Catholic Priests Sing Jimmy Eat World's 'The Middle' & 'Salve Regina' at Rock Concert in D.C.
The day after the Catholic Church celebrated Pentecost, several DMV priests took to the stage for a memorable night at Pearl Street Warehouse on Mon., May 20, 2024.
Doors opened at 7:00 p.m. with 250 tickets sold to watch this performance.
The Opening Act, Foundation, featured four local young adults from Saint Peter's Parish on Capitol Hill, singing Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” Tom Petty’s Free Fallin', ABBA’s Mamma Mia, and others.
Annie Vogel, a parishioner at Saint Peter’s Parish and singer for Foundation stated, “This is our second year opening up for our night at Pearl Street as we were invited by Father Brendan Glasglow (Saint Elizabeth Church, Rockville, Md.) both last year and this year. It gives us an opportunity for artistic creativity outside of our monthly praise and worship adoration we lead at Saint Peter’s. We love playing at Pearl Street. Opening for the priests is a true joy and honor, and pumping up the crowd is so fun.”
Father John Benson, singer for Iter and Parochial Vicar of the Cathedral of Saint Matthew the Apostle, publicly shared that in 2008 after participating in a pilgrimage following the path of Pope Benedict during his U.S. visit, it was there he heard the preaching of Saint Paul: “Christ died so that we who live may no longer live for ourselves, life for Him who died and was raised for us.”
He shared, “In that moment it struck my heart, it’s true...I’m miserable because I’m living for myself, I want to give my life for God.”
Though he had aspirations of becoming a filmmaker in California, he spent the next two years asking God what he wanted. Needless to say, he answered God’s call for his life!
Upon This Rock, the headliner of the event, which features five DMV priests, played crowd favorites such as A-ha’s Take on Me, Bon Jovi’s Livin' on a Prayer, Lorde’s Royals, Jimmy Eat World’s The Middle, Miley Cyrus’s Party in the USA, and more.
Amid the cheers and screaming attendees singing to every word were two Dominican sisters who came out for a night of fun.
Sister Mariana de Jesus and Sister Maria of the Dominican Sisters of Our Lady of Fatima said, “We wanted to support all the priests who work with us in our parish…We had a lot of fun. By bringing the priests here to sing, they are also preaching the love of God and His mercy by being here.”
Father Patrick Augustine, Parochial Vicar of Saint Martin of Tours in Gaithersburg, stated, “Tonight was about using our talents to give glory to God in a relaxed setting, to show our young adults and our parishioners of all ages that God has given us gifts and we want to share that with anyone we can, whether that’s in Mass or even a relaxed setting like this at Pearl Street. Saint Augustine says ‘singing is praying twice’ so music is absolutely important in prayer.”
While the priests gave a highly demanded encore performing Matisyahu’s One Day, the night officially ended when the entire audience joined the priests in singing the Salve Regina in Latin.