Moving an 100 year old church - via the power of rock

January 30, 2007 1:52 AM

Moving an 100 year old church - via the power of rock (YouTube page) Watching a show about buildings being moved by truck, my attention drifted towards the captivating music, from composer Daniel Pemberton. One of the gems on his MySpace page is this clip in which a 40-strong choir leads an 100-year old church as it is moved down a road, to a soundtrack akin to the Beatles or Polyphonic Spree. It's bizarre and certainly not your normal documentary fare.
posted by skylar (14 comments total)

Forget Fellini-esque.

The truckin' church was straight out of Gilliam...
posted by Samizdata at 2:10 AM on January 30, 2007

wow, totally surreal. beautiful area too, looks like iowa?

aha .. yep, iowa, but it's not clear which one it is.
posted by sergeant sandwich at 2:48 AM on January 30, 2007

Now that's what Jesus would drive.
posted by pracowity at 4:13 AM on January 30, 2007 [3 favorites]

That was really great. Love watching big stuff get moved, loved the choir, loved the silly song. Fun link, skylar!
posted by puddinghead at 5:06 AM on January 30, 2007

Fantastic!
posted by Skorgu at 5:25 AM on January 30, 2007

I especially liked the church coming over the hill at 0:33

The music was good but the lyrics not.
posted by MtDewd at 5:56 AM on January 30, 2007

That was really fantastic.

The choir, the music were great and it was filmed really well. Whoever planned those shots did an excellent job.
posted by thebigdeadwaltz at 7:16 AM on January 30, 2007

Sissies. Around these here parts we use dynamite.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 8:41 AM on January 30, 2007

I'm with Samizdata. That looked like something straight out a Flying Circus.
posted by macmac at 9:06 AM on January 30, 2007

That was amazing! I kept imagining all the city-folk fleeing as the looming hulk of religion blots out the light of their feeble sun.

*singing* "Autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of... the Decepticons!"
posted by Baby_Balrog at 10:03 AM on January 30, 2007

not bad...but youtube suggested this, which is incredibly cute...
posted by es_de_bah at 11:42 AM on January 30, 2007

More info on the church. It seems to have been somewhere in here, (actually closer to Audubon, IA), and moved to a site near Manning, which is a largely German-American community who have created a Heritage Park open-air museum centered around a traditional 350-year-old barn imported from Germany.

In any case, it was only moved 9 or 10 miles, not "hundreds" as the YT description said.
posted by dhartung at 12:21 PM on January 30, 2007

Myspace really needs to come up with a way to synchronize the flashing banner ads with the music you're listening to.
posted by !Jim at 3:22 PM on January 30, 2007

The shot at 2:22 and the one after that are the best.
Surreal. Great soundtrack.

I couldn't help but think "Choo cho! Here comes the motherfuckin' CHURCH TRAIN!"

But maybe that's because I didn't take my meds.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 8:17 AM on January 31, 2007