Newsboys celebrates hits old and new via United tour in State College on Sunday

Old meets new at 6 p.m. Sunday night in State College as longstanding contemporary Christian rock band Newsboys takes the stage at the Bryce Jordan Center.

The band has released 17 studio albums — six of which have been certified gold and four of which were nominated for Grammy awards — over the past three-plus decades. Band members have changed since the group’s 1985 beginnings, including a 2009 switch from 12-year veteran lead vocalist Pete Furler to new frontman Michael Tait, former of D.C. Talk.

After the switch to Michael, “we had to re-prove ourselves with fans. We changed our music, and we had diehard classic fans telling us we should change our group’s name because we were no longer Newsboys in their opinion,” said longtime drummer Duncan Phillips. “We were able to develop Newsboys 2.0 with Michael and have had great success for the past 10 years, but it wasn’t easy at first. Now, to revisit the past is somewhat risky, but we think fans will really appreciate a combination of our older and newer hits.”

Sunday’s performance is the band’s only Pennsylvania visit during the United Tour, where Furler and longtime guitarist and vocalist Phil Joel rejoin the group and will present a 29-song smorgasbord of classic Newsboys songs merged with many of the group’s more recent hits, including “God’s Not Dead” and “We Believe.”

“We plan to give our fans the best show we possibly can. When we get to State College, the show will be a well-oiled machine,” said Phillips. “Playing for so long and through a variety of changes has helped me develop a certain maturity musically that I didn’t have before. Even Peter said that I’m playing our songs — even the classics — better than ever before.”

The performance will be enhanced by a special seating arrangement planned specifically for this show.

“Our Newsboys concert will be in a more intimate setting than Winter Jam,” said Bryce Jordan Center Marketing Director Bernie Punt. “Our theater configuration makes every seat more up close and personal.”

The overall experience, especially the combination band members from both of the Newsboys’ eras, should be something that will speak to all ages according to Phillips.

“We have a number of diehard Newsboys fans from the 1990s and early 2000s, but there are also many fans that don’t even realize the band existed before Michael took over with lead vocals,” he said. “Newer fans get to experience some of the older things we did while some of the fans of our classic nNewsboys hits get to experience something they may not have known they’d connect with.”

The band has seen a boost in popularity in connection with appearances in the popular “God’s Not Dead” movie trilogy, including the recent release, “God’s Not Dead: A Light in the Darkness.”

“It was something we never thought we’d do,” said Phillips. “I remember when we went to shoot the first movie, we were so unprepared. We didn’t realize how big of a production it was going to be. They called us in for 7 a.m. when we are normally up by the crack of noon, and walk out there to a full set and realized at that moment that this was a real movie with real potential.”

The opportunity has only helped boost the group’s potential ministry, according to Phillips.

“When the movie first came out, after three weekends, 6.5 million people got to see the movie. We can’t play to that many people over five years,” he said. “We definitely saw a bump in the number of people who come to shows, but there is also a lot of people who love the music but don’t like going to concerts, and the movies have helped us reach them more, too.”

For more information about the band and the tour, visit newsboys.com. To order tickets, visit the Bryce Jordan Center website at bjc.psu.edu.

Here is a video interview by CCM Magazine of the current Newsboys band along with Peter Furler and Phil Joel:

Some of the band’s hit songs include: