Wednesday, August 5, 2009

3 weeks. 17,668 Miles.

Ok, so I'll absolutely admit that my blogging has been a bit lazy of late. We've been on the road for about 3 weeks straight... and when I say "on the road", I really mean "in the air". We've flown all over the place playing festivals across the country. It's been a TON of fun, but definitely tiring. I'll see what I can do to re-cap:

We started in Willmar, MN, at Sonshine Festival.... we played with Tobymac, David Crowder, Fireflight, and a few others. It was a breezy day.... coldest festival of the year for sure!

From there we moved on to Rock the River in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. This was a Franklin Graham crusade event.... it was BLAZING hot (out of the icebox, and into the fire, anyone?). Red and Flyleaf were also there.

Then, it was on to Albany, OR, where we played the Linn County Fair. Oregon is one of my favorite places, and we have quite a few friends from there, so it was fun to be back in this neck of the woods.

Speaking of "neck of the woods", our next stop was a 2 day cabin trip to a remote part of central Oregon. It was out by the Deschutes River.... So beautiful out there. We must have walked 5-6 miles a day, and biked as much as well. There's really no place quite like Oregon, whether it's the coast, or the central area... it's all gorgeous.

Perfect. World.


Not to mention Dutch Brothers, Allan Brothers, and all the great coffee shops up there! I swear there's an espresso hut every block. We dropped into one place that was particularly amazing... Sisters Coffee in Sisters, Oregon. Check it out if you're ever.... in the middle of nowhere, where Sisters is!

From there we headed up to Creation West at the gorge in Washington State. This is another of our favorite shows of the year - mostly because the scenery is just unbelievable. This is a photo of Justin at this show last year...



We played opening night at Creation West, on main stage, right before Skillet (whom we're going on tour with this fall..... you'd better be there!) The show was absolutely incredible.

Then we headed to Arlington, TX, for a show at the Six Flags theme park. We played with Family Force 5 and Pillar here. The park had recently built catwalks that we could walk FAR out into the crowd on during the show. I was pretty seriously out of breath after running around on those!

We skipped back over to California after that, to headline the side stage at Fishfest in Irvine, California. We had ANOTHER incredible show here. The side stage area was packed, and the crowd was SO good to us. California shows always seem to go so well!

From there we headed up to San Francisco to shoot a music video for our new rock single, Live Life Loud.... I haven't seen any rough edits of the video yet, but I can already tell you that I'm positive this is going to be our best video yet.

Benner is seein things clearly!Suspenders for Jay!
Biro rockin the argyle.Me and my getup.




The basic premise of the video is that we engage in a lawn-bowling competition with some elderly gentlemen.... aaaaaaand things get a little out of hand. :) I'll let you know when the video is released!

From there, we went back down to Victorville, California, for a show at a High Church Desert Powell Auditorium.... another good one!

Then we traveled up to Monterey, California, for Spirit West Coast Monterey. This was our first year on main stage (there's a pretty great Air1 rock stage that we're usually on), and the show was great... although I do admit I felt like the distance from the stage to the crowd was pretty far... We like to be up in your faces!

After this show, we flew out to St. Louis for another Rock the River show with Franklin Graham. This one was directly under the Arch!

The ArchKirk Franklin bringing everyone together under the Arch.


Flyleaf, Skillet, Kirk Franklin, and Red were also there. It was great to see our friends from Skillet again, and watching Kirk Franklin's band was a real treat. They took us to SCHOOL!

So that brings us to last night... We played SUCH a fun show in Darien Lake, NY at Kingdom Bound festival. We headlined the Park Stage, and played with Family Force 5 once more (we've been lucky enough to share the stage with them quite a few times this summer). It was fun seeing lots of Canadians at this show, seeing as it's so close to Canada!

So that's it.

This morning I'm home, recounting the events of the last few weeks. It's been pretty gruelling, to be honest.... 3 weeks, 10 flights, 4 rental van trips, 2 tour bus dates, 11 shows, 1 music video, 2 days at a cabin, and a whole lot of coffee....

All the travel adds up to 17,668 miles flown and driven. That's about 3/4 of the way around the world if traveled in the same direction. No wonder my body aches.

j.

17 comments:

christena said...

3/4 of the way around the world?WOW! that sounds tiring! i really hope i can go see you and skillet. there's like 3 tour dates around here, but they're all on school nights :( i do get to see you for the 5th time this Saturday though :]

Heidi said...

Wow! Thats a lot of traveling. I think im gunna be able to come out and see you guys with skillet this fall. Can not wait!

Anonymous said...

if you guys like to be up in our faces at Spirit West Coast, you should have done an autograph signing! that way we can see your pretty faces better, and you can see ours :) i hope i can see you guys again with alive and awake!

Summer said...

omgosh my fam goes to that church u played at in Victorville. I love it there, but I live in IL. Im so bummed I didnt get a chance to go to RTR :( I cant wait til u guys come to STL next :)

<3 you guys

Anonymous said...

I saw you guys 2x in this round: Fish Fest and SWC Monterey. You guys were amazing at Fish Fest, I actually lost my shoe during the show (but found it 30 minutes, hehe). I loved the Diet Mountain Dew freestyle, and the fact that you guys were so kind to come out for 1 more song. It was a blast. I hope you liked your chocolate covered pretzels from disneyland (sorry if they were somewhat melted, it was a scortching day that day).

SWC Monterey was pretty cool, but like you said, being so far from you was a bummer. Still, you guys rocked it and it was AWESOME. I was bummed you guys didn't do a signing because I had presents for all you guys. I guess I'll save them for when you come to Club Nokia in LA in October (so far away).

You guys are such troopers for doing all this. Know that we love and appreciate you guys for being so awesome and performing for us. That's why I got you guys gifts, to show my appreciation for all that yu guys do. Since i discovered your music my life hasn't been the same, and that's a VERy good thing.

Thanks again for all that you do, and see you in October in LA!!!

Ida Lou said...

sounds great jon!!!

graciegirl said...

WOW! i would not be able to do that!! but i guess after doin that for so many years you get used to it. :P
long blog..... lots to tell.....

you all ah gonna be back in KY soon...... yay! goin to see you when you all come. cant wait!! :D

Anonymous said...

you have to toughen up when you guys come to minnesota! granted this has been a very cool summer, every cross country runner in the state (including me) is very thankful for that! it is not fun to run in 100 degrees, or 40 for that matter. what happened to canada being the great white north? i haven't been 3/4 way around the world, but let's see if you guys can make it all the way around the world! and then come to see all of your fans in little falls, minnesota!

mich9fan3 said...

that's an awesome blog thanks for catching us up!

Jonni said...

WOW!!!!! you guys are pretty much amazing!!!

Anonymous said...

you guys were way to far from the fans at SWC. but it was still fun. next time make sure your on the air1 stage!

Anonymous said...

I agree about Spirit West Coast! You guys need to be closer. You still rocked the show this year but it loses something by being so far away! Ask to be back on Air 1 for next year.

Stephanie said...

Wow, all that but you couldn't make it to Unity, tsk, tsk. I'll just have to wait till Dec. when your in GR with Skillet

Oh, and all the cool kids play Bocce not "lawn bowling."

Unknown said...

Okay... so I can't figure out any other way to get a hold of you guys to where I can get a response back. So, I guess I'll try this. :-)

I'm a campus representative at Ohio Northern University for TOMS Shoes this coming school year. I am supposed to come up with an event raising awareness for the TOMS cause and instantly I wanted to do a big blowout with some amazing Christian bands. However, I wasn't sure who to ask. Then I saw that you guys just recently teamed up with them and I figured I might as well take a shot in the dark and ask. If you'd be interested in doing a show at my school, that would be amazing and we could work out a date after your tour is over. But if you can't, I seriously understand. There's no way to know unless I go out on a very tiny limb and ask! :)

Otherwise, have a blessed day and good luck on tour!!

Anonymous said...

wow that sounds like a lot of traveling... and i agree about SWC... do you know when the music video will be out?

britney said...

dude i saw you at swc iwas so awesome but i only got to see the end half because we saw the first half of disciple swc was insane this hear we had to perfectly time all the shows!!! too bad y'all didn't sign anything i told everyone you probably had a flight to catch and i was right!!! :D

Jessica said...

I loved you guys at Six flags (Arlington)!!! I kept on running to the end of the catwalks but security told us we couldn't stand there when you guys were right there!
I pre-ordered Live Life Loud last week and got the t-shirt and poster... I'm so excited for the new cd...