Friday, July 8th, 2005
Day 2

After going to sleep after 1am I was rudely awakened by 5:30am.. with extreme shivers! Man, it can get cold at night. I found some extra blankets and all was well. Then by 7am the sun was out and the tent was warm.

My plan for the day, seek out some of the independent bands, morning worship with Daniel's Window, catch some shows (Yellow Second, Alethea, Mute Math, and a few others.

Worship was great. Daniel's Window led with some music, and speaker Greg Sampson gave a sermon on devotion.

After worship I waited around for the media room to open. One of the first bands to come through was Farewell June. I had a good sit down with them. it was very easy to connect and get beyond the "press" barriers. Later on I caught their show, the whole show, which is something I don't often do at festivals, and they were amazing - blues alive - that's the only way to describe it. As you can see in pic 2 they diverted to a little violin playing too. It was enough to get the attention of Alathea (Rocketown) who came out from back stage to catch part of the show.

While walking around I caught a great freestyle motocross show. (pic 4)

Now I'm back in the media room, I talked to John Reuben for a bit and Skillet just walked out the door after some radio interviews.

There's a big night ahead yet, ZOEGirl, 12 Stones, The Newsboys, Mute Math, and Daniel's Window again.

(Second Half)

Well the night wasn't as big as I thought it would be. Turns out that I have human limitations. In other words, I fell asleep. It wasn't until after getting some front row pics of ZOEGirl, but I didn't make it for the Newsboys or for Daniel's Window. I was awakened shortly by the fireworks, but I whimped out and stayed in bed.

Of course that doesn't mean the whole night was a bust. After an afternoon break I did manage to see Mute Math. Their show was like a psychodelic-electronica-experiment. Very cool. Their music doesn't really come out in standard rhythms, but more of an eclectic expression of poetry. I don't know for sure, but I think the vocalist sounds a lot like Sting. I don't know Sting's material all that well, but I got that impression once in a while.

I was able to stop in the Java Hut and catch a favorite of mine, Justin McRoberts. Last year at Lifest Justin spent a lot of time with myself and some others from the media tent. His set was very challenging because he sang and spoke about culture and the marketing of Christianity through catchy t-shirts and other commercial garbage we're being sold on. These thoughts stayed with me through the night, especially as I talked to one of the up and coming bands. We talked about how much some of the bands were getting paid to play, and how much they were likely to make in weekend sales of their merchandise.

Walking through the merch area I also had the chance to talk to Daryl Dawson, bassist for the Violet Burning. He hooked me up with their latest live CD and DVD, The Loudest Sound in My Heart. That's what I'm listening too right now as I write this (on Saturday).

So that's about it for the second day of Lifest. There is so much going on around here. It's amazing how many bands and people are here.

That's it until - well - today (Saturday).