The missing bridge on “Creed”

[CanadianFan]

So I just saw Petra in concert on their 50th anniversary tour, and it was amazing. But I really missed the bridge on “Creed,” which was always one of my favourite parts of the song.

I went back to the “Farewell” album and realized it’s not there as well, and according to another post on this form, they’ve played it without the bridge for years.

My question is: does anyone have a sense of why? It’s hard to argue that this song is better musically without the bridge. Were there any words in there they wanted to distance themselves from, theologically? Really curious if anyone has any information on what might be behind the change.

[dihigo]

Hmm...interesting. I've never considered this. I had to listen to the original off Beyond Belief and then the live version from Farewell, and indeed, the bridge is missing!

Perhaps they were looking to tighten up some of the songs for their live set as they do for their rock medley. Either that or John simply forgot the words.

[p-freak]

Quite sure there's nothing theological about this. During Farewell they changed the song substantially because they didn't have a keyboard player. Perhaps that is why they dropped the bridge. Now that Johnny's back on tour, they are doing the original intro again, but perhaps the Farewell arrangement just stuck around and they decided not to spend the time on getting a new arrangement in place since it was probably already difficult enough to fix all the arrangements for the whole setlist to accommodate for a keyboard. Or maybe they were now just so used to the song in this arrangement that they forgot about the bridge.

[Mountain Man]

"Creed" needs the bridge and the guitar solo. The song just doesn't flow right without it.

[Dan]

The bridge was removed in 1998 possibly, video from Alive 2000 shows the way they played it.

[George Harrison]

The bridge and guitar solo are the best parts...