| | So Friday and Saturday my sister and I went to Purple Door (a Christian rock festival @ Ski Roundtop in Lewisberry, PA)... It was pretty sweet... Friday night we got there a little late, but we caught The Apathy Eulogy on the Gallery Stage. They were phenomenal. They won some kind of local band contest to get to play there, but I had previously heard of them from Sara Shiveler, Kelsey Nielsen, and my friend Reuben, who did some of their photography. They have a great acoustic sound with dual vocalists. I bought their CD and a t-shirt. Next we headed to the main stage and saw The Showdown, which is a pretty good Southern metal band... They're very weird live, but they play good music... I was in the pit for most of their show, and then headed to the merch tables to check out what was for sale... For anyone who has never been to Purple Door, it's outside on a ski slope and the merch tables are in the lodge... Ski lodges aren't air conditioned... There are thousands of people there... Needless to say, it was very hot in the merch room, and I hadn't had much to drink that day... I started to feel dehydrated, so I told Amanda I needed to go buy water... About halfway to the door, I whited out and couldn't see anything, so I grabbed hold of a nearby table... Next thing I knew, I was laying on the floor with people bending over me asking me if I was okay. I had passed out and busted my head on the table... I had to go to the first aid area and get patched up... They said I should probably get stitches, but I decided to just go with liquid band-aid so I could get going quicker... I missed Cool Hand Luke's whole set while I was in there, and then went to look for my sister... I was standing by the Gallery Stage scanning the crowd during House of Heroes' set when Amanda walks up behind Matt Thiessen (the lead singer of Relient K) We got our picture taken with him and he signed my injury form. Later on I got The Showdown to sign my injury slip too, which they thought was pretty cool... After House of Heroes' show, we headed down to the main stage for Anberlin and Relient K. Anberlin was amazing! I was so mad I couldn't go in the pit, but they were pretty fun to watch and I knew all the lyrics anyway, so it was still a good show... Relient K closed the evening with an hour and a half long set, including covers of Head Over Heels by Tears for Fears and Sloop John B by The Beach Boys... As usual, they played Sadie Hawkins Dance in the encore, which is always fun, especially when there are a lot of the old fans (pre-top 40 days) there, which is definitely the case at Purple Door, and it was even better because they asked the crowd if anyone knew how to play it on guitar and had a kid come up and play Matt's guitar for the last chorus and believe it or not he was actually pretty good... We got home around 12:30 because the traffic getting out was so bad, so it was decided that Dad would drive us from the hotel on Saturday... Saturday morning we got there just in time to see The Wedding at the HM Stage... They make good music, but their frontman is not much of an entertainer... He has this weird hunchback stance and he does basically the same thing all the time... It's a good thing their guitarist is more of a showman, or it wouldn't have been a very good show... At 10:30 we went to the Gallery Stage and saw most of Farewell Flight's show... I like them a lot, and so did Amanda, so we bought both of their CDs and Amanda got a shirt... After that we saw Inhale Exhale back at the HM Stage... Their guitarist used to be in Narcissus, their drummer used to be in Last Tuesday, and their singer used to be in Widdlesworth... They had a guest bass player because their old bass player (Brian Pittman from Relient K) has left the band... It was a pretty good show, especially considering all their recent lineup changes and that I heard their old frontman was better... Next we caught August Burns Red, who are apparently getting to be pretty famous. We got the re-release of their first album (with a bonus DVD) and their newest album and a pair of flip-flops, because I needed flip-flops, I like them, and I thought the idea of band flip-flops was pretty cool... After August Burns Red we watched the end of John Reuben's show at the main stage (I know, a rapper at a rock festival, weird, right?) He's a funny guy and I love his totally anti-thug approach to hip-hop, so I figured I'd show some support and bought a t-shirt and we got our picture taken with him... Following that, we headed back to the HM stage and saw The Devil Wears Prada (they were named after the book before the movie came out). They put on a sweet show, and they were selling pre-release copies of their newest album for $10, so we bought one... We stayed there for the beginning of The Chariot's set, which was intense... Josh Scogin (formerly of Norma Jean) is their frontman, and he is INSANE! After a few songs, we ran down and saw Disciple at the main stage... I like their music, their singer was really spiritual between songs, and it was a more worshipful approach then most (as opposed to just saying Jesus loves all of you no matter what you've done and so do we like most of the bands), but he was pitchy in places, so it wasn't as good as I had hoped... When they were done, we got back to the HM Stage for Haste the Day and Norma Jean. Haste the Day was good, but you could definitely tell the difference between the new singer's voice and the old one's when they played the older stuff... Norma Jean was AWESOME! Josh Scogin from the Chariot came out and did Memphis Will Be Laid To Waste with them, and Aaron Weiss from mewithoutYou came out and hugged everybody on stage, but didn't actually do his part, which was kinda weird, but it was a great show! We ate dinner, and then saw Derek Webb at the Gallery Stage... He used to be the lead guitarist for Caedmon's Call, but now he is a folk singer... He had some really good lyrics such as: my first allegiance is not to a flag, a country, or a man
my first allegiance is not to democracy or blood
it's to a king & a kingdom
there are two great lies that i’ve heard:
“the day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die”
and that Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class republican from "A King & A Kingdom" He also said that the two greatest commandments are love God and love your neighbor, but often it seems like Christians in America don't give a s*** about people dying without Jesus in Africa, and in fact, most of us are more offended by his saying that word than that they are dying by the thousands every day for lack of water and food, mostly without Jesus... After Derek Webb, we went to the main stage for the closing show and saw As Cities Burn (who were really good, showing both metal and mellow and being very spiritual throughout the show), Red (who I thought weren't very hardcore til I saw them live and the lead singer got his head cut open by the guitarist spinning his guitar around his neck... The same guitarist later ran out to the pit, jumped around for a while, then ran back on stage), Leeland (who are a great worship band... the lead singer is only 19 and he had the crowd at a hard rock show singing hymns and gave a salvation message), Family Force 5 (who had both breakdancing and mosh pits, were absolutely insane, really weird, played well-known samples from popular dance music at the beginning of each song, and then had Phatty pray to end their set), and mewithoutYou (basically the most unique band in history with some phenomenal lyrics and compelling stage presence)... Apparently Family Force 5 is a lot bigger than I thought they were, because there was a huge line for getting autographs from them in which you weren't allowed to stop to take pictures or anything... Overall, it was an amazing two days and I can't wait for next year... I also got a Family Force 5 t-shirt and an HM magazine shirt that said "Worship At Full Volume" and has a picture of a Christian metal singer praying on stage... Amanda got a shirt from To Write Love On Her Arms and a shirt that said "High Five if You Love Jesus"... On Saturday I acquired a taste for citrus Aquafina FlavorSplash... We helped tear down after the show while we waited for dad to get there from the hotel... It was so much fun! I only wish I hadn't busted my head! I'll get pictures up on Facebook eventually... Speaking of Facebook, did you know it was the cover story of the most recent issue of Newsweek? Apparently since they opened it up to non-college students it's been growing exponentially, and even faster since the applications, and the Harvard-dropout founder is making millions off of it... They're supposed to go public with stock sometime soon, and this eventuality is being compared to the opening up of Google stock... I just thought that was interesting... I put links to all the bands' myspaces (or websites or purevolumes if they didn't have one) and to the article and magazines and festival site, hotel site, etc... If you're interested, look them up, if not, it's your loss (the bands anyway) I love you all, even though no one commented my last post (just kidding, it wasn't that interesting anyway)...
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