Bringing the Drama

voodoo day 3….was the best of the three. easily. it’s not even close. because of this, i can’t use the direct quote from a girl i heard “it’s like having sex on ectasy, i just won’t enjoy it as much” for the title. Sunday was THE BEST day. we arrived in time to see the end of Gym Class Heroes. they were okay, and i had no idea their hit song i had heard before was about partying with your clothes off. the preteen girls up front for Fall Out Boy got to hear about how the GCH singer could do stuff with his hands, and something about someone being sexy….i think i’ve blocked the rest out. i realized over the weekend that i’m going to be a very strict father. anyway, after GCH, we walked over to check out Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. they were okay. i’ve heard the album and it didn’t really grab me, and live they reminded me a LOT of the Violent Femmes. we left right before they finished to get a decent spot for Fall Out Boy.

sue me, FOB is a guilty pleasure album for me. i really like their newest one a lot. it’s just mindless pop rock, but i like it. their show was good, but i found it odd that the lead singer was not the spokesman for the band, the bass player was. the lead singer, Patrick, didn’t say anything but ‘Thank You’ at the end. the bass player pretty much interacted with the crowd between songs, and didn’t really say anything worth remembering, except “stay tuned for the almighty Wilco”. they did a cover of Mr Brightside, which i found strange. do they not have enough hit songs that they have to cover a 3 year old song? they closed with Thnks Fr Th Mmrs and yes….DANCE DANCE! it was great.

since we weren’t that stoked for the Black Crowes, and there wasn’t anyone worth seeing on any of the other stages at the time, we walked around the surrounding neighborhood to find a place with a tv to catch the 2nd half of the Saints game. after about 30 minutes, we finally found a place called Fellini’s. it was pretty great, they had a place to sit down, great pizza, and a widescreen tv mounted on the wall with the game. after two days of not eating dinner, their gourmet pizza tasted especially good. then came one of the best moments of the entire weekend. as we’re sitting there, a guy ran up on the curb and hit a streetcar, right out in front of the restaurant! mind you, the curb on Carrollton is probably 10 inches high, this middle aged guy ran his oldsmobile up on the curb and hit a streetcar that had come to a stop after the streetcar driver probably went “hey, wtf is this?” when we first saw it, the military cops were there questioning him, and the passengers were still waiting to figure out what would happen next. we left right as the buses got there to pick them up to make it back in time for Wilco.

to be honest, i was probably looking forward to seeing Wilco the most of every band the entire weekend. we noticed a lot of people leaving after FOB, and as we were getting back, we saw another mass exodus leaving after the Black Crowes. oh yeah, we got to go pretty far up front for Wilco. the crowd was a tiny fraction of what it had been for any of the other headliners. the show was excellent. i knew maybe half the songs, and was very surprised to hear I Got You from Being There. it’s pretty much one of the only pre-YHF songs i know, and probably my favorite off of BT. Impossible Germany was BRILLIANT! then right before Heavy Metal Drummer, Jeff (i’m kind of on a first name basis with singers) said it was a special moment, and that the next song was dedicated to Yuri from Mike. nobody knew what that was all about until they started playing the song and the graphic popped up. i uploaded the picture on Sunday night, and it’s already my most viewed picture on flickr, maybe because it’s #1 on google when doing a search about the proposal. crazy.

The Wilco show was stellar. i loved the guitar player, Nels, and the interaction of the band with each other. the guitar battle at the end during Hoodoo Voodoo was GREAT! i even finally figured out how to take better concert pictures. too bad i hadn’t learned that last week. i think now, after years of friends wanting me to turn the corner, i finally like Wilco. the day/night would have been PERFECT considering the shows, the streetcar craziness, the restaurant, but then Jacob got a ticket two blocks from my house by a cop who apparently is patrolling my neighborhood at 10:30 pm on sunday nights. (i hope his wife finds out before she finds this)

yesterday was day 2 of voodoo and should have been one of the better days. unfortunately thanks to Billy Corgan, it was tainted with the frustration of a bad show. the day started off well enough, with jacob and i hitting up the pub to watch the West Ham game, then going to the festival. we cut out on the game early to make it in time for Mute Math’s set at 1:15. their show was good, but something we’ve come to expect after seeing them multiple times. i much prefer seeing them in the HOB than at a festival, but i think that applies to every band we saw this weekend. we were able to catch Sinead O’Connor’s set, and at the time, it was the worst show we saw of the weekend. it was boring, very very boring. she finally got around to playing “Nothing Compares 2 U” about halfway through, after which point we left to go walk around. we caught Coheed and some of Ben Harper, before making our way to the stage where Spoon was going to play. jacob befriended a guy named Gibson who was quoted for the post title. he seemed like a friendly person, although very gullible when we told him the bald guy in Ben Harper’s band was Michael Stipe. he asked Jacob if we wanted to smoke a bowl for Spoon, to which Jacob declined. Spoon’s show was pretty good, although i’m still not very familiar with their stuff.

we left Spoon a few minutes before the end to stake out a spot for Smashing Pumpkins. Jacob recounted of the legendary show he saw in ‘97 where SP played 3 hours with a 20 minute version of Silverfuck. well great, it’ll be a good show, right? WRONG! oh that’s right, SP has a new lineup, they have a new album, and Billy Corgan thinks everyone wants to hear the NEW material, not the OLD material. they were alotted 2 hours, and we got 5 or 6 old songs. no Cherub Rock, no Zero (HOW COULD THEY NOT PLAY ZERO?!?), no Disarm, none of those. they stuck to stuff off of Zeitgeist almost exclusively. this setlist resulted in 3/4 of the crowd leaving before the end. we stayed until the end hoping against all hope that they would dust off a classic, but they actually ended the show with two COVERS. i’m fine with their ‘reunion’, i’m fine with them playing some of the new material, but if you’re on a ‘reunion’ tour, then you need to PLAY THE OLD SONGS, get people excited again. don’t push the new material to try to sell records, especially if it is not in the same realm as the old stuff. it was very very disappointing.

the one light in this dark SP tunnel was that at one point, Billy said he got a chance to go around NOLA during the day, and he said instead of the living funeral he was expecting, he saw a breathing, vibrant city. jacob and i immediately thought of when we saw Lionel Richie at jazzfest, and how he complimented us and didn’t remind us of the problems (like Rage). other than that, SP made Sinead O’Connor look good, at least she played her classic.

well, voodoo day 1 was unfortunately not all it could have been. vince called this afternoon and said he had to sell his ticket because of some stuff with his job, someone not coming in, so he had to cover…something. jacob and i still got there early and it was pretty fun. we walked around the grounds to get a feel for the area, where the stages were, etc. we were hassled by some people trying to save the world by sending a text message. oh, and they wanted us to give them $20 so they could give us a t-shirt. we passed. music wise, we saw the hot 8 brass band, who were great. we walked around some more to kill time since the main people we wanted to see (kings of leon and rage) weren’t till later.
we saw the witch king from LOTR. by that i mean a guy dressed in black with a witch king mask walking around on stilts. i’m still not sure if he was with the festival people or he was just some random guy walking around on stilts. he came in the tent during the hot 8 and walked through the crowd. my first thought was how hard i’d have to kick a stilt for him to topple over. i still don’t understand why he was there.

after black rebel motorcycle club came on, we realized neither of us were into them, so we went over to this bingo tent stage (still no idea why it was called that) to see a band called lez zepplin. it’s an all female Zepplin cover band, and they were GREAT! i had no idea they were all female until they walked out on stage. we stayed for about half of their set, then headed back over to the main stage to get a spot for KOL. they came on a couple of minutes late, but they were once again awesome. we were standing in an area of people unfamiliar with KOL, so we may or may not have stuck out as we moved to the music and sang the songs. their loss though! the KOL set was great, and each time jacob or i mentioned a song we’d like to hear, they played it almost as if they heard us, so we heard all the favorites. after KOL finished, the nearby 2nd stage had a hip hop group called MIA. they sucked. thus began the near hour and a half long wait for Rage…

they were slated to come on at 9:10, but they didn’t actually come on till 9:27. thanks for making us wait! by then the crowd area had gotten full up, and it was crazy. people as far as you could see in front and behind. before the band even came out, we got to see a fight, so that was cool. with that many people, security can’t be everywhere, so it was amazing their friends actually stopped the fight. most people like me, wanted to see a fight. the lights went down and Rage came out. their show was typical, and by typical i mean the most intense band performing i’ve ever seen. the political rant came as expected during Wake Up. we were standing in an area of people who were not all about the commie propaganda stuff usually associated with rage (like say the Che t-shirts, how many people actually know who he is and wear the shirt?), so it was funny to yell out things like “please….tell us what books we should read!” the rant was something about katrina and how we should fight to rebuild, and something about the evil people in DC. whatever. as they sang the finale, Killing in the Name, i know at least i was singing the final part of the song AT the band. they had shirts on sale for $25 using the same graphic design from the 1999 tour. wtf? eight years and that’s the best they can come up with?

so the first day of voodoo was good, and the politics from rage weren’t as bad as we thought. there was gorgeous weather too, but the grounds are going to need some work because there was some mud already today, so i hope the organizers fix up the ground so it’s not a mud bog by sunday.

and we’re now marked for the weekend with the weekend wristbands. more to come tomorrow and Sunday.

this weekend is voodoo fest. tomorrow night is kings of leon and rage against the machine. jacob and i bought our tickets a while back, so we’re set. our friend vince told us today that he’s going to meet us tomorrow afternoon after he gets off work, so he’ll get there in time for kings of leon. i told him that i’m anticipating (nay, EXPECTING!) some political rant from rage, about how the system is broken, and probably trying to be our friends because of katrina. jacob and i talked a while back about how their reunion kind of ticks us off because of all the people going “we need them now more than ever!” i ended up writing an article for corner table about it. i told vince today “i’m a taxpayer now, i don’t care about all that political crap anymore…and most of the people that will be yelling for it, will be too young to remember rage as a band before they broke up anyway!” no matter what happens tomorrow, i’m excited vince is coming, i’ve been wanting to go to a show with him for a while. he always comes back with the craziest stories from concerts.

i thought i was going to have a test for one of my classes on Monday, which obviously would have made studying tough with the big concert this weekend, but today i found out i’ll be able to take it on Tuesday. i’ll have an extra day to study, which is an answer to prayer. work’s been kind of frustrating lately, so today was some welcome information even though it didn’t directly pertain to work.

this week a cold front passed so cold weather has returned! yesterday driving home was cloudy and cold and awesome. i snapped a picture of the skyline (sorry, my phone camera sucks, i need a new phone). on the right is the new I-10 bridge over Lake Pontchartrain, should be done in a couple of years. not sure if i’ll be living here by then, but that’s another story for another time.

i haven’t had much time the past couple of days to further talk about the end of last week and how great it was. i’ve been having to get back into the whole hw/grad school video cycle, which is not fun. i have a test next week, and since this weekend will be taken up entirely by a 3 day concert, i have to study every night this week. however, in lieu of having time to post stories from the road, i’ll share some interesting things i’ve seen the past two days that you might find intriguing….

in Japan, apparently one of the ideas come up with to avoid being mugged, is to somehow transform yourself into a vending machine. i don’t know what criminals would mistake a vending machine with feet as a real vending machine and not the person they were just chasing, but whatever works i guess. i’m wondering how you carry that thing around to give yourself the option. i think it’d make a great halloween costume though.

i have been pretty non-chalant as far as the presidential election still one year away. my sister likes Mike Huckabee, and i read yesterday that none other than Chuck Norris is endorsing him in his bid for W’s current job. i may have to support Mike to avoid having myself kicked in the face later on.

i was checking out youtube, and found the following:

the greatest Jordan commercial i have ever seen is the one featuring the kids emulating famous moves and games. it’s awesome, and still is after a whole year of having been out.

a couple of weeks ago when we were in the car, the new jordin sparks song ‘tattoo’ came on and before i could change it, Chad basically went “OMG, leave it, i’ve been wanting to hear this!” we listened….it’s pretty much awful. i came to the realization this afternoon that someone somewhere will want to have this song played at their wedding (shudder). i found people who liked to dance and sing to it, and post the videos. ouch. however, while searching to find the worst, i found a moustached kid who liked to dance to weird techno. word.

Ryan Adams road trip, day 3

as previously mentioned, my car was being fixed at the honda dealership and it was unknown whether or not i would make the trifecta of the trip, the RA show in Dallas. i was able to spend the day doing hw and ate at the Sweet Tomatoes nearby Andy’s house. i ended up going back to the house after lunch and taking a nap. i hadn’t slept too much the past two nights, so it was nice to relax. Andy called me about 4 pm, knowing my plight, and gave me encouragement that i could still make it to Dallas. I formed a plan to get a ticket, then went and picked up my car. not only did they fix my car for under $1000, they washed it too! i left the dealership at 5 pm and decided i would try to make it to Dallas. i knew i would kick myself if i didn’t go and RA played The Sun Also Sets (my favorite off of Easy Tiger), or even Sylvia Plath. i had to go, the trilogy would have to have an ending, it was on.

while on the road i called David and formed a plan for him to order a ticket for me so he could pick it up at will call since the people at SMU told me that will call would close at 8:15, way before i’d be arriving. i didn’t care if i couldn’t get there until 9, i was going to make it in time for at least an hour and a half show, and the first few songs would probably not be the ones i was looking for anyway. i finally got through Houston traffic and was loose on I-45 to try to fulfill my quest.

i was texting David and Chris who were at the concert for tips on parking. i got to SMU just before 9 and found some parking by some tennis courts. i found my way to the auditorium and texted David to let him know i was walking up. he met me at the door, and went back to his seat on the floor while i took my seat in the balcony. i arrived just in time for Rescue Blues, so i only missed five songs, all but one i had heard the previous two nights. everything was so smooth. the band was on again, and the crowd last night was a lot better. one of the best parts was some girl yelling “take your pants off” which prompted another couple of people yelling the same, then finally a guy yelling “TAKE your pants….OFFFF!” i’m not sure the band knew what to do with that. Ryan was joking with the crowd all night long, and didn’t freak out when people yelled song requests. people who did were promptly shushed, so the crowd was on top of things.

the 2nd set and encore were amazing. i’m not sure i can express how good they were. first off, Ryan came out for the 2nd set in a sleeveless chain mail shirt, knee high boots with buckles all the way down the side, a dog collar, and big leather wrist bands….total metal. when he went to the mic without a guitar, i thought “well, it’ll probably be Goodnight Hollywood Blvd” but no it was THE SUN ALSO SETS! YES! and in the metal outfit! he had one foot on a monitor and belted out “there it is….” it was so great. they in fact, did do Goodnight Hollywood Blvd right after. Ryan went and changed clothes after GHB since he said the outfit was uncomfortable..for obvious reasons i would think. after going through stellar versions of When the Stars Go Blue and Why Do They Leave? came the highlight. He started strumming what i thought sounded like the very opening chords of Wonderwall, but he had kind of done the same thing the other night in Mobile, and then stopped. i thought it was probably too good to be true since they hadn’t played it in over a year. however, Dallas had been a good crowd, and we got one of the most unbelievable versions of Wonderwall i think they could have played. it really wasn’t one of my favorite songs listening to the cd, but the version last night was so outstanding, i listened to it at least 6 times on my way home today. i had been waiting for a moment where i was simply stunned like i was last year in ATL when he played Sylvia Plath. Wonderwall was that moment. after a great version of Let It Ride, the guitar tech brought out the acoustic, i thought that was a good thing, then when he handed Ryan the harmonica i thought we were in for another moment. i nervously waited for RA to get the harmonica straightened out since the mount was all screwed up. i was hoping nobody would yell out the song i thought was going to be played. finally, he got it straight, and we got Come Pick Me Up. come on now. after a standing ovation, they went into Oh My Sweet Carolina, another moment. another standing ovation, and they said their goodbyes. it could not have ended better. people were walking out of the show in shock, including me. just amazing last hour and a half.

the show completely was worth the driving i did to get to dallas. i’m so happy i went and didn’t bail. i thought maybe something special would happen, and it did. i posted pictures from last night and Houston on my flickr for your viewing pleasure.

my thanks go out to my friends Andy and David for their helping me out and providing me lodging, Charles at the honda place for getting my car fixed, and my car for getting me everywhere safely. going to the three shows was a great experience and i’m extremely glad i did it. i can’t wait to go on another trip to see multiple shows. it was unforgettable and every one of the 1266 miles was worth it.

Ryan Adams road trip, day 2

last night was another rush to get to the venue because of incompetant restaurant workers. my friend Andy heard about this place called Sam’s Boat in Houston, so we went there. it took 45 minutes to get our food. i have no idea how fast they normally can cook up a chicken sandwich, but last night seemed awfully slow. anyway, i got down to the Houston theatre district about 8 or 8:05. i found a parking spot, and then went on an odyssey to find the verizon theatre. after asking the first person i saw (who had no idea what the VT was) i ended up just having to have faith that going up the stairs would help. i got out to ground level and found a couple of other RA fans, and found my way to the VT.

3rd row directly in front of Ryan’s mic….it seemed great at first, until a tall guy sat down right in front of me. i had a GREAT view of the rest of the Cardinals, not so much Ryan without having to lean over or something, at least when he was right at the mic. they lead off again with Peaceful Valley, and it was cool to hear the reaction of the crowd during that song. i’m telling you, it is beautiful. his voice sounds so great. the setlist was pretty much the same from the Mobile show, with some additions of Why Do They Leave? and a slowed down version of Let It Ride. RA seemed to be in a great mood, even when people would yell requests. he’d play them off and then that’d be it. he even talked in the Cookie Monster voice a few times. i don’t know what has happened between Birmingham and Houston, but something changed and he was in a really great state of mind. no rants or tirades, although right after Rescue Blues, someone yelled for Jacksonville Skyline….bad idea. he immediately got up from the piano and left the stage. the rest of the Cardinals stayed on though, and Ryan came back a couple of minutes later and they went right into When The Stars Go Blue. at one point someone yelled for Freebird, and Ryan said “oh, we’re playing that.” and they actually did play some of it. then Ryan went off about how impossible it is to literally change a bird. if it was possible to genetically alter a bird, to change it to maybe a mailbox, then the song became historic.

the only really awkward part came about halfway through when Ryan introduced slide guitarist Jon Graboff to tell a joke. someone yelled “Andy Dick” right as Jon approached the mic, and he went back and sat down. the rest of the band was laughing, but Jon seemed mad about it. he eventually did come back and tell a great joke. i think Jon was just playing, but it seemed awkward at the time.

so the show was divided up a bit more. the first main set, then a second set, then an encore, then a 2nd encore (a one song encore of Magnolia Mountain to close the show). not bad at all. they played from about 8:35 to 11:25, almost 3 hours. it was very very excellent. i took a few pictures and got a poster, but i can’t post the pictures until i get home. the poster has a meteor in the form of the Cardinals Rose symbol racing off from Earth with the Shuttle nearby. pretty cool.

the sad news…yesterday on my way to Houston, my A/C stopped blowing cool air. driving 6 hours with no A/C from the NOLA area to Houston i think should be considered a form of torture. i couldn’t stop, because if i did the car would not have been able to cool down. i was able to make it to Houston without stopping thankfully. i brought it to a Honda place nearby this morning, and there are two possibilities for fixing it that cost $1000 and $1500. i am hoping for the $1000 obviously. apparently some valve or coil failed and is caught up in the compressor. not a cheap fix, and not a quick one either. they said they will have it done today, but that means by 5. so obviously i may not be able to make it to Dallas. i’m still hopeful, but realistic at the same time.

Ryan Adams road trip….day 1

chad, jacob, and i went to the show in Mobile, AL tonight. it was pretty great. first off, we left later than we wanted thanks to an understaffed and pretty incompetant burger king staff. we arrived and parked the car at 8:20 for a show that was supposed to start at 8. thanks to the genius that is ryan adams, the shows haven’t been starting on time. i really thought we’d miss the first half of the first song if not the first song entirely. we’re walking up the street where the tour bus is, and i say “you know, i hope he is walking off the tour bus as we’re walking up, that way we’ll make it in time”. not 5 seconds after i say that then the lead guitarist and bassist get off the bus. anyway, we hurry down the side street to the front of the theatre and go inside. i got a poster for the show, and we took our seats at 8:28. the show started at 8:30 with the band plunging into Peaceful Valley. people, it’s one thing to hear Ryan’s new voice on concert bootlegs, it’s another to experience it live. it sounded SO GOOD. the highlights for me were Peaceful Valley, Magnolia Mountain, Cold Roses, and I Taught Myself How to Grow Old. there really weren’t any lowlights from the show. Ryan seemed to be in good spirits, and told how he was almost born in Mobile. apparently he’s got two siblings who were born in Mobile, and his mom moved up to North Carolina 5 days before he was born. i thought that would bode well for a longer than normal show, and i was right for the most part. they played 2 hours straight, then after a short break, played three more songs. by the time the house lights came up, it was 10:55.

now for the lowlights….the crowd. i have never seen so many people getting up during a show and walking around. it wasn’t during the slow songs, or the non popular songs, it was EVERY SONG. i think there must have been 100 people that were not allowed to stay seated. then we had the “i think i can sing” guy behind us who was a terrible singer. if i wanted to hear him sing, i’d go to his house. plus, i overheard him trying to impress the girl he was with by naming all of the songs. and of course, we had the people yelling song requests. i cringed everytime someone yelled after hearing from Carla the abrupt ending in Birmingham. Ryan seemed to take tonight’s interruptions in stride a bit better, and even made some comments about it. a couple of rants, but no tirades and no walkoffs.

i managed to take a couple of pictures, but only one came out good (it is below). chad had his badass camera and he said he got some pretty good ones, so i’m hoping to see them when i get back later this week.

tomorrow is houston from the third row!

when ryan adams had announced his tour dates late this past summer, i was hoping for a show close by that i didn’t have to road trip to. we got mobile, at the saenger, the site where i’ve seen nickel creek twice and david crowder band once. it is a great venue. the following two shows were scheduled for houston and dallas….within reasonable driving distance. i looked at my work calendar and saw that i could see all three and only have to take one vacation day. i still didn’t think it would be any good, until this past weekend. i thought, there was no reason i should not go. i know someone to stay with in houston, and i know someone to stay with in dallas, and at worst, i’d get a hotel room. i have been checking tickets for both houston and dallas just to see what was available. today i saw someone trying to sell a ticket to houston for face value plus ticketmaster fees, and it was row L. this was much better than any of the tickets i had seen for sale on the ticketmaster website, so i gave it some thought. i went on the TM website and put in a request for one ticket. BOOM! row C, center section. oh yeah, THIRD ROW CENTER! i finally got lucky with ticketmaster and vanquished their backwards way of selling tickets. why would third row tickets be available three days before a show? i bought the ticket right away….trying to forget about the total of $15 in “charges” because it is THIRD ROW. anyway, i’m going to the show wednesday and then on thursday. Friday is still up in the air, because if i see good shows wednesday and thursday, i may be pushing my luck on getting a third great show on friday. he’s been having some issues playing an entire show lately. i feel bad, because a lot of friends are seeing shows in different cities, and i hate it when they have to sit through a meltdown, no matter how minor it might be.

also, the Saints game last night was great. i thought before the game, that they might just come out with one of those games like the Dallas game last year. Sunday night fooball, a road game against a good team….you kind of expect them to lose. then they come out and look awesome and beat down the other team. FINALLY they got up off the mat. whether or not they can still make the playoffs is another story, but it feels good to get a win!

plus…i got my five year award at work today. the way it works is when you make a certain year, you get to pick a ‘gift’. obviously the 30 year gifts are nicer than the 5 year gifts. i remember when my friend Andy made 5 years, he chose a volleyball set that we had fun with for about an hour before it broke. i looked at the list of 5 year gifts and saw the volleyball set. i may get it just for old times’ sake. i really don’t need a ring, cordless phone, or tennis bracelet. i think i’d be much happier with a cash option.

this weekend i spent a lot of it doing hw. i finished up the stuff i have due tomorrow. i have more due on Thursday. actually, the “more” is one problem that will take me a few pages of writing to finish. i hate taking two classes. i may have mentioned it a couple of times. even when i finish one assignment, i have another waiting for me. i got my first test back in each class on Friday. i passed, but not by much. i expected it for my combustion class, because it was one of those engineering tests with two problems….that’s it. i did okay, considering, on the first problem, i had used the wrong compound formation for octane (C8H18) by using C3H8. at least the prof gave me partial credit since i got the process for the question right, kind of. my other test, i don’t know who graded it, but they were probably communist. i hardly got any partial credit, and it was almost as if they relished taking points off when i got close with stuff. however, now i feel better about the rest of the semester since i know what to expect on the tests. hopefully i won’t get to allow the graders to use their pens so much for the next exams.

i was able to get some work done yesterday and then watch some football last night. the Clemson game was pretty much like a punch to the stomach. the LSU game on the other hand let me not hate the entire day. thank you Les Miles!

in other news…i sent off my resume for two new job openings last week, one in colorado (!) and one would keep me here, but i would travel around everywhere. plus, a guy from the group in Virginia called me and asked me to send my resume to him. when it rains it pours. it’s pretty exciting that i’m getting these chances….and it’d be nice if one of them came through. even if none of them do, i figure next year i’ll have some options.

and finally, the autumn of concerts has begun. i went and saw david crowder band on Wednesday. it was pretty great, although i don’t like the new songs as much as the last album. the highlight for me was when they did “never let go“, which he prefaced by saying “this is a song from the new album that i don’t think could more perfectly be for the city of new orleans.” a cool part i thought was on the way into the show, there were people handing out pieces of paper with mission opportunities listed (i’m assuming they’ll be doing this at every tour stop). contact numbers, web address, things we could do locally to ‘be the remedy’. i thought that was pretty awesome. the concept of the album can pretty much be summed up on this webpage. i love that.