Hey guys and gals Milkman reporting for duty from somewhere in America, Georgia to be exact. Shiela, our magnificent tour bus is doing great. Species left me behind at a gas station by accident because he didn't realize I had ducked in to use the toilet. Where's the love?
We just came from Crossover Festival in Missouri and we had a blast there. We played a prank on Jeremy Camp and discovered that punters in Missouri are all about having fun at concerts. Now, I know it sounds like the kind of thing we'd say about any of the crowds we play for but seriously, Missouri concert goers are not opposed to having a good time & screaming till it hurts, so much so that during our last song, I was feeling a little courageous and decided to go for a bit of a leap and ended up playing the last half of Broken atop a sea of hands. Missouri might not have any beaches but you can certainly get some surf! We'll have to see if we can get some photographic evidence for y'all to see. In the mean time I hope you enjoy this pic of us at Crossover.
Next up it's of to Atlanta for Atlantafest. Keep checking back as this blog expands to hold all of our traveling adventures. Please note that our internet access is sketchy at best so messages and questions may go unanswered for weeks at a time.
Cheers guys - Milkman out...
Oops, I forgot to mention that we got bogged, or as the Americans call it stuck in the mud.
Here's Species trying and failing to leverage thirty five feet and seven and a half thousand pounds of bus with some ply wood and logs. I mean hey, we had to try something.
The constant spinning of the wheel began to dig us further in. We were starting to think that we'd be touring China much sooner than we thought.
Luckily a kind man by the name of Kirby came to our rescue with a big ol' American truck that also failed to get us out. He didn't seem worried as he set off home to get his tractor. Several minutes later he came rumbling down the road atop his trusty steed. Here's the actual moment of Shiela's liberation as accounted by Bee Jae:
The video may not be ready for a few hours so check back soon. The funny thing was that Kirby told us that if that didn't work he had and even bigger tractor back home (secretly we hoped it didn't work so we could get to see it).
After we were freed, Species left his sandals at the bog site and by a stroke of fortune they were there on the way back through town several days later.
So, that's the story of Jael's bus getting bogged and Species' reunion with his footwear. Two inspirational stories of hope and redemption.
June 22
First of all we just need to address something that some astute readers had noticed. No, that is not Tim playing on stage with us. The person you see is Jake who is filling in for this tour. Rest assured we will explain everything soon. And no, we are NOT BREAKING UP. Just so you know. Anyway, here is Jake bonding with the Jael boys:
Proof that there is surf in Missouri:
In recent news, we just came from Atlantafest in Georgia. We had an awesome time and Milkman froze up evertime Toby Mac walked by. He did manage to snap a little keepsake for Pav who is the world's biggest Toby Mac fan. Milkman had fun watching Toby performing Jesus Freak from side stage. Here are the pics:
One wrong note and you're out of the band!
BJ on Jumbo vision. Our Australian readers might not know but the sun goes down really late in the US this time of year and in this picture it's just after 8:00pm
We had the chance to catch Day of Fire's set and hung out with them.
They have a lot of fond memories about Australia:
One of the fun things about playing at Atlantafest is that it's at Stone Mountain which is kind of like Australia's Ayres Rock except it has HUGE carvings of confederate soldiers in it's side.
You can take a cable car to the top and see the view:
The festival was right below the mountain and from here we could hear Phil Joel singing Entertaining Angels.
Here we are saying goodbye to the Extreme Tour guys. Not pictured is Angello who was in hospital after falling off his skateboard and losing the tip of his finger. Species and Milkman witnessed it and lost sleep over the gruesome spectacle.
Ok, so next it was off to Cornerstone in Chicago but we had a few days to kill in between so we set off looking for some adventure. Adventure for us is parking outside a Walmart and shopping at 3am. We just drove roughly towards Chicago and found a Walmart when it got dark. We went inside for some hotdogs and met a girl named Erica who knew our band. It turns out that Erica was friends with the guys from a band called FBTE (myspace.com/fbteband) who had just come off the Extreme Tour at Atlantafest. Not only that, but we found out FBTE was practicing near by as we spoke. We wasted no time in driving to their practice session and crashed their rehersal. It was a great reunion (even though we said goodbye to them just days ago). They were SO surprised to see us and could not believe we found them ... we could not believe we found them. Imagine walking through a random Walmart days and 100s of miles away from the last festival and meeting a friend of a band you just played with, what are the chances of that?
So we had pretty much found the perfect way to kill a few days before Cornerstone so we parked our bus in front of FBTE's lead singer, Dale's house and had some much welcomed time out of the bus. We also hung out at Kevin's (FBTE's drummer) house and had some home cooked meals with his parents. We played Rock Band till sunrise and even ended up doing a local gig opening for FBTE. It was a real blessing to have some time off with some now good friends. Here's some happy snaps of our new Illinois buddies:
Dale from FBTE thinking REALLY hard about something. Probably how to get this Australian rock band off his front lawn.
This is us with Kevins parents. We had dinner with them while Kev was at a gig. They were so nice to feed us roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy and all sorts of other better-than-instant-noodles food.
Later on in the evening, Kevin and Erica showed up.
Next it was off to Cornerstone in Chicago. This festival is huge! We hung out there all week and played on a few Generator Stages (there are dozens and dozens of makeshift stages set up for indie style performances that line the walkways). On Saturday we cooked pancakes for the masses to coax the Illinois crowd (largely unaware of our band) into coming to our show. A group of Canadians camped near us (also in a converted school bus) helped us make signs advertising the breakfast. It must have worked cause a good crowd showed up to see us play. We made heaps of new friends and had a blast. Here's a short vid created by an audience member of our show:
Here's some more pics of the happenings at Cornerstone:
Canadians, yay! Thanks guys for helping us. Wel could not have done it without you. Well, we could of but it would have been MUCH harder and annoying.
Here is some random findings from the festival grounds the day after it all finished. You can see a sign advertising FBTE's set and a program for the Label Shocase in which we played. There is also a jar of pickles.
Post Cornerstone golf-buggie mayhem. Carefull Milkman, it's not Mario Kart.
Then, as always, more road. Here's a quick vid of the view from the bus. It's nothing dramatic or exciting but I thought it was worth sharing:
Next up, Minnesota! We had time to stop in and visit a friend we made at Cornerstone. Dave and his family were crazy enough to offer their driveway for a few days to park in. Dave lives on a bit of a hill and because the position of our buses rear axel and the trailer hitch, we managed to get our bus stuck half on the main road (during peak hour) and half on the driveway, tearing a deep hole in the road. It's hard to explain but we'll put a video up soon. It was a real site as many of Desmoines Iowa's people looked on in horror as some crazy rock band tore up their road and blocked traffic.
It turns out Dave and his family are baseball crazy and we turned up in time to witness first hand America's past time at a Cubs vs some Texas team game at their local baseball stadium. It was a real shock as just the day before we were all in our bus talking about how much we'd love to go to a baseball game. Sorry to any American's reading this who don't find the following anything new but let me explain what makes baseball so cool: You get to wear oversized hands and shout like a crazy person, mobile vendors throw snacks just like in the movies, a golf cart drives around in between innings and fires shirts and hotdogs into the crowd from a mounted cannon, when the batter knocks the ball into the crowd you get to keep it, three large mascotts (a ketchup bottle, a mustard bottle and a hotdog) compete in a running race around the bases (the hotdog won but he clearly cheated), the home crowd heckles the visiting team's out-fielders, jumbo vision turns seemingly mild mannered spectators into instant lunatics and the best thing of all is that even if you don't like sports *cough* Bee Jae *cough* you can still have a blast. The Cubs won 5 - 2, it was almost a complete slaughter until the Texans put 2 home runs in during the last innings. It was a dream come true for Jael and of course there was a camera to capture the highlights.
Go Cubs! RAR!
Take me out to the ball game!
Milkman caught this shirt from the shirt-bazooka! We also got a ball that was knocked into the crowd.
Here's a nice little collage that Dave brewed up after the game.
Hey ladies and gentlemen. We are alive and well and are on our way home after playing at Sonshine Festival (in Minnesota) and Ignite Chicago (in Chicago of course). We had some really great experiences and met many more great friends. We also got the opportunity to meet up with some old friends from the Newsboys and talk Vegemite and meat pies. Unfirtunately we are not going to be able to put up pics for a few more days so you'll have to trust me that it was all very exciting and memorable.
Next up, MINNESOTA! Sonshine Festival to be exact. Of all the festivals we played at this one was reminded us of AGMF back in Australia. We arrived a day early and parked back stage and listened to Jars of Clay play. It rained over night and we thought we might get our set rained out the next day but it turned out really sunny and nice. Here's some evidence (credits to our friend Jeff and Andy from Jeremy Camps band for the pics):
The storm from the previous night is not brave enough to approach once BJ started singing.
Here I am representing Halo 3 in my own special way.
The Minnesotians were really friendly and bought lots of merch ... thanks guys.
We also got the chance to meet up with some of our favorite artists.
Crowder
KJ
Lacey from Flyleaf. BJ is sitting and Lacey is standing. You could fit the girl in your pocket!
We got the chance to make a lot of new friends at this friendly festival and we really didn't want to leave a day before it ended but we had to get to Chicago so thems the breaks.
CHICAGO!!! Ignite Festival to be exact. As if we couldn't get any more lucky, we were playing on a baseball field!!! Unfortunately we don't have any shots of our show just yet (patience ... they are coming) but we have some other antics to show off.
Shiela was getting really friendly with another bus, he was far to young for her and they were un-supervised almost the whole night!
We got top catch up with the Newsboys, Duncan told us about a place where we can oder meat pies and Vegimite and I had a good D&M with Paul Coleman about being an Aussie living in the States. I also got to spend a whole heap of time with John Reuben, he and his band were realy friendly.
Here we are getting silly.
John and his band in Shiela. I was out of vegemite at this point so I couldn't wreck his opinion of Australia anymore.
We'll put up some pics of our show when we get em. Then it was off to home but not just yet. It turns out that Al Capone's grave site was a short drive from the festival so we dropped past to check it out. It took a bit of investigating to discover the exact location at the cemetary (think of a cross between National Treasure and Indiana Jones) but we found it:
He and a dozen of his family were buried there. People leave money and cigars for him.
Next, it was a 3 day drive home. On the way we found a gas station that was selling Jack Link's Beef Jerky for $1 per packet (normally $6.99). Now, the Jael boys love jerky, and Jack Link is our favorite brand so ...
36 packets later ... this should last us a tour or two. In case you're wondering, that new face in the photo is Peazy. You'll be learning some more about him soon.
Well, I'm sitting back a home. Yes we are back. We still have a handfull of dates left on the tour but not before we spend some time home for a break. The summer tour still has some kick in it. Thanks for turning up and seeing everybody and thanks to everybody back home downunder reading along. I wish you were here.
At the moment we are sitting at Garoutte family home, we met them at Sonshine festival and they kindly invited us to get some time out of the bus and invade their home for a few days. Since we have Mo Sup's husband Garry, Scott's wife Tamara, the two kids and Pav (yes Pav from Australia) in tow we thought it would be a great idea. Thanks guys
We just got back from Rock the light. You may have gotten a sneak peak from our other blog but here's a more indepth, more photographic look. Since Pav and Tamara were there (both avid photographers), the coverage of this show is a little more in-depth. Enjoy ...
Shiela unloads at theStarlight Theartre in Kansas City.
Good work Species, you can read! They gave us three dressing rooms, I don't know why because we asked for twelve.
The Starlight Theatre was an impressive venue.
It is perfect for holding concerts or defending against a seige.
Time for set up. Most of this stuff belongs to Casting Crowns, I'm sure they wouldn't notice is we took a few amps ...
The kids fit perfectly into their road cases.
Sound check, yup it's loud enough.
Time for the meet and greet. Peezy is having a meltdown from the nerves.
It's almost show time. Pezzy is probably having a melt down right now.
Bee Jae hits the stage screaming.
Milkman scans the crowd for possible surfing action.
Our crowd, everybody please buy one CD each. Then we can retire.
Fortunately, Peezy delivered the good, saving himself from a stern talking to.
Species works stage right as usual.
Just like at Crossover festival, the folks at Missouri really dug our stuff.
Bee Jae works the jumbo-vision ... as usual
Is Milkman rocking out or being electricuted? You decide.
A portion of our post-show line. Peezy's arm was going to be sore.
We probably should have asked first before signing this dude's face.
The kids have the luxury of sleeping where they sit, lucky little things.
From Rock the Light we spent a few days with the Garoutte family in Kansas, we met them at Sonshine back in Minnesota and they were silly enough to invite the entire band to stay at their home for a few days. These guys were a huge blessing to us and spent a lot of time, effort and money entertaining us so our love goes out to them. Unfortunately we don't have any photos of them so you'll have to imagine them.
Paxton turned three years old and we took him to a near by petting zoo.
Because he's three, he thinks huging a baby goat is the most amazing thing in the world.
Next up it was back to Missouri to play at Warrensburg at the First Christian Church hall for a small but really energetic crowd. When I say energetic, I mean it, these guys made more of a ruckus than any of the crowds at this Summer's festivals. Here's a quick example:
If you were there, give yourself a pat on the back. Becuase of the size and tone of the event were were able to get fairly personal with the crowd and we spent some time sharing some candid moments from our past and our faith.