The One Who Knows, Is In Control
By Bryan Duncan
Kevin Thomson, Bass player and founder of the Sweet Comfort Band, died on May 30th2010. “ Knowledge is power” he used to say “ the one who knows is in control”. I smile now because he never told the band where the gig was! “how much further is this gig?” we would ask and he’d always say “four more miles”. It became one of the standard “Kevinisms” we would quote for years when we didn’t have a clue.
The one who knows is in control. Kevin followed Jesus Christ. His favorite SCB tune, of course, was the one with the longest bass solo in it! * “Get Ready” was a staple in the band’s set through six albums and eleven years. We closed the show with it even to the last concert. The song is a proclamation of the return of Christ and perhaps the mission statement of Sweet Comfort Band. Get Ready!
If our choice of food is any indication of who we are, “Kev” was an all meat burrito with extra sauce and a big gulp. But he was an evangelist above all. When I met him in 1972, he was doing a home bible study. I was a nominal student at Southern California College in Costa Mesa, and a clean cut run away from the east coast. He had an “afro” back then, and when coming to see me, stood out on the Christian campus like a hippie at the museum. The Jesus movement had caught fire in Southern California by then. I was singing solo at the circus tent they called Calvary Chapel. Monday night was a big bible study night there, maybe 3000 people, who could also hear the new Jesus music bands, Love Song, Children of the Day, Bill Sprouse, and Country Faith.
He’d heard me play a couple of songs one Monday night and came to see me about singing with his brother and himself. I now don’t remember our first gig as “Sweet Comfort”, probably cause he didn’t say. But what followed was an every weekend trip to small churches, prisons, and high school lunch time concerts. Kevin was the booking agent, manager, and driver of the Winnebago, also the head roadie! He lifted all the heavy stuff, prided himself on his strength. Usually set up the P.A. system by himself, that we blew up almost every month, and in the earliest days ran the sound from the stage. I always thought the bass was too loud!
It was his vision to present the Gospel in a new way and every concert contained an evangelistic message from the Bass player! Sweet Comfort Band brought a new Jazz rock influence to Jesus Music but Kevin Thomson was pure hard rock at heart. Listening to bands like Mountain and Moby Grape. It wasn’t that he hated ballads so much as he just had an aversion to Whole notes. (too much down time for the bass player). You’ll notice in the song “I Love You With My Life”, the biggest Sweet Comfort Band Ballad of our career, that the bass line bounces all the way through, much like Kevin in real time.
In concert, he would often deliver his favorite message. The story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, he would elaborate upon the size of the Roman soldiers and all their gear, who came to take Jesus, “but when Jesus said “I am” the soldiers fell backwards on their backs.” He would quote from scripture. “Jesus didn’t have to die for us” he would say “he could have just called out his name over and over and the troops would have gotten tired and gone home”.
You could see Kevin’s inner strength most when he spoke of Jesus. “Jesus wasn’t a wimp” he would say. “Nobody takes a beating like that and then carries a cross most of the way to his own crucifixion”. In Kevin’s eyes, Jesus is the all knowing second person of the trinity, God in the flesh. “The one who knows”, and has all the control over life and death. He believed it, he lived it. Who knows, perhaps Kevin fell on his back too at the voice of Jesus proclamation, “I am”. There was no doubt who Kevin was listening to for the rhythm of life.
In the end Kevin had his own cross to bear and yet some thought something might be wrong with him because he never went through the depression that comes with quadriplegia. But then maybe knowledge is power here too! Kevin knew that “the one who knows is in control” even to the end of his life he was steadfast in his trust of a savior who doesn’t explain our circumstances to us. “Sweet Comfort” was the description of Kevin Thomson’s hope in Jesus. There’s a new bass solo in the heavenly angel band.