The Petra Zone

He destroyed the song...

Jonathan wrote:I thought Pete was a thrill to watch onstage, like the energy, the attitude. Didn't think his voice was awful. I'm not going to smother my room with his posters, but I thought he bridged the gap between Bob fairly ably.

Same here. I like to see some energy and excitement at a concert. I enjoyed it.

This kind of thing always happens when you keep going through members like a buffet bar. Sometimes you get some that don't work well with what you are trying to do. He does have his place in Petra history, but it's a place a lot of fans tend to look over. A lot of fans would just skip from No Doubt or PP2 to Revival.

I'm pretty sure John called Orta out for being in the band "for the wrong reasons," or something like that, which to me sounded like he wanted the rock lifestyle and couldn't have cared less about the ministry. Yes, an unfortunate period of Petra's history.

I saw the Pete, Lonnie, and Kevin version of Petra in 97 on the We Need Jesus tour. That night Bob showed up and got on stage with the guys and played air guitar (which made it a pretty cool show). Pete was pretty good at that show actually. Some time shortly after that they all cut their hair short and recorded "God Fixation" and nearly ruined Petra for me. It must have been the hair.

There were some pretty cool tunes on God Fixation. I think the biggest single on that one was "If I Could Die for Someone" wasn't it? Seemed to be the one the radio played the most of the time. But again we have to remember Bob was there for that album as well. So the three elements Bob, Louie and John were all still involved even then along with the E brothers.

It was just a different time, Guardian was going into some weird places during that time as well. Whitecross was hammering some hard stuff but Fly Trap seemed like an odd ball album. It was just the 90s, really weird times for music.

For the record. Pete has no health issues. No cerebral palsy no parkinson's. As for stepping away from music. Right now Pete has a ministry dedicated to kids that are "unwanted" He and his wife and kids have opened up there home and house several kids who for one reason or another have no where to go and no one who loves them. Pete has shared God's love with these teens and I commend him for what he is doing now. In Triumph is a great thing. Probably more than a lot of the one's that are dissing him are doing for God's kingdom. Pete is just a vessel doing what he knows God is telling him to do right now. As for his guitar playing and Petra is concerned. I saw them play 5 different times with Pete and each time he brought a stage presence that was missing when Ronnie and John left the band. His history with Petra shouldn't be looked over. Again he has no disease. He is just expressive. If you knew his testimony you would know Pete was in Petra for the right reasons. It wasn't to be a "rock star"

Just Sayin

CatNamedManny wrote:I'm pretty sure John called Orta out for being in the band "for the wrong reasons," or something like that, which to me sounded like he wanted the rock lifestyle and couldn't have cared less about the ministry.

I'm fairly certain the original quote you're referring to from John was regarding David Lichens' brief tenure with the band... I'd have to double check, but I'm 95% certain it was not about Pete Orta.

cndfogie wrote:For the record. Pete has no health issues. No cerebral palsy no parkinson's. As for stepping away from music. Right now Pete has a ministry dedicated to kids that are "unwanted" He and his wife and kids have opened up there home and house several kids who for one reason or another have no where to go and no one who loves them. Pete has shared God's love with these teens and I commend him for what he is doing now. In Triumph is a great thing. Probably more than a lot of the one's that are dissing him are doing for God's kingdom. Pete is just a vessel doing what he knows God is telling him to do right now. As for his guitar playing and Petra is concerned. I saw them play 5 different times with Pete and each time he brought a stage presence that was missing when Ronnie and John left the band. His history with Petra shouldn't be looked over. Again he has no disease. He is just expressive. If you knew his testimony you would know Pete was in Petra for the right reasons. It wasn't to be a "rock star"

Just Sayin

Thanks for shedding some light on the topic. He's has been doing a great job with that too. I guess we get carried away with our opinions to much that we don't know who's joking about what sometimes.

I met all the guys after a show in Lawrenceburg, Tn. and Pete was super cool. I bought his solo album some years ago and thought it was okay. It's just never been Petra without Bob, at least to me. Nothing can be taken away from Pete's talent though. He is a great guitarist and pretty good vocalist. And lets not forget he actually sang lead on one song on Double Take and it is the only song on that album that I actually like. Pete's alright by me.