The Church Organ as a Weapon of Mass Destruction

For anyone that's ever attended Sunday services at a Mormon (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) church, it's a wicked solid bet that you are NOT going to hear musical stylings like these:

I can assure you that the gospel axe isn't going to be swinging in an LDS chapel anytime soon.  Nor do we get the sounds of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir piped in, or any other LDS singer for that matter (sorry, Osmonds in any form, David Archuleta, Jericho Road, etc.).  No, it's typically a pretty staid affair on Sundays.  The organ gets fired up, a few traditional hymns are sung, a choir chimes in, and that's how it goes.

On rare occasion, an organist pops up who knows how to use the church organ as a weapon of mass destruction and I mean that in a good way.  Today was one of those days.  Every six months, all of our local wards (congregations) get together for a conference.  It's two days of meetings and they always roll out this one guy who plays the devil, as it were, out of the organ.  It's pretty much awesome.  I have no idea how the organ works, I just know that he knows what levers to push to get that organ to shake the building.  He is able to interpret the hymns in such a way that he simply destroys any bad mood you might be in and it facilitates one great feeling.  He plays the organ the way it should be played.  Kind of like this:

This much I know...our organist would not have dropped dead like the organist at the First Church of Springfield did had he been presented with an interpretation of "In A Gadda Davida."  Anyway, it was a good day for music in church today.  I like days like that.