Religiosity

I was pretty sad to hear that one of my favorite bands, Delirious, is throwing in the towel after 14 albums. I only go the opportunity to see them live once, and looking at the tour dates, unless I want to go to a Joyce Meyer conference (very doubtful) then my count will stand at 1.

I was already pretty bummed when Stew Smith left the band at the end of April 2008, but this doesn’t help. Delirious will continue to play their scheduled tour dates and end sometime in 2009. I know I’m behind on this, since the press release was dated June 6, 2008 but here it is:

Sunday 6th July 2008

The End of an Era……

We would like to address all our fans, our friends and people around the world who have faithfully supported Delirious?

After 14 albums, thousands of shows in front of millions of people, and many extraordinary memories, we have decided that at the end of 2009 we will take a break from recording and playing as a band.

Our decision was triggered by a request from Martin to be released from the band to pursue new projects including his work with CompassionArt and the desire to be at home more with Anna and his children. We have of course honoured this request and made a decision together that now is the time to end this chapter of our lives.

We will continue to play and be excited about our current tours and bookings but will not be adding many more over the coming 17 months..

We are all so deeply grateful to our incredible fans who have sung the songs and allowed Delirious? the privilege of providing the soundtrack to many lives over the years. From the school hall in Littlehampton to the stadiums of the world we have many stories to tell our children’s children. Delirious also would not be what it is without our amazing wives and families, and our gratitude to them is immense. We will now move forward to the next part of our lives where new challenges unfold and greater stories will be written.

We want to make it absolutely clear that although this decision has been extremely painful and difficult, we are still great friends and our respect for each other is unquestionable. We love playing in this band together and know that even though 2009 will bring an end to this current journey, there will be more adventures together in years to come.

We always used to say that we were ‘taking it wherever it goes’. The music ended up going further and deeper than we could ever have dreamed, yet we are now at a point where our creative futures will spread out and take on different journeys.

Thanks again for believing in us through all these years. We believe the best is yet to come.

Jon, Martin, Paul, Stu G and Tim

Thanks to consumingworship.org for the heads up on what I missed.