recap of sonshine festival 2004
oh, friends. what a weekend i've had. for real. i don't know if it was all-around the most fun year of sonshine, but it certainly had the most excitement for me:) can i tell you all about it?
the stats
i bought 2 tee shirts
4 full priced cds
got 3 cds for free
1 free dvd
1 free water bottle
i saw 24 bands
met members of 3 of those bands
got 1 autograph
heard 2 speakers
ate 6 hot dogs
drank 2 cups of fresh squeezed lemonade
saw 5 old friends
took 100 pictures
and sunburnt my neck
joy electric
joy electric is a one-man band that plays synth music.
he'd been to sonshine the past few years, so i'd seen him before. i don't have any of his cds, but i think he's kinda cool. and not many electronic bands come to sonshine anymore, so it was cool to see him as variety. he was playing on stage 3 this year. (stage 1 is where the superstars of christiam music play, stage 2 has the popular bands, and stage three has a lot of smaller name bands. as the stages go down, the bands become more and more accessible, too) he always plays stage 3, i guess. he's a well-known name and has been around forever and is big in the synth industry, i think, but it's the same kind of famous that most modern poets get. you can be poet laureate and still live in anonimity. anyway, only maybe 50 or 60 people were there, so i decided to go for the front so i could get a good picture and... well, you know. just be in front.
so i'm in front, way over to the right by the speaker. this is the show that blew my eardrums out for the rest of the weekend, incidentally. there was no moshing, which is one of the reasons i was willing to risk the front, but there was dancing. directly behind me. you know, teenage boys throwing themselves on the ground, looking scarily like they were going to honestly crack their heads open. a security guard eventually stopped them.
an hour or two later, sarah, dana, and i were walking through the convention center, which is always full of booths selling band merchandise, promoting various agendas, whatever. i saw the guy from joy electric at his table. there were maybe three or four other people there. ooo, i thought to myself. i can meet him! so i did. he was super nice. i told him i really enjoyed his set, that i thought it was nice to have something different to listen to and cool to see how electronic music outdoors worked. he smiled and humored me:) then i decided i wanted an autograph. i had some paper in my purse and was fumbling for it, but then i spotted some stickers in front of him. "je design and production" they said. bright yellow. "hey," i said, assuming they were free promotional stickers, the equivalent of giving out cards with info on them. "could you sign one of those stickers? how much do they cost? 25 cents? 50?" "oh," he said. "don't worry about it." he scrawled something illegible and handed it to me. i smiled at him:) "thanks! and thanks again for playing!"
sarah and dana laughed at me when i told them. they say the sticker probably cost $5 or something, but when i offered so little for it, he was probably too embarrassed to tell me how much it really was:) man. i'm not good at being conscientious. but it would be in keeping with the impression i got of him if he undercharged me. he people in front of me in line were digging for the last dollar or two to buy a cd and he told them not to worry about it, that it was good. i was very impressed by him.
duvall
this was the absolute personal highlight for me.
i was at stage three again the next day in the early afternoon. there were no bands i'd heard of that i wanted to see playing until 3 or 3:30. i figured i'd see what was up on stage three, since i'd been a punk and not going to see any new bands so far. the first band i saw that afternoon was mourning september. i wasn't a big fan. they were a screaming band. that would have been ok if they put on a good show, like skillet did thursday night, but this band was pretty blah and very loud and unintelligible. after they left, their fans left, and pretty much no one was left standing around. this happens a lot, because it takes a while to switch things between bands.
i thought about leaving for stage 2 at this point. i was afraid it would be an afternoon of screaming bands. sarah and dana HATE that kind of music, but they were humoring me by staying. "i'll wait," i said to myself. "if the next band sucks, we can just move on. no problem."
the guy who introed each band came on and said, "let's welcome, duvall!" one guy cheered. the maybe two or three others clapped. maybe a couple dozen people were standing around the stage, spread out. you could tell most of them had no idea who this band was. out walked a middle-aged balding man with a wide mouth, dressed inconspicuously, unlike the younger bands. he held an electric guitar. he walked up to the mic and immediately started playing and singing.
as his opening lyrics hit me, i snapped to attention and my head whipped around to stare, slack-jawed. this guy sounded exactly like the lead singer for the smoking popes, a band i started getting into about a year and a half ago and have since fallen head over heels in love with. "could it be?" i thought. i knew the lead singer was a christian because of something he said on their live album. but at the same time, i know there are a lot of christian bands that sound almost indistinguishable from bands you hear all the time on the radio. regardless of whether this was the same guy, i knew i loved this band.
the first song ended and a drummer and bass player walked out. i decided i couldn't keep sitting way back, listening. i had to walk up front. i could've gone up far enough to lean up agains the stage and sill have plenty of elbow room, but the crowd was so sparse it didn't seem worth it. there were three guys in front of me who seemed familiar with the music, and one outspoken guy behind me, but otherwise, this was new to all of us. i spent the entire concert debating with myself. eventually, i was virtually convinced that this was the guy (even the distinctive sound of his composing was the same), but there was no way i could be sure. i decided after the show to go to the convention center to try to find him and ask. in the mean time, i had to bite my tongue to keep from yelling out a smoking popes song as a request. especially "i know that you love me," which is my favorite of their songs, and also one that the lead singer once said was his favorite because it was about his relationship with jesus.
then. oh friends. then.
he played it. he played the song i had been wanting to request. and i knew that this was him, the lead singer from one of my favorite bands i've just been getting into. i started bouncing up and down and grinning like a fool, singing along, since i knew all the words. maybe five or six times throughout the song, noticing me singing along like a nerd:) each time, he just glanced at me, but then smiled as he looked away. i felt good, because i knew that he knew then that he had another fan out there, not just a person bored enough to stand there for an hour and stare into space.
after the show, i walked back to where sarah and dana were sitting in their folding chairs, reading their magazines. i crouched down, eyes wide, and said, "do you KNOW who that was???" they didn't:) i'm a bit more into music than most of my friends. even after i told them, they were a lot more impressed by how excited i was than what we'd just seen. they'd never heard of the smoking popes. i grabbed my money and headed for the convention center to see what was going on at their merch table.
i wound up buying a cool tee-shirt, a $5 smoking popes tribute album and the duvall debut album ($10).
i was disappointed that the person selling this stuff was a random woman volunteering, not a member of the band. but i was still on such a high that i didn't care too much. i turned away as i put my purchases into the beach bag i was carrying around, then looked up only to see the lead singer right there, at my elbow, back turned. he'd just come over, i guess, and was talking to the three guys who'd stood in front of me at the concert who knew his music pretty well. i put my hand on his arm when there was a pause in the conversation, just to let him know i was there. he turned around and smiled in a friendly fashion. and me? what did i do?
i gushed. i mean, big time gushed. i don't remember what i said too well, but i know i told him how glad i was that i happened to be at stage three when i was and that i was excited to see the lead singer of a band i love is doing christian music and then said some stuff about the song "i know that you love me." he smiled at me, amused:) "yeah," he said. "i saw you smiling during that song."
i didn't have the presence of mind to ask for a picture or autograph. but that's ok. i met the flipping former lead singer/songwriter for the smoking popes.
relient k, of course. they're very funny and dancable. they had a christmas theme to their set:) this was funny, as it was about 90 and the sun was beating down, frying our skin.
oh, petra. petra rocked HARDCORE this year. i saw them two or three years ago and was utterly unimpressed and disappointed. they're old school christian rock, with their popularity peak being in the 80s. the album of theirs i know best is from '87 or '88. they've been around for 32 years, though. i guess they've had so many band member changes throughout the years that at times, they've had no original members. that's how it was when i saw them before. i didn't even recognize the singer's voice, and they did no songs i knew.
this year was different. the founder of the band and super great guitarist who's in and out was there (first time at this festival in 10 years, he said) and i recognized the singer. AND they did two or three of my favorite old school petra songs. they sounded SO guns and roses. and the crowd got into it and it was these old guys on stage just rocking out and i LOVED it.
this is the founder guy. he looks to me like he should be in the greatful dead:)
kj 52 was pretty good. better than john reuben, anyway. kj did some really fun/funny 80s and early 90s throwback stuff. he wasn't an artist then (this was more about what he was like in junior high in the 80s, or sampling vanilla ice). he also has a great song about being addicted to mountain dew than entailed lots of air punching and stuff.
the insyderz is a ska band. they were one of my favorites my fist summer at sonshine, in '99. this reminded me a lot of that year. it was dry again, so huge dust clouds rose out of the mosh pit. luckily, this year i knew enough to stay out.
bleach was always another of my favorite bands to watch, always. i've never really cared for their albums, but they're super fun in concert. you can tell they're having lots of fun and that they like their fans and they put on this very rock star show... i love it. sadly, this was the last time i'll probably every get to see them:( they're breaking up, due to deaths and illnesses in their families. they've reprioritized. the lead singer ended the show by climbing on top of a huge speaker and jumping into the crowd:) i was close enough that i got pushed into the mass of fans gathering to make sure he was caught. this made me nervous:)
they have a music video i love. it's for their song "we are tomorrow." check it out sometime, if you get the chance. you get a good feeling for the band there.
the drummer from bleach filled in for holland's drummer. he was amazingly fun to watch while he played. not many drummers are so much fun to watch. skillet's was too, but i didn't get any good pictures of her. skillet's a screaming band with two (that's TWO) women--one on drums, one on bass and keyboard. and they were hardcore, both of them. you scarcely saw their faces, because they head banged a lot.
skillet was on stage one, at night even, this year. this is because they recently signed a mainstream contract and are touring with saliva and have a song that's #32 on the rock charts.
a festival not quite like the others...
i went with sarah and dana, two old friends/roommates from college. we camped out in tent city
a lot of people go to sonshine
and, ok, so it's mostly teenagers
but at least there's a wide variety of teenagers.
...and a few rogue college grads who aren't youth directors.
so i did a poll a while back on christian music a while back, for those of you who'll remember. i think this is a really interesting topic to discuss. the thing is, i don't really like that "christian music" is a genre. it's not a genre the way that emo or folk or rock are genres. christian music is, aside from maybe christmas music, the old genre defined by lyrics and intention. this makes it hard to define in typical terms. i respect people who say they like or don't like christian music because they like or dislike christian lyrics, but it's a huge pet peeve of mine when people say they flat out hate all christian music because they don't like the way it sounds. this is a dead give-away of ignorance. back in the 80s and even early 90s, this would've been an acceptable answer, but you can't say this today. you just CAN'T. give me a mainstream band and i'll give you the christian equivilant.
which leads us to another thing i have to say about a lot of christian music. because of what it is and because of some bands' aims, a legitimate criticism of some christian music is that it isn't very original. of course, i don't think this is any more true of christian music than any other industry. i heard a new band this weekend called hawk anderson or something, and they sounded to me just exactly like sum 41 or some other pop-punk band. the fact is, sometimes this is purposeful.
there are a lot of agendas in the christian music industry. the one i think most people leap to is evangelism, but i don't think i'd call that the main aim i've seen, although i can't say there isn't any music with that aim. a lot of christian music is written to be encouragment for people who are already christians. the bands write about their own struggles often times, things like that. this may be my favorite type of christian music, lyrically speaking. it's typically the most honest and often really original and touching. examples of this would be pedro the lion and duvall and switchfoot.
perhaps along that same vein is praise worship and scriptural music. i don't think this is written for evangelism. these are the modern day hymns.
i have a fair number of strong christian friends who have personal vendettas against christian music. they tend to think of it as pushing religion on people. again, i think this is a misconception. a lot of mainstream christian music scarcely if ever mentions God. however, it also isn't as negative as a lot of mainstream music is. mxpx is a good example of this.
some people say they don't like christian music because the quality is generally low. i don't know if this is any truer for christian music than the rest of the music industry. i do think the christian music industry can be easier to get your start in and it's really supportive, so there's that. also, i think some musicians are evangelists first, musicians second. others are musicians first. you can tell these two types apart usually because those who are musicians first tend to have songs that are more ambiguous sometimes. i don't think one is better than the other, of course.
and i think it would be hard to be a christian music artist. there's a lot of pressure to live a life that's hard to live. i mean, they have the same things in their lives to struggle with, basically, as we all do daily. but when they have a lapse in judgement, a hard period in their lives when they start to question things, it becomes a much bigger deal.
tomorrow after work, i'm going to chicago with dad to get my work visa for china. i'm really excited, cause my cousin sandy (who visited here a few weeks ago) emailed to say that she'll take me to the chinese consulate and hang out with me:) you know, lunch, the park, maybe a museum... i heart museums. man, who cares that i've got nothing going on on my birthday. the week before will have been like a birthday party times a million.
the stats
i bought 2 tee shirts
4 full priced cds
got 3 cds for free
1 free dvd
1 free water bottle
i saw 24 bands
met members of 3 of those bands
got 1 autograph
heard 2 speakers
ate 6 hot dogs
drank 2 cups of fresh squeezed lemonade
saw 5 old friends
took 100 pictures
and sunburnt my neck
joy electric
joy electric is a one-man band that plays synth music.
he'd been to sonshine the past few years, so i'd seen him before. i don't have any of his cds, but i think he's kinda cool. and not many electronic bands come to sonshine anymore, so it was cool to see him as variety. he was playing on stage 3 this year. (stage 1 is where the superstars of christiam music play, stage 2 has the popular bands, and stage three has a lot of smaller name bands. as the stages go down, the bands become more and more accessible, too) he always plays stage 3, i guess. he's a well-known name and has been around forever and is big in the synth industry, i think, but it's the same kind of famous that most modern poets get. you can be poet laureate and still live in anonimity. anyway, only maybe 50 or 60 people were there, so i decided to go for the front so i could get a good picture and... well, you know. just be in front.
so i'm in front, way over to the right by the speaker. this is the show that blew my eardrums out for the rest of the weekend, incidentally. there was no moshing, which is one of the reasons i was willing to risk the front, but there was dancing. directly behind me. you know, teenage boys throwing themselves on the ground, looking scarily like they were going to honestly crack their heads open. a security guard eventually stopped them.
an hour or two later, sarah, dana, and i were walking through the convention center, which is always full of booths selling band merchandise, promoting various agendas, whatever. i saw the guy from joy electric at his table. there were maybe three or four other people there. ooo, i thought to myself. i can meet him! so i did. he was super nice. i told him i really enjoyed his set, that i thought it was nice to have something different to listen to and cool to see how electronic music outdoors worked. he smiled and humored me:) then i decided i wanted an autograph. i had some paper in my purse and was fumbling for it, but then i spotted some stickers in front of him. "je design and production" they said. bright yellow. "hey," i said, assuming they were free promotional stickers, the equivalent of giving out cards with info on them. "could you sign one of those stickers? how much do they cost? 25 cents? 50?" "oh," he said. "don't worry about it." he scrawled something illegible and handed it to me. i smiled at him:) "thanks! and thanks again for playing!"
sarah and dana laughed at me when i told them. they say the sticker probably cost $5 or something, but when i offered so little for it, he was probably too embarrassed to tell me how much it really was:) man. i'm not good at being conscientious. but it would be in keeping with the impression i got of him if he undercharged me. he people in front of me in line were digging for the last dollar or two to buy a cd and he told them not to worry about it, that it was good. i was very impressed by him.
duvall
this was the absolute personal highlight for me.
i was at stage three again the next day in the early afternoon. there were no bands i'd heard of that i wanted to see playing until 3 or 3:30. i figured i'd see what was up on stage three, since i'd been a punk and not going to see any new bands so far. the first band i saw that afternoon was mourning september. i wasn't a big fan. they were a screaming band. that would have been ok if they put on a good show, like skillet did thursday night, but this band was pretty blah and very loud and unintelligible. after they left, their fans left, and pretty much no one was left standing around. this happens a lot, because it takes a while to switch things between bands.
i thought about leaving for stage 2 at this point. i was afraid it would be an afternoon of screaming bands. sarah and dana HATE that kind of music, but they were humoring me by staying. "i'll wait," i said to myself. "if the next band sucks, we can just move on. no problem."
the guy who introed each band came on and said, "let's welcome, duvall!" one guy cheered. the maybe two or three others clapped. maybe a couple dozen people were standing around the stage, spread out. you could tell most of them had no idea who this band was. out walked a middle-aged balding man with a wide mouth, dressed inconspicuously, unlike the younger bands. he held an electric guitar. he walked up to the mic and immediately started playing and singing.
as his opening lyrics hit me, i snapped to attention and my head whipped around to stare, slack-jawed. this guy sounded exactly like the lead singer for the smoking popes, a band i started getting into about a year and a half ago and have since fallen head over heels in love with. "could it be?" i thought. i knew the lead singer was a christian because of something he said on their live album. but at the same time, i know there are a lot of christian bands that sound almost indistinguishable from bands you hear all the time on the radio. regardless of whether this was the same guy, i knew i loved this band.
the first song ended and a drummer and bass player walked out. i decided i couldn't keep sitting way back, listening. i had to walk up front. i could've gone up far enough to lean up agains the stage and sill have plenty of elbow room, but the crowd was so sparse it didn't seem worth it. there were three guys in front of me who seemed familiar with the music, and one outspoken guy behind me, but otherwise, this was new to all of us. i spent the entire concert debating with myself. eventually, i was virtually convinced that this was the guy (even the distinctive sound of his composing was the same), but there was no way i could be sure. i decided after the show to go to the convention center to try to find him and ask. in the mean time, i had to bite my tongue to keep from yelling out a smoking popes song as a request. especially "i know that you love me," which is my favorite of their songs, and also one that the lead singer once said was his favorite because it was about his relationship with jesus.
then. oh friends. then.
he played it. he played the song i had been wanting to request. and i knew that this was him, the lead singer from one of my favorite bands i've just been getting into. i started bouncing up and down and grinning like a fool, singing along, since i knew all the words. maybe five or six times throughout the song, noticing me singing along like a nerd:) each time, he just glanced at me, but then smiled as he looked away. i felt good, because i knew that he knew then that he had another fan out there, not just a person bored enough to stand there for an hour and stare into space.
after the show, i walked back to where sarah and dana were sitting in their folding chairs, reading their magazines. i crouched down, eyes wide, and said, "do you KNOW who that was???" they didn't:) i'm a bit more into music than most of my friends. even after i told them, they were a lot more impressed by how excited i was than what we'd just seen. they'd never heard of the smoking popes. i grabbed my money and headed for the convention center to see what was going on at their merch table.
i wound up buying a cool tee-shirt, a $5 smoking popes tribute album and the duvall debut album ($10).
i was disappointed that the person selling this stuff was a random woman volunteering, not a member of the band. but i was still on such a high that i didn't care too much. i turned away as i put my purchases into the beach bag i was carrying around, then looked up only to see the lead singer right there, at my elbow, back turned. he'd just come over, i guess, and was talking to the three guys who'd stood in front of me at the concert who knew his music pretty well. i put my hand on his arm when there was a pause in the conversation, just to let him know i was there. he turned around and smiled in a friendly fashion. and me? what did i do?
i gushed. i mean, big time gushed. i don't remember what i said too well, but i know i told him how glad i was that i happened to be at stage three when i was and that i was excited to see the lead singer of a band i love is doing christian music and then said some stuff about the song "i know that you love me." he smiled at me, amused:) "yeah," he said. "i saw you smiling during that song."
i didn't have the presence of mind to ask for a picture or autograph. but that's ok. i met the flipping former lead singer/songwriter for the smoking popes.
relient k, of course. they're very funny and dancable. they had a christmas theme to their set:) this was funny, as it was about 90 and the sun was beating down, frying our skin.
oh, petra. petra rocked HARDCORE this year. i saw them two or three years ago and was utterly unimpressed and disappointed. they're old school christian rock, with their popularity peak being in the 80s. the album of theirs i know best is from '87 or '88. they've been around for 32 years, though. i guess they've had so many band member changes throughout the years that at times, they've had no original members. that's how it was when i saw them before. i didn't even recognize the singer's voice, and they did no songs i knew.
this year was different. the founder of the band and super great guitarist who's in and out was there (first time at this festival in 10 years, he said) and i recognized the singer. AND they did two or three of my favorite old school petra songs. they sounded SO guns and roses. and the crowd got into it and it was these old guys on stage just rocking out and i LOVED it.
this is the founder guy. he looks to me like he should be in the greatful dead:)
kj 52 was pretty good. better than john reuben, anyway. kj did some really fun/funny 80s and early 90s throwback stuff. he wasn't an artist then (this was more about what he was like in junior high in the 80s, or sampling vanilla ice). he also has a great song about being addicted to mountain dew than entailed lots of air punching and stuff.
the insyderz is a ska band. they were one of my favorites my fist summer at sonshine, in '99. this reminded me a lot of that year. it was dry again, so huge dust clouds rose out of the mosh pit. luckily, this year i knew enough to stay out.
bleach was always another of my favorite bands to watch, always. i've never really cared for their albums, but they're super fun in concert. you can tell they're having lots of fun and that they like their fans and they put on this very rock star show... i love it. sadly, this was the last time i'll probably every get to see them:( they're breaking up, due to deaths and illnesses in their families. they've reprioritized. the lead singer ended the show by climbing on top of a huge speaker and jumping into the crowd:) i was close enough that i got pushed into the mass of fans gathering to make sure he was caught. this made me nervous:)
they have a music video i love. it's for their song "we are tomorrow." check it out sometime, if you get the chance. you get a good feeling for the band there.
the drummer from bleach filled in for holland's drummer. he was amazingly fun to watch while he played. not many drummers are so much fun to watch. skillet's was too, but i didn't get any good pictures of her. skillet's a screaming band with two (that's TWO) women--one on drums, one on bass and keyboard. and they were hardcore, both of them. you scarcely saw their faces, because they head banged a lot.
skillet was on stage one, at night even, this year. this is because they recently signed a mainstream contract and are touring with saliva and have a song that's #32 on the rock charts.
a festival not quite like the others...
i went with sarah and dana, two old friends/roommates from college. we camped out in tent city
a lot of people go to sonshine
and, ok, so it's mostly teenagers
but at least there's a wide variety of teenagers.
...and a few rogue college grads who aren't youth directors.
so i did a poll a while back on christian music a while back, for those of you who'll remember. i think this is a really interesting topic to discuss. the thing is, i don't really like that "christian music" is a genre. it's not a genre the way that emo or folk or rock are genres. christian music is, aside from maybe christmas music, the old genre defined by lyrics and intention. this makes it hard to define in typical terms. i respect people who say they like or don't like christian music because they like or dislike christian lyrics, but it's a huge pet peeve of mine when people say they flat out hate all christian music because they don't like the way it sounds. this is a dead give-away of ignorance. back in the 80s and even early 90s, this would've been an acceptable answer, but you can't say this today. you just CAN'T. give me a mainstream band and i'll give you the christian equivilant.
which leads us to another thing i have to say about a lot of christian music. because of what it is and because of some bands' aims, a legitimate criticism of some christian music is that it isn't very original. of course, i don't think this is any more true of christian music than any other industry. i heard a new band this weekend called hawk anderson or something, and they sounded to me just exactly like sum 41 or some other pop-punk band. the fact is, sometimes this is purposeful.
there are a lot of agendas in the christian music industry. the one i think most people leap to is evangelism, but i don't think i'd call that the main aim i've seen, although i can't say there isn't any music with that aim. a lot of christian music is written to be encouragment for people who are already christians. the bands write about their own struggles often times, things like that. this may be my favorite type of christian music, lyrically speaking. it's typically the most honest and often really original and touching. examples of this would be pedro the lion and duvall and switchfoot.
perhaps along that same vein is praise worship and scriptural music. i don't think this is written for evangelism. these are the modern day hymns.
i have a fair number of strong christian friends who have personal vendettas against christian music. they tend to think of it as pushing religion on people. again, i think this is a misconception. a lot of mainstream christian music scarcely if ever mentions God. however, it also isn't as negative as a lot of mainstream music is. mxpx is a good example of this.
some people say they don't like christian music because the quality is generally low. i don't know if this is any truer for christian music than the rest of the music industry. i do think the christian music industry can be easier to get your start in and it's really supportive, so there's that. also, i think some musicians are evangelists first, musicians second. others are musicians first. you can tell these two types apart usually because those who are musicians first tend to have songs that are more ambiguous sometimes. i don't think one is better than the other, of course.
and i think it would be hard to be a christian music artist. there's a lot of pressure to live a life that's hard to live. i mean, they have the same things in their lives to struggle with, basically, as we all do daily. but when they have a lapse in judgement, a hard period in their lives when they start to question things, it becomes a much bigger deal.
tomorrow after work, i'm going to chicago with dad to get my work visa for china. i'm really excited, cause my cousin sandy (who visited here a few weeks ago) emailed to say that she'll take me to the chinese consulate and hang out with me:) you know, lunch, the park, maybe a museum... i heart museums. man, who cares that i've got nothing going on on my birthday. the week before will have been like a birthday party times a million.