Bethel Music and KB at Open Skies Festival- Evergy Plaza, Topeka KS (2026-09-26)

Opening intro
The Blood
Back to Life
All Hail King Jesus (Jeremy Riddle cover)
Goodness of God
Center
Made for More
Holy Forever
Living Hope

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After raining most of the morning and into the afternoon, would the ‘open skies’ bring more rain or a calm overhead, for the inaugural Open Skies Festival outdoors held in downtown Topeka?

The good news was that all would go on as planned as the Open Skies Festival featuring Bethel Music and KB, got underway outdoors as scheduled at Evergy Plaza in the heart of the city. Streets were blocked off and an overflow crowd in the thousands spread from the open Pit area up front, back to sidewalks and curbs across the street.

Organized as an ‘intentional public gathering’, Open Skies was created to blend world-class live music with a family-friendly environment focused on hope, community, and faith (centered on Christian worship and messaging), but was also welcome to any and all, for a fun community night out.

Between acts, speakers like Christian Athletics advocate Chad Parks, and local undefeated boxing hero, John “The Iron Man” Cantrell (he does TV, auto glass, and many other things too) told their stories. Cantrell’s is a book/movie-worthy tale of turnaround redemption, family, and forgiveness, that would inspire even the most ardent non-believer.

The Christ-centered foundation group, AIM 5 put the event on (related to both Advisors Excel and the AIM Strategies Group that manages several key restaurants downtown). Their mission is to bring generosity and help bring awareness of God’s glory through strategic partnerships.

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Bethel Music is one of the most well-known and biggest success stories in Contemporary Christian music; and are foremost, a musical collective that adds worship, and a strong sense of community to their gatherings.

They originated more than a quarter-century ago at their non-denominational Bethel Church, in Redding, CA, by co-founders Brian and Jenn Johnson as a local church music ministry. Over the years, they’ve grown and developed into their own record label and publishing company and still have their core mission to produce corporate worship music that fosters intimate, spirit-filled experiences with God.

Latest full-length album was last year’s We Must Respond, which follows previous releases Homecoming (2021), Simple (2022) and the group brought nine musicians and one engineer, to fill out a very large-sounding ensemble.

Though their more traditional Christian music may have been more for the mature audience in the lawn chairs (vs. KB), many of the younger fans up front were happy to hold their arms high and also sing along to the verses and choruses, greatly helped by most of the lyrics shown on-screen behind the band on the venue’s big screen.

Lyrically, the band further connects with their audience, singing of faith, hope, surrender, and the ever-presence of God. Musically, they’re mostly a folk-rock band, not that dissimilar to the Mumfords, Mt Joys, and Head and The Hearts of the world, which makes them easily accessible to those not as immersed in the faith as well.

As musicians, the group was solid throughout their hour-long set, letting several vocalists contribute with their own style and allowed the songs to breathe and extend, in order to encourage further crowd participation, and to showcase the expert players, as on the full opening number, 2022’s “The Blood.”

“All Hail King Jesus” found the participatory crowd singing the chorus louder than the band and one of the group’s biggest hits, 2019’s “Goodness of God” was done mid-set. Between some numbers, they spoke of their connection to faith and encourage the audience to do an introspection as to their own personal relationship. This further helped connect their songs and performance into a larger experience that the crowd could carry with them, long after the last note of the evening was played.

“Holy Forever” was another extended communal performance, with the audience singing to the on-screen lyrics, and the closing, “Living Hope”, is a 2018 song from their Victory album that touches on salvation, grace, the resurrection of Jesus, and freedom from sin and death, all in just over five minutes.

“You have broken every chain, there’s salvation in your Name” they sang, which not only succinctly summed up their set, but also the message off the evening itself. Whatever one might think of their particular worship practices; musically, Bethel Music was spot-on and delivered their message with grace and expert attention to their craft.

The music for the evening got off to a strong start with an energetic set from Florida-based rapper, KB, in support of his newest and sixth full-length, This Cannot Be Sold, released in July via Provident Music Group/Sony Music.

Aka Kevin Burgess, he also dons additional author, podcaster, and music executive hats, leads the group HGA (His Glory Alone), and had early success after signing with Reach Records in 2010. KB also won the 2020 GMA Dove Award for Rap/Hip-Hop Album of the Year.​

With only a drummer and keyboardist/bassist joining him, he hit the stage running and immediately got the crowd on his side, waving their hands back and forth and answering the call-and-response with loud volume. KB’s vocal delivery could be as smooth as some of R&B’s best, to keeping pace with the hard-hitting beats, to a rapid-fire Twista-style high-speed verse, all in keeping with the strong message of faith with his lyrics.

Constantly in motion, he jumped, danced, and encouraged the crowd to participate along to make it a communal experience, even inviting ten or so young kids (double that rushed up) to dance on stage mid-set for “Church Clap”, his 2012 hit with Lacrae. Everyone seemed to know what to do as a Christian line dance of sorts, broke out on stage and in the crowd, all in sync.

“Not Today Satan” took a familiar phrase and turned it into a powerful and positive message and “No Chains” had CGI chain images on his backdrop, breaking with each chorus. KB did stop the music long enough to profess his love for God, strength and faith from his family and worship, and brought up themes of identity, perseverance, and giving the glory to God.​

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