Hillsong United – Toronto – concert review

I made it down to Ontario Place in Toronto on Saturday night to spend the evening with 10,000ish friends listening to Hillsong United and Bluetree. The event – a one-day festival put together by Unite Productions – was a big success and everyone really enjoyed themselves.

This was not the first time I’d seen Hillsong United live – they were in Toronto a few years ago and played at a large church in town. They’ve been back a bunch of times since then and have required bigger venues each time. This is the second year they played at Molson Amphitheatre at Ontario Place and the the whole night was great.

We made it down in time to catch the last half of Bluetree’s set. Most of the songs they played were the same from their set in Toronto with Vicky Beeching from last fall, including “God of this City.” The guys are great musicians and learning more and more about playing venues of this size. This is really something they’ve been thrust in to with the Chris Tomlin-induced success of “God of this City” so the band is playing some catch-up when it comes to working a crowd, etc. But, all in all, very solid set from these guys and I’m looking forward to seeing them again.

The always-awkward intermission was next and I’m not exactly sure why the break between bands needed to be 45 minutes but it definitely seemed like the guys on stage (including Hillsong’s youth pastor who made an appearance laster) were just killing time before getting Hillsong United on stage. On a pretty random sidenote, in all of my years of going to concerts I have NEVER been to one attended by a couple who had just been married. Not only did that happen on Saturday at this concert but it also happened at the Michael W. Smith concert in Hamilton last month – two concerts in a row where the bride & groom show up to the concert after being married without even taking the time to get changed. Nevermind the comments about having “better things to do”…

After intermission, the Hillsong United guys finally made it out. The show went pretty much as predicted – 4 or 5 hype songs at the beginning, leading to some more reflective stuff for a while, a quick build leading in to the youth pastor talk, some extended quieter response songs and then ending with the hyped up pump songs. I should have kept a songlist of the show because by the time they were done the band had played for about 3 hours and seemed to just keep going and going!

Hilights of the show for me –

• Joel leading us in the chorus of “The Stand” and looking around at hands and hearts raised to God all over the amphitheatre – thinking about the impact of those lives surrendered to Him
• Jill McCloghry (for everyone who was asking, she was the one in white on the right side of the stage) singing an incredibly beautiful new song (“At The Cross”?) which will apparently be on the new Hillsong Live album.
• Brooke Fraser – that girl could sing the phone book and I’d be mesmerized. I love her voice, her demeanor, how she handles herself on stage – everything. She sang “Desert Song” and “None But Jesus” and also talked about the refining of her faith through struggles. Great wisdom and insight from her – really appreciated it.
• The Hillsong United guys were obviously impacted by the level of engagement of the crowd. They made several comments about loving being in Toronto, their memories of being here and how the Toronto audience was really the first one to “accept them” and make them feel at home away from Australia.

All in all, it was a great night. Big thumbs up to Unite Productions for putting together such a great event. The guys at that company are awesome to work with and I’ll continue to do what I can to support them.

UPDATE: My friend Matt has posted some video of that incredible song from Jill. It’s called “His Glory Appears” – here you go!