by four very talented musicians who really are what\u00a0the definition of &#8220;Christian artist&#8221; should be. On their website, the guys say about their latest project, On The Altar Of Love:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>We live in an age when the most basic assumptions of orthodox Christianity are being challenged. As a younger band we wrote a lot of songs aimed at pointing out problems and tearing down things that we believed were wrong. But now, at this stage in life, we\u2019re much more interested in going back to the beginning, and using our gifts to reaffirm and shore up the foundations of the faith. We want to be a part of building up the church and preserving the culture.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And the rest of the guys in Downhere &#8211; drummer Jeremy Thiessen, bassist Glenn Lavender, and guitarist\/vocalist Jason Germaine &#8211; all deserve kudos for being so supportive of Marc&#8217;s latest adventure.<\/p>\n<p>You can learn more about <a href=\"http:\/\/downhere.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Downhere on the band&#8217;s website<\/a>. The band is currently on The Called To Love Tour, with Jason Gray and Aaron Shust. You can <a href=\"http:\/\/thecalledtolovetour.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">check out tour dates on the tour site.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>RELATED POSTS:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Will Downhere\u2019s Marc Martel be the next Freddie Mercury? You decide!\" href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/gospelsoundcheck\/2011\/09\/will-downheres-marc-martel-be-the-next-freddie-mercury-you-decide.html\" rel=\"bookmark\">Will Downhere\u2019s Marc Martel be the next Freddie Mercury? You decide! <\/a><\/p>\n<p>More <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/gospelsoundcheck\/?s=downhere\" target=\"_blank\">posts about Downhere<\/a>.\u00a0(And there are probably lots more, except when Beliefnet moved the blogs to the new platform, we lost all of the tags and categories. Boo. So for now, this is all I can grab from the archives.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Seriously. This is the most cool thing that&#8217;s happened in Christian music in a long time. Marc Martel&#8217;s audition tape for the Queen Extravaganza hasn&#8217;t just captivated fans. The Wall Street Journal online did\u00a0a story today on Marc. Whoo hoo! Way to go, Marc! Marc added his audition\u00a0video to the Queen Extravaganza competition, where musicians&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,50],"tags":[90,169,206,211,216],"class_list":["post-4008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-music-in-mainstream","category-mainstream-music-news","tag-christian-music","tag-downhere","tag-marc-martel","tag-queen-extravaganza","tag-wall-street-journal"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Marc Martel&#039;s Queen Extravaganza audition profiled in the Wall Street Journal  - Gospel Soundcheck<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gospelsoundcheck\/2011\/09\/marc-martels-queen-extravaganza-audition-profiled-in-the-wall-street-journal.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Marc Martel&#039;s Queen Extravaganza audition profiled in the Wall Street Journal  - Gospel Soundcheck\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Seriously. This is the most cool thing that&#8217;s happened in Christian music in a long time. Marc Martel&#8217;s audition tape for the Queen Extravaganza hasn&#8217;t just captivated fans. The Wall Street Journal online did\u00a0a story today on Marc. Whoo hoo! Way to go, Marc! Marc added his audition\u00a0video to the Queen Extravaganza competition, where musicians&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gospelsoundcheck\/2011\/09\/marc-martels-queen-extravaganza-audition-profiled-in-the-wall-street-journal.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Gospel Soundcheck\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-09-23T22:16:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-09-23T22:28:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/gospelsoundcheck\/files\/2011\/09\/downhere.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Joanne Brokaw\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Marc Martel's Queen Extravaganza audition profiled in the Wall Street Journal  - Gospel Soundcheck","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gospelsoundcheck\/2011\/09\/marc-martels-queen-extravaganza-audition-profiled-in-the-wall-street-journal.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Marc Martel's Queen Extravaganza audition profiled in the Wall Street Journal  - Gospel Soundcheck","og_description":"Seriously. 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Marc added his audition\u00a0video to the Queen Extravaganza competition, where musicians&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gospelsoundcheck\/2011\/09\/marc-martels-queen-extravaganza-audition-profiled-in-the-wall-street-journal.html","og_site_name":"Gospel Soundcheck","article_published_time":"2011-09-23T22:16:05+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-09-23T22:28:17+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/gospelsoundcheck\/files\/2011\/09\/downhere.jpg"}],"author":"Joanne Brokaw","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gospelsoundcheck\/2011\/09\/marc-martels-queen-extravaganza-audition-profiled-in-the-wall-street-journal.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gospelsoundcheck\/2011\/09\/marc-martels-queen-extravaganza-audition-profiled-in-the-wall-street-journal.html","name":"Marc Martel's Queen Extravaganza audition profiled in the Wall Street Journal - 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