(via Daniel himself)
Every once in a while the OurStage staff urges me to venture outside of my office, away from my computer (yes, you may gasp here) and actually go see live music. Novel idea, really. So I was honored and quite enthusiastic to check out, The SoulFest, July 30th-August 2nd at Gunstock Mt. in Gilford, NH.
Soulfest is the premiere Christian/Spiritual music festival in New England and sponsored the Soulfest channel on OurStage. For the curious amongst you, here are the selected OurStage performers.
Christopher James: Mountain Top Stage on Friday, August 1 @ 10:15am
SiLOam: Revival Stage on Saturday, August 2@ 1:20pm
Borderline Eleven: Inside Out Stage on Saturday, August 2 @ 2:45pm
Phil DaRosa: Mercy Street Stage on Friday, August 1 @ 8:45pm
I left my house early (ok, not that early) and made my way to the mountain. I have to admit, I’m not an expert on the Christian/Spiritual music scene. If I were at all an advanced planner, I would have had my itinerary for the day planned out and a playlist of the artists I was going to see downloaded to my iPod. Since I’m not, I listened to two hours of sports radio, amazed that non-stop talk about Manny trade rumors actually kept my interest for that long.
How Daniel knew he was in the right parking lot.
Daniel brought with him only a hat and felt woefully ill-prepared to “fest” after meeting this family.
I’ll pepper the rest of my blog post with observations I made about
Christian/Spiritual music and the Soulfest festival scene.
1. The music is AMAZING—metal, rap, rock, folk…really strong musicianship and performers. Check out some of the Soulfest artists and sample for yourself.
2. The folks attending the festival are REALLY friendly (and everyone was smiling). Love? Religion? Heck, give me some of that any day.
Daniel’s last memory of Gunstock Mountain was sliding downhill on his butt—fast
Daniel got to meet the truly “cool cats” of August Burns Red. Pictured here is Matt (drums) and Dustin (guitar). Let’s get these guys on OurStage soon!
*More observations…*
3. Some of the biggest bands out there are Christian artists, but who don’t identity themselves as “a Christian band” .
4. I didn’t get a fried dough, chinese food, a hot dog, or a slushie and I was glad.
Daniel watches Rachel Taylor of the band Maeve perform even after she admitted she doesn’t read any of Daniel’s emails.
Daniel thinks he needs to do more of this...
*More observations…*
5. I wouldn’t want to put on a huge music festival. Hats off to Dan
Russell for doing it year after year. Whenever you can, get out there
and support the artists and promoters by going to see live music and
attend festivals. Especially the ones that OurStage helped book talent
for (::cough:: Newport ::cough:: JVC Jazz).
6. I want to support the Not For Sale campaign. This organization is amazing. OurStage already has helped them out a ton. After hanging with them today, I want to do more.
Well, that was my Day 1 at the Soulfest. Tomorrow I’m checking out The Wrecking and Maeve and hopefully OurStage winner Phil DaRosa. That’s all folks.
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