First of the year in the bag....

Winter Slam 2011!!!!!  A great way to kick off the new year.  The weekend for the kids is comprised of worship, teaching, skiing, snowboarding, and not sleeping.  The weekend for the band consisted of an early departure from Buffalo,  leaving all the snow,  playing, eating, and also not sleeping. 

Apart from that,  it was a great weekend for us to get in the swing of things again,  after recording the EP,  getting through the holidays,  it had been months since we'd gone out for a proper gig with traveling, full load in, etc.  The production company on the show, Legacy Productions was top notch.  Let's get some tech nerd stuff out of the way:  Main PA consisted of JBL Vertec 4887 line array modules, ground stacked on VRX subs.  House console was a Yamaha M7CL.  A nice departure from the normal was that they carry Sennheiser 900 series vocal mics, so I was able to have anth and chris on 945 mics for the weekend.  There wasn't a monitor console, so I ran our ears off of the house console.  System sounded good, I had plenty of headroom,  and no mispatched inputs when we started!  Only thing I would have changed would have been to fly the PA, but there was no way to accommodate that.

Ok, enough gear talk.  The first night went real well.  Probably the best first night the guys played in quite a while.  The kids were into it, and sang really loud the whole weekend.  There's something about these events, no matter where we play them that is really special.  Some think they're gimmicky,  or just hype, getting kids on a spiritual sugar high.  I'd have to disagree.  We love doing these weekends because it gives us time to hang out with everyone, and just get a feel for the climate of the group.  A guy came up to Chris Saturday morning,  and thanked Chris for "doing that worship thing last night..." he got really into it,  and actually sang,  he never sang at a church service before.  That's what it's about.  That guy took an opportunity to express his love towards God in way he hadn't before.  Is he going to sing at every church service he goes to now?  I have no idea,  but I hope he continues to push those boundaries, and step outside of his "normal" zone.  It's awesome to be just a small part of that.  As the weekend went on, everyone sang louder and louder, and got more and more into what was happening.  It was pretty obvious there were a lot of kids having step outside the box moments.

During the down time,  it was a great time to meet some great people,  and start some great relationships. I already mentioned the guys from Legacy Productions,  what a great time with them,  getting to hear their stories and how close our missions/purposes are.  Jason Mitchell the speaker is awesome.  He's great to hang out with and joke around with.  What was on his heart was really easy to grasp,  He sent the tone Friday night,  and led the weekend to some great places. 

 All in all it was one of those weekends that ended too early.  If any of the kids read this,  please know how much we all enjoyed hanging out with you guys.  We had so much fun,  and were really encouraged every time one of you had something to say about how God was working in your life that weekend.

Some of the goofier stuff?  The weekend was pretty tame i guess.  we had fun saturday night eating pizza and joking around with everyone.  I enjoyed my debut as a hoodie customization artist.  Pete and Justin went snowboarding, and j shot some video on his iphone,  hopefully he'll post some of that, i found it funny to see peter doing something athletic,   and justin falling all the while not letting his phone hit the snow.

Thanks everyone that was out for the weekend,  come see us again soon when we're around again.

P.S.    Talking with alot of the kids this weekend about gear has inspired me to write a gear head blog about the gear all of us use in the band.  Stay tuned for that,  and thanks for stopping by.

OK Let's do this thing.....

Hey all,  I guess this has been coming for a while, since I've told people to count on it happening at some point.  I think one of the main focuses of this blog will be with the adventures ahead with the Brothers Mcclurg,  as we start to travel more,  and I guess,  take our ministry to the next level as we travel more,  and get ready for the band's first release on Integrity Records.  Chris in particular has been pushing/prodding/encouraging/bugging me to keep a better written record of what goes on with us on our trips.  I will write about other stuff as well.  I hope people I don't have the pleasure of talking with all the time will read this and I guess get filled in on some of the details that I guess gets left out of small talk or text messages.

I don't know what this will look like exactly....My role as "production manager" and "fill in guitar player" has brought me to a level of involvement with the band that i definitely welcome, but never anticipated, especially 5 years ago when this whole thing started - to go from just wanting to do a couple shows again with some great friends, to now traveling consistently in the North East US for two years, to now anticipating those borders expanding even beyond that, major labels, rubbing shoulders with Christian music's "icons" (I hope i get to meet Petra soon, or maybe an original Newsboy), and not having a clue what's next.  Will this train keep chugging along, or is this beast just going to stop on the tracks?  No matter what, I can't call it a failure,  because I didn't really set any goals.  I find it appropriate to quote Hunter S Thompson - "buy the ticket, take the ride".

I think my role lends a cool perspective,  I'm with the band all day,  we plan and get ready for the events,  but then most of the time,  I'm in or very near the crowd,  experiencing what it's like to be out there, instead of being blinded by the bright lights.....I hope I can illustrate both sides of these experiences.  Both are powerful, but different, and i get to observe both worlds colliding when the lights go down, and things get loud...

What I'm looking forward to with this is to make a permanent ink spot on Al Gore's internet,  and let you all know about the fun we have on the road, the great people we meet, and hopefully shed some light on how passionate we are about what we do.  It's not always pretty, it's not even all that interesting, but as Dan says, it's in our blood, so it's what we do.

First shows of the new year start this weekend.  We're heading to ski country near Pittsburgh I think....on a night the Sabres play the Penguins.....Too bad we'll miss the game due to the event.....if they have wifi,  I'll be watching at FOH :).  I'll be sure to fill you in soon.

Please enjoy,  comment if you feel like it, and hopefully I'll be seeing you soon.  Thanks for stopping by....but mostly, stay classy.