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Music

TobyMac

Alive and Transported | 4 stars out of 5

I am taking a morning walk through my suburban neighborhood, but in my head, I am at the Ichthus Festival or anywhere TobyMac is presenting his backflipping, breathless show.

There's often a gulf between the thrill of a live show and the recording. But in the case of TobyMac's generous Alive and Transported, that is nary a trickle. Granted, there is nothing quite like seeing Toby, who headlined Ichthus on Friday night. But this disc — and the accompanying DVD in the tangible set — really takes you there.

One chief way is by being a real concert document, taking you through the flow of the event, from hyper openers such as Boomin' and J-train to the Spanish-guitar-based Irene and the dc talk classic In the Light and the subsequent fever spike of Yours. He also gives us a rarity for the concert disc: the encore. On disc, he closes out the Houston concert with Diverse City and returns with a quartet of tunes, including Jesus Freak and Extreme Days, which no audience would let T-Mac leave without doing.

In addition to TobyMac's music, with a dash of his old band, dc talk, one of the other strong suits of his concerts has been that it's a real band effort, with Toby many times giving the spotlight to his supporting players.

Alive and Transported is just like a TobyMac concert and, ”bang to the bip, it makes me want to flip.“

RICH COPLEY, rcopley@herald-leader.com