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Fish Fest 2002: Newsboys, Michael W. Smith, Jennifer Knapp, Relient K, etc.Sep 18 '02 (Updated Nov 06 '05) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Good one-day festival overall. The Newsboys, Relient K, and ZoeGirl pulled off the most enjoyable live performances of the bunch.
Event: Fish Fest 2002, featuring Michael W. Smith, Newsboys, Jennifer Knapp, Relient K, SonicFlood, Pax217, The Benjamin Gate, ZoeGirl, East West, All Together Separate, and Jeremy Camp Date: Sunday, July 28, 2002 Venue: Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, Irvine, CA Ticket Price: $35 (Loge seating for Main Stage; general admission for Festival Stage) Author’s Note: I am about to undergo the arduous task of reviewing an entire festival in the space of one Concert Review column. Fortunately, the festival in question was one day affair, but that still leaves me with seven or eight acts to cover. Due to schedule conflicts between the two stages, plus some other circumstances beyond my control, I was only able to attend parts of a few sets, and I missed a few acts outright. Not that it matters - this concert review will make me a few cents at best anyhow. But I still want to do my best to give you, the reader and potential concertgoer, a glimpse of what the bands in question are like in a live setting. Sunday, July 28, 2002 was a day that I eagerly anticipated, and also stressed over.. That was the day that my girlfriend and I, along with three of my other friends, had to tickets to the 2002 Fish Fest, a mini-festival being put on by L.A.’s most prominent Christian radio station, The Fish 95.9. The opportunity was too good to pass up, because it would be the first concert my girlfriend and I went to together (she lives in Hawaii, and we just so happened to have already arranged a visit to L.A. for her birthday), and because a few of the artists on the bill had been on my “hitlist” of bands I wanted to see live for a while now. However, I was worried that the actual execution of this event wouldn’t be as great as the idea. I didn’t know how 10 bands were going to have time to perform decent sets in an 8-hour span of time, and I wondered if spending an entire afternoon and evening at a concert would wear my girlfriend out. I also worried about one of my other friends who was in a wheelchair, and whether she’d be able to get to our seats without too much stress or difficulty. (My girlfriend tells me I spend way too much time worrying about everybody.) Kissin’ Your Cares Goodbye Most of my fears turned out to be naught. I have to hand it to the folks at the Verizon Amphitheater for setting things up fairly efficiently for the diverse roster set to perform that day. Having been there once before for a Creed concert (and technically a Newsboys concert, though that was a little different for reasons I’ll explain later), I remembered that there was a big grassy area on the grounds, where vendors could set up shop and overcharge concertgoers for basic needs such as food, drink, and T-shirts. This area also served as the location of the Festival Stage, literally a raised platform along one side of the path to the Main Amphitheater with a makeshift soundboard set up across the way. Most of the edgier acts played on that stage, and amazingly, the sound didn’t conflict with whatever was going on over at the Main Stage. The bands were scheduled so that one stage would start up near the end of whoever’s set was in progress on the other stage, which did create conflicts for listeners like myself with more diverse tastes, but was a much smarter move than making most of the earlier acts play three-song sets on the Main Stage. The terrain also proved to be easy for my wheelchair-bound friend to handle - it was hilly, but she’s a trooper, and miraculously she was able to make her way to our seats without dealing with any stairs whatsoever. Given that the venue offered no specific handicap-accessible seating, this seemed to be God’s provision, since I just so happened to put off getting tickets for long enough that we ended up a few rows from the back of the Loge (and near the horizontal center of the venue, I might add). About the only inconvenience was the usual greedy security measure that nothing could be brought in except towels, clothes, that sort of stuff (mostly as a courtesy to those with lawn seats). That meant no food or drink - even water. I thought it was outrageous to deprive people of water on such a hot day, and then overcharge them for it inside. I can understand other food and drinks, but water? Apparently the word dehydration means nothing to these jerks. I urged my girlfriend and our other companions (all female, since the other male friend one of them invited didn’t make it) drank all the water we had with us before we entered, once we were standing in line and this was made known to me. I realized that would necessitate frequent trips to the restroom later, but I figured that’d be less of an annoyance than a splitting headache during a loud concert. Make It Not So! If you’re looking for reviews of All Together Separate or Jeremy Camp‘s sets, I hate to disappoint you, but I’d never heard of Jeremy and he was a last-minute add anyway, so there was no way we’d make it on time. I had hoped to catch ATS, but in my infinite wisdom, I assumed that I could easily exit from the South 5 onto the North 405, and I didn’t realize I’d missed the 405 until I was practically halfway to San Diego. Oh, well - ATS is from Riverside and they play a lot of shows in Southern Cali, so I’ll catch them eventually. I also made the executive decision to miss East West‘s set. They’re on the harder, more grinding end of Christian rock, and while I like some other bands of that nature, I have yet to get into East West, and I figured that a lot of unintelligible yelling and screaming wouldn’t be a good way to introduce my girlfriend to one of my favorite pastimes. With All of Their Hearts We had just enough time to get our bearings, find our seats at the Main Stage, and get settled in before ZoeGirl came on at 4:15. The female pop trio had become something of a guilty pleasure for me earlier in the year with their sophomore album Life, but still I wasn’t really looking forward to their live set, which I assumed would involve a lot of pre-recorded music and choreography. Well, I was right about the choreography, but I couldn’t have been more wrong about the pre-fab music. They brought a humble but capable four-piece band with them, which put an even more organic spin on their already lively pop songs. Kicking off with their current single “Even If” was a wise move (it’s my favorite from the album), since it’s a high-energy dance track designed to get people moving. They kept the groove up with the acoustic guitar-driven hit “With All of My Heart” and a likely future single, “Ordinary Day” (one of the band members made the mistake of saying they were going to play a new song before that one, but oh well). Their older, self-titled album didn’t show up anywhere in the mix - at least not for the part of their set that I managed to catch - which is probably a good thing, since the songs I heard from that album never did much for me. I’ve got to hand it to the women of ZoeGirl for being dedicated to what they do. They pulled off the most heroic act of the day, executing their choreography moves in the heat of the day, facing straight into the sun, performing on a black stage. They also showed the ability to slow down and be more reflective as well, which gave two of the group members a much-needed break as one played solo piano during the ballad “Plain”. The other two gradually rejoined, and it was interesting to hear the voices and piano fill out a song that’s much more programming-heavy on the album., I think it was important to really let the message of that song shine through, since it speaks to young girls who are discouraged over their image. ZoeGirl went into a worship set after that, and I have to give them credit for putting a danceable energy into “Open the Eyes of My Heart”, but once they settled down into “You Are My King (Amazing Love)” (which I’ve heard one too many times in church lately) and “Awesome God” (without the verses, of course), I decided it wasn’t worth missing any of The Benjamin Gate’s songs to see ZoeGirl close out. Stand and I wait, and I see… Perhaps the act I was most looking forward to seeing was The Benjamin Gate - due to the energetic stew of sound they create on their albums and the reputation they earned for themselves as part of last year’s Festival Con Dios. Three of us made our way down to the Festival Stage to check the band out, and it quickly became apparent that my girlfriend wasn’t gonna be able to see over everyone standing around the stage, so she sat down and used me for shade while another friend and I strained to see what we could. The South African quintet was out on stage before too long, and I was amazed that lead singer Adrienne Liesching was so small for someone with such a fierce voice and attitude. (She actually looked like a red-headed version of a friend I knew in college - I guess she decided the blonde look she sported on the album artwork for Contact wasn’t working out for her.) The band exuded energy, even if their set was short and not as punchy as their album tracks. They opened rather predictably with “How Long”, the first track from their debut Untitled, before making their way into newer songs such as “The Calling” and the high-energy clap-along rocker, “This Is Not”. I noticed that the band’s guitarist had especially excessive amounts of energy, twisting and contorting in strange ways as he wielded his axe for all to see. Adrienne showed promise in terms of being a charismatic front woman, getting the crowd involved in a sing-along vamp to the infectious “All Over Me”, and making sure the crowd was moving as the band rocked out to “Lay It Down” and “Do What You Say”. The foreign accent obviously added to her charm, but she managed to especially endear herself to the crowd when she mentioned that the band would be moving to California next year. (Hey, can I come hang out with you guys some time?) I would have liked to see them perform a few more album tracks such as “Lift Me Up”, “Need”, or “Nightglow” instead of sticking strictly to the hits, but I’m sure I’ll get to see them do a full set one of these days, especially if they plan on relocating here! (By the way, it was an amusing surprise to see Matt Thiessen, lead singer of Relient K, randomly walk by me looking lost during the Gate’s set.) Slowly they become one with the mud The fact that I don’t like the new SonicFlood isn’t exactly breaking news. Call me crazy, but it’s hard to take a band seriously when they kick out their lead singer and chief songwriter, go through a bunch of legal wrangling to keep their name, and then a release a total suck-fest of an album with an entirely different roster than the original band. I planned on avoiding SonicFlood’s live set altogether, but my girlfriend, blissfully unaware of the behind-the-scenes drama or the poor excuse for an album, wanted to check out what she could once The Benjamin Gate was done. What the heck, it was a good way to kill time. I could hear snippets of a few of the original songs from their Resonate as we made our way up, though I can’t say that I’ve made myself intimately familiar with the songs, so no telling if they were decent renditions. My wager is that the songs sound better live, simply because (a) they aren’t bogged down by tinny, shoddy production, and (b) worship music is better participated in than just listened to. New lead singer Rick Heil was introducing the band when we returned to our seats, and frankly his attitude came off more like he was just having fun on stage with his band and less like he was actually leading worship. But that may just be my predisposition to not like the man since he seemed to be the main factor in their massive personnel change. Anyway, the band managed a decently enjoyable rendition of “You Are Worthy of My Praise” and the new hit “Resonate” (the most tolerable song on the album) before I had to go back down to the Festival Stage again. I was thankful that at least I didn’t hear them attempt any of the songs from the old SonicFlood album. In my mind, that would have been tantamount to blasphemy. Open the floodgates and let the people in! Pax217 was up next, and I was quite surprised that my girlfriend followed me down to check them out even though I had warned her they were a heavier band (she’s generally into mellower, poppier music than I am). The Southern California boys did seem to have a little difficulty with their sound setup - they started late, and their opening number, the current hit “Tonight” lost a lot of its punch due to the guitars being mixed way too low. Lead singer Dave Tosti apologized for this and made sure everything was okay before proceeding, which I really appreciated even if it may have cost the guys a song or two of their set. Soon the guys were underway with a stronger sound overall during the older hit “Sandbox Praise”. I’ll admit, I still haven’t quite adjusted to a lot of the songs on their first release, and that was one of the ones I never got into, but it still sounded decent live. They kept the entire set upbeat and lively, with an even mixture of old songs and new material from their stellar second album Engage. I did notice that they used a pre-recorded sample to introduce the song “Voices”, just like on the album, but in my book, samples are okay when your band has a DJ. Speaking of the DJ, Bobbito the Chef is a welcome addition to the band - he’s a big and slightly menacing looking guy, but he’s good on those turntables, and also when he gets his turn at the mic, which he did during the new song “PSA”. My girlfriend probably thought I sounded like a dork singing and rapping along to some of those songs, but hey, I like that I can be myself and she finds it amusing rather than annoying. I had to give her credit for being attentive and genuinely curious about what made me like this strange and noisy band, and part of me hoped they’d reward her curiosity with a softer song such as “Move on This”, but alas, no time. They did prove that they had melody, though, especially on their first big hit “Prizm” and the aforementioned “Tonight” and “Voices” - Pax is surprisingly not angry for a rap/rock act, so there was very little yelling and screaming from the stage. Sure, it would have been awesome if they had performed “What Is Love”, but then, my girlfriend might have been tempted to go back to SonicFlood at that point. Actually, SonicFlood was probably done by then, since by the time we got back up to the main stage (we left while the band was doing intros in the middle of their closing song, “A.M.”), Jennifer Knapp was already in the middle of her second song. What I wanted was a little more than she could give I’m not really going to waste a bunch of space reviewing Jennifer Knapp’s set. It was basically the same set she performed when opening for Jars of Clay in May, minus the violin player and a few key songs. She was playing “Into You” when we came back up, and I’ll surmise that she opened with “By and By”, since the pattern seemed to be pretty much the same. I don’t know; logic tells me than when you’ve performed the same set for an entire tour, you might want to change the songs up just a tad for the summer festival circuit, especially since some of those people likely went to see you on the previous tour. I mean, just one or two songs from her newest album, The Way I Am, that she hadn’t played live for everyone yet would have been nice. To her credit, her dialogue about some of the songs wasn’t exactly the same, and I’ll never tire of her heavy arrangement of “Trinity” (you have to hear it to know what I’m talking about). Jennifer’s got the kind of stage presence that would make me excited to sit and listen to her perform all by herself - or even just talk about her songs and her relationship with Christ - for hours. Anyhow, if you want a more detailed review of Jen’s live show, go read my review of Jars of Clay’s Eleventh Hour Tour. An aggressive rock band that WON‘T eat my girlfriend Relient K has got to be one of the best live bands in Christian music. They’re certainly the most amusing, and they generally know how to keep their audience laughing and guessing without it costing them too much down time between songs. They’re good at keeping their set list from getting too predictable - they’ve opened and closed with different songs every time I’ve seen them. As such, I was sad that I’d have to cut out partway through their set to catch the Newsboys, but hey, they performed a quality chunk of music in the time we were down there. Much to my amusement, they started off with “Kick-Off”, the harmless 45-second opener from The Anatomy of the Tongue and Cheek, slightly changing the words to tell us: “Here’s the kick-off, hope you’re not sick of Relient K and all the songs we play, ‘cause then you’ll want to scream and run away.” My girlfriend and I were jumping up and down once “Sadie Hawkins Dance” got going - me because it’s my favorite Relient K song ever, and her because it’s just plain fun and bouncy. It’s a good song to hook in anyone unfamiliar with the band, due to its silly high-school lyrics and the pause during the chorus where Matt sings “Oh oh oh!” in falsetto. From there, they surprised me again with a few more tracks that they didn’t do the last time I saw them live - “Maybe It’s Maybeline” and the pop-punk praise chorus “Those Words Are Not Enough”. Perhaps the biggest surprise came when the band alluded to the upcoming VeggieTales movie Jonah, which got the fans extremely excited. I don’t know whose “big idea” it was for Relient K to re-record a VeggieTales song, but it was certainly ingenious to realize that an audience who found themselves amused by bouncy songs about Marilyn Manson, the Thundercats, and Nancy Drew would go ga-ga over the band’s version of “The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything”. Matt quickly killed off the cheering by letting the audience know they weren’t going to actually play the song, though (because he said it was hard), which of course got some playful boos and so forth from the crowd, so the guys compromised and played like ten seconds of it, which was enough to give us a fix. Besides, we can all go get the mp3 for free courtesy at mp3.com if we really want to hear the whole thing. We had to head back up to the main stage while the band seemed to be closing things out with “Pressing On” (Matt stopped everything dead in the middle of the song to make a wisecrack about how it’d be a good song for those commercials about Lee’s line of self-adhesive nails), though I was later informed that the band went on for a few more songs, closing things out in grand style with the Thundercats tribute, “I’m Lion-O”, which apparently got the crowd moving so fast that my other friend who stayed down there got a bit dizzy. I was also informed by a younger kid who sat near us that the band only played one song from their first album, which surprisingly was “Softer to Me” instead of one of the bigger hits like “Hello McFly”. Ready to fight, but not to fuss The crowd had grown considerably at some point between Jen and the Newsboys - likely because the sun was going down by that point, and because the Newsboys and MWS were touted as the headlining acts. At this point, there were a number of concertgoers engaged in the never-ending “competitive Jesus cheer”, and I decided to curb my expression of annoyance at this since some of my friends were participating in it as well. Fortunately, everyone’s favorite Aussie band relieved us of that soon enough. I’ve been familiar with the Newsboys long enough to know that they favor the long, drawn out intros to their concerts where either band members enter one at a time, or some sort of multimedia presentation precedes their first song. They went for the multimedia this time - an oddly arranged sequence of speeches about freedom (I’ve heard MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech used in several contexts, and here it didn’t seem to make much sense other than to get the audience riled up with familiar words). Perhaps the theme loosely tied into their Thrive album and their opening number, “Giving It Over”. Being the first track on Thrive, it made for a predictable start, but the grinding guitar riff and punchy drums made it fun all the same. I half-expected the band to be fully predictable and fully loud (especially after the rumbling bass during their intro), but thankfully, I was semi-wrong on the first count. The band deviated slightly from the track listing of their recent concert DVD, skipping over “Live in Stereo” to get to “Who?”, a rather quirky number from their greatest hits disc. I have to say, that’s probably one of my least favorite Newsboys songs - as much as I love the ‘boys for their pop culture references, I can’t get over Jesus being “the final answer” and God being “tender as a burger in your microwave”. Better surprises were to follow, however, as Peter Furler shouted out to the crowd, “Are you ready for a little bit o’ disco?” I’m sure there were some emphatic “NO!”s coming from the crowd, given how the band’s 1999 album Love Liberty Disco tanked, but I was glad to see that for once, the band wasn’t denying the record’s existence. The title track from LLD sparkled in its live incarnation, Jeff Frankenstein’s kitschy keyboards being nicely bolstered by prominent drums and guitar. It kind of brought things full circle for me, since the first time I saw the ‘boys live was on their tour for Love Liberty Disco, the one where they set up an inflatable air dome in the parking lot. (Come to think of it, the real SonicFlood was the opening band on that tour.) An even better surprise came next - a new song that I honestly didn’t expect to be part of their live set. I nearly mistook “Cornelius”, my favorite track from Thrive, for “Live in Stereo” at first, due to the similar intros, but there’s no mistaking those goofy, sports-rally lyrics. The lighting really helped accentuate the bounciness off the song, flashing wildly during Jody Davis’s tasty riffs which led into the chant-along chorus: “Na na, na na na, na na na na, COR! NE! LI! US!” My favorite moment during the concert came not long after, when the band cranked up their latest radio hit, “Million Pieces (Kissin’ Your Cares Goodbye)”. My girlfriend and I were just having a blast swaying back and forth to the steady, mid-tempo beat during that one - she was waving her glow sticks around and at one point she hung a small necklace with a glowing star over my head, except it was too small, and so the star hung right beside my nose, bouncing back and forth against my face with the rhythm. I looked like a moron, but I didn’t care - for once I let the message of the song sink in, dropped all my burdens, and just had a good time. (What’s the point of liking these songs if you can’t apply them to your life?) I could tell the band was proud of their new songs - as much as I was in the mood to hear some classics, I’ve already heard most of the ones live that they’re ever gonna play again, so I was fine with the fact that during the first half of the concert, “Entertaining Angels” was the oldest thing they played. Bassist Phil Joel actually provided a nice intro to that one, hogging the spotlight for a brief minute as he sang the chorus to his solo hit “God Is Watching Over You”. The two other vocally-inclined members of the band followed suit on later songs - Peter Furler sang a quiet rendition of Keith Green’s “Oh Lord You’re Beautiful” (marring it slightly by throwing out the token “let’s mention the crowd’s home city/state to get them excited” trick during the last line), which led unexpectedly into “Joy”, which is another “only featured on the greatest hits” track, but actually one of the band’s best songs ever. Finally, Jody Davis sang the Doxology “Praise God from whom all blessings flow…” to introduce the band’s 9/11-inspired song, “Lord (I Don’t Know)”. That one’s never gonna be one of my favorites, I’m sorry to say. The band tried to draw it out and make it more emotional, but to be it’s just not that interesting of a song. It didn’t help that Peter Furler launched into a 10-minute speech as the song faded out. When a band gives the same speech night after night, you have to wonder if they’re really paying attention to what they’re saying. Peter Furler’s attempts to name-drop when being motivational about God using our generation faltered when he mentioned George W. Bush. Um… not to knock Dubya or anything, but since when is he part of our generation? The average age of the band has to be mid-30’s, and the average age of the crowd much younger. Anyway… It was nice to see the band perk things back up and launch into “Shine” after that long tirade. I’m sure they’re sick of that one by now, but they know the kids love it. Surprisingly, the band got away with a few encore songs despite the fact that this was a festival - I guess you can do that when you’re headlining. The entire band, save Peter Furler, came back out on stage playing a rousing rendition of the fan favorite “Breakfast”, and it took me half the song to notice that he was up in the audience, near the top of the loge, even though the spotlight had been on him the entire time. (I’m just dense like that.) Maybe he was hoping he could avoid fans throwing cereal at him that way… who knows? The closing number, as expected, was the ‘boys brand-new praise chorus, “It Is You”. After all that energy, the ‘boys were wise to get “Shine” out of the way early and use a worship song to segue into Michael W. Smith’s set. I had to admit, it was pretty awesome to realize that a simple lyric and chord structure that Peter Furler had composed in fifteen minutes or so was now being sung by an entire crowd. “Holy, holy is our God Almighty/Holy, holy is His name alone”, we all sang over and over. Sometimes worship bands can try too hard to get a specific emotional response out of the audience - thankfully, the posturing was kept to a minimum here and the band was simply five more members of a crowd awestruck before God on that starry night. One minute, the music was soaring high on Jody’s powerful stop-and-go guitar hits as the song climaxed, and not too long after, the band was exiting the stage, leaving the crowd to themselves to loop through the chorus again and again, the focus off of the band and on God where it belonged. It’s been done before, but it’s a beautiful and reverent way to close a concert. Way to go boys! I’ll admit, it would have been nice to hear something unexpected and off the wall like “John Woo”, or anything else from Take Me to Your Leader, but I’ve already learned to live with the fact that my favoritest Newsboys song, “Lost the Plot”, belonged to John James and will never be played live again. Neither will several of the band’s more intriguing tracks since as “Elle G.” or “Always”, or some of the tracks from LLD that have probably never been played live. I’ll live with it. Nobody knew his secret ambition was to be a worship leader… I have to say, if you’ve never seen a Michael W. Smith concert before, then well… you may never get to. I don’t mean to imply that Michael W. Smith leading worship isn’t a concert - it’s just that I’ve heard so much about his live show that it’s a bit strange to have him leading worship, and try to pretend the first 17 years of his career never happened. There was a small part of me that hoped, this being my first MWS live experience and all, that he’d sneak in at least one of his pop hits, but the entire set vacillated between his recent Worship album and the soon-to-release Worship Again, which he had actually recorded the week prior to this show. He’s a worship leader now; that’s his thing. The pyrotechnics, the crossover hit love songs, the dazzling piano playing… all of that has distilled into a heartfelt but somewhat pedestrian brand of modern worship. MWS took the stage in fine enough fashion, wielding an acoustic guitar, which propelled him and his modest band (only one backup singer as opposed to the all-star choir he recruited for Worship) through the opening numbers - “Open the Eyes of My Heart” and a new original simply titled “Hallelujah”. From there in, his set was definitely geared towards those worn out by the festival proceedings, and needing a chance to reflect and relax and sing a lot of slow songs. I’m not knocking this at all - just being honest and stating that the rest of the artists present had already provided ample opportunity to worship, in my opinion. Michael spent the rest of his set at the piano (at least, what I saw of it). He took some time to explain why he’d decided to do something he previously said he’d never do and record another worship album - simply put, he found some great songs. He gave us the chance to preview some of those - his take on Reuben Morgan’s “I Give You My Heart” and another newer song which was actually quite lovely, but I couldn’t pick out a title. (My girlfriend knew the song; apparently her home church in Hawaii is more “with it” on the new songs than mine is.) From there, he led the audience into a string of familiar songs, starting with the wildly popular “Above All”, and following Worship‘s track list song for song, all the way through “Breathe”, the ultra-repetitive “Let It Rain”, “Agnus Dei”, and “Awesome God”. Now, I really love “Agnus Dei” (though I admit I’m partial to Third Day’s version from Exodus), and despite my disappointment at the predictability of the set, I was doing my best to engage in the worshipful atmosphere and sing along, but after half a day’s worth of screaming, shouting and singing, my voice just wasn’t up to those high notes. That song is just in the wrong key for me (MWS’s has a habit of writing songs in a key that forces me to jump up and down an octave at various intervals - don’t ya just hate when that happens?) It physically hurt to sing at that point. By the time the day’s second verse-less rendition of “Awesome God” rolled around, my friends and I decided it was time to hit the road. *GASP!* I know, I know, I’m a bad reviewer, I should’ve stuck around for the whole thing. I would have liked to see what MWS would pull out to close his worship set with, but all the same, I had a funny feeling it wasn’t gonna be “Missing Person” or “Secret Ambition” (and much to the chagrin of the older crowd, certainly not “Friends”!), and I was wiped out, and had to take a detour by my girlfriend’s relatives’ house in Long Beach before returning to my pad in Burbank. I didn’t exactly feel like fighting traffic in the parking lot, and my girlfriend had already seen him live, so she didn’t really care at that point. On the way out, I did catch strains of MWS singing U2’s 㦔”, which was kinda cool, though it kind of irks me to see the CCM world beat a dead horse on certain U2 songs while panning the rest (and besides, dc Talk beat him to it). No offense to Michael - I respect his decision to do what he genuinely feels called to do instead of going through the motions and forcing out another pop album, but I wish I had taken the chance to go see him back during the Live the Life era. Lord, I don‘t know where all this is going… It’s hard to say whether the Fish Fest will be a one-off experiment to bring a mini-festival to the California crowd, or whether it will eventually expand to the proportions of Cornerstone or Spirit West Coast. My guess is something in between - the bands were just diverse enough to draw a pretty big crowd, and a station known for being rather middle of the road deserves props for getting some of the more “alternative” acts to come out and play the Festival Stage. By all accounts, the Fest was successful, and the radio deejay’s hopes will come true as planning for Fish Fest 2003 gets underway. Still, I’d like to see the Festival Stage acts get time for more than five or six songs next year (maybe fewer of them need to be signed on), and while I’m making unreasonable wishes, it’d be nice to have a friendlier venue that actually allowed people to take in things like… I don’t know, WATER? Anyway, it was a good experience, and as tried as we were after half a day, I can’t imagine what four days of doing this while sleeping in a campground will do to us. Hmmm… maybe we’ll just have to find out at Spirit West Coast next year. Stay tuned. SET LISTS: ZoeGirl: Even If With All of My Heart Ordinary Day Dismissed Plain Open the Eyes of My Heart You Are My King (Amazing Love) Awesome God (plus some other stuff including “Here and Now“) The Benjamin Gate: How Long The Calling This Is Not All Over Me Lay It Down Do What You Say Pax217: Tonight Sandbox Praise Voices Prizm PSA A.M. Jennifer Knapp: By and By Into You Lay It Down Come to Me Breathe on Me His Grace Is Sufficient A Little More Trinity The Way I Am Relient K: Kick-Off Sadie Hawkins Dance Maybe It’s Maybeline Down in Flames Those Words Are Not Enough The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything (chorus) Pressing On (some other stuff including “Softer to Me” and “I’m Lion-O”) Newsboys: Giving It Over Who? Love Liberty Disco Cornelius Million Pieces (Kissin’ Your Cares Goodbye) God Is Watching Over You (chorus - Phil Joel solo) Entertaining Angels Joy Lord (I Don’t Know) Shine Breakfast It Is You Michael W. Smith: Hallelujah Open the Eyes of My Heart I Give You My Heart (new song; I can’t recall the title) Above All Breathe Let It Rain Agnus Dei Awesome God (some other stuff including U2’s "40") MY RATINGS: ZoeGirl: 4 stars The Benjamin Gate: 3.5 stars SonicFlood: 2.5 stars Pax217: 3 stars Jennifer Knapp: 3.5 stars Relient K: 4.5 stars Newsboys: 4 stars Michael W. Smith: 3 stars FESTIVAL OVERALL: 4 stars  |
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by starcollector
by kiwifella
![Jersey Boys [Original Broadway Cast Recording] by Original Broadway Cast Reviews](http://di2.shopping.com/images/pi/95/a4/8a/2006752046-100x100-0-0.jpg?p=p8.0fa356365d48b4af7763&a=2&c=1&l=8071320&t=120603024649&r=1)
