The Phantom Tollbooth podcasts are located at: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Tollbooth_pod it's very easy to subscribe there, or past that link into your personal Google page so you can see new files at a glance.

I guess I should try to do a wrap-up/summary/best of the fest sort of thing.  I'm not very good at, like, ranking things, but I'll give it a shot.

Total miles driven: about 1700

Total number of bands seen: about 56

Number of trips to Wal-Mart: 1 (record low)

Best late night snack (at the fest): french fries with cajun spice and ketchup

Best late night snack (at the dorm): Little Debbie giant-sized fudge rounds

Best overall music day: Thursday (Divine Soldiers, Tifah, Dear Future, Michael Pritzl, Deas Vail, Violet Burning, Rosie Thomas, Anberlin, Over the Rhine)

Most painful conflict: Anberlin/Leigh Nash/Starflyer 59 (runner up: Over the Rhine/Copeland)

Most distortion (intentional): The Violet Burning

Most distortion (unintentional): Anberlin

Loudest: The Violet Burning

Best excuse for being late: Relient K, "our bus blew up" (runner up: Divine Soldiers, "we got lost, ran out of gas, and I got beat up")

Best band flier: Mike Dunn and the Kings of New England, "It's Not Metal!"

Best t-shirt: "Coffee: do stupid things faster with more energy" (runner up: "French Canadian" with cartoon of two Mounties kissing)

Best rock poses: Bloodgood (with Oz Fox)

Creepiest show: No Longer Music (I only saw VIDEO of their performance and I was totally skeeved out)

Best performer out of the audience: Kara from France with the Lost Dogs (runner up: cowbell girl with Mike Dunn)

Best press conference: Family Force 5

Worst album title mistake at a press conference: Interviewer at Family Force 5, "Business Up Front, Party In the Rear"

Best walk-on music: Spoken, "Thriller"

Best cover: TIE - Mike Dunn, "American Girl" (Tom Petty); Flatfoot 56, "Kung Fu Fighting" (Carl Douglas)

Best stage show: TobyMac

Best album listened to on the iPod during the trip: Jimmy Eat World, Futures.  (An underrated album that just REALLY hit the spot as I was driving away from the festival on Saturday night.)

Band most missed at Cornerstone this year: Mute Math

Craziest crowd: Flatfoot 56, Encore 2

Best band name: Ferocious Uppercut (runner up, a co-bill: Sexually Frustrated with Resistance)

Most surprisingly worshipful crowd: Flatfoot 56, Fat Calf Stage ("Amazing Grace")

Worst pants: Les Carlsen, Bloodgood

Gallons of bottled water personally consumed (approx.): 6

Best drum solo: Mickey Grimm, Over the Rhine

Most compellingly dumb show: Family Force 5 (seriously, it was awesome)

Best new (to me) band: Tifah

Best performance: TIE - Over the Rhine, Family Force 5

I guess that about wraps up what I've got to say for 2007 (but you never know, something else might pop into my brain later, and I'll probably leave comments for my fellow bloggers).  Thanks for reading.

If you're into different kinds of music than what we've been blogging about here (metal, hardcore, etc.), and you can write, and you're coming to the fest next year, there may be a place for you on this page next year.  Leave a comment and I'll try to get you in touch with the right people.

I'll be uploading a bunch of photos to my Flickr page over the weekend, so please, make me feel good about myself by going and looking at them: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vapspwi

See you next year!

JRjr

I feel really bad that I didn't make a "Bands" post for Wednesday, because my browser ate my homework.  So, in the interest of completeness, I'll try to reconstruct what I saw and did that day.  It's a little tough, not only because it was a week (and like 40 concerts) ago, but also because the schedule was pretty jumbled up that day, so I don't even have good notes about who I saw when and where.  But I'll give it a shot...

Wednesday was declared the "Day of Metal" at the Sanctuary stage, which seems a bit redundant.  As much as I like the name "Day of Metal," I'm not much of a metalhead, at least not for new stuff, so I steered clear of metal in favor of a lot of decidedly not-metal bands.

After a quick initial visit to the merch tents, I started the day with Grey Holiday.  Unfortunately, I only saw 2 or 3 of their songs, but they were good.  Like many bands on the Encore 2/Decapolis/Etc. stage this year, they had a keyboard front and center.  The singer/keyboard player also contributed a bit of trumpet at one point.

Next up was EleventySeven, a goofy, self-effacing pop punk band.  They were dumb fun, and showed admirable dedication to their schtick by performing in NASA jumpsuits (with their keyboard player in a full spacesuit) for most of their set, even in the heat of the day.

Wavorly came on next.  I heard a lot of good things about this band over the course of the week, and their MySpace songs sound pretty good - a little heavy, but melodic, with some cool keyboards.  Live, it came across a little heavier than I'd prefer, so I only stayed for about half of their set, but I like their stuff well enough that their album might be worth a listen.

For something completely different, I headed to the Gallery stage to check out The Upstairs Divine.  I had the opposite problem with their stuff as I did with Wavorly - it was OK, but mellow enough that I wasn't really feeling it at 3 in the afternoon, so I listened to a couple of songs and headed back to Encore 2 to see Nevertheless, who I don't remember much about at this point.

Sticking out like a sore thumb in the midst of the poppy rock bands was the Celtic punk of Flatfoot 56, who I've been wanting to see for a couple of years.  Their Pogues-style punk music, adding mandolin and bagpipes to the traditional punk mix, was very cool.  The crowd was huge and very fired up for this show.  The band exhorted the crowd to perform various permutations of circle pits (one big circle, two circles going in opposite directions, and so forth), and watching the crowd, which included a guy in a viking costume, a plastic Santa Claus, and several pirate flags, was even more entertaining than watching the band.  Musically, the band was a lot of fun, too, playing covers of "Do You Wanna Dance" and "Kung Fu Fighting" along with their original material.  One of the coolest shows I saw at the whole festival.

Finally, playing just before everybody's favorite band "Dinner Break," was Luminate.  This band seems to be on the rise, quickly.  They formed in 2005 in Texas, and launched their career on a generator stage at Cornerstone 2006.  This year, I think they played every day of the festival, including this nice slot on the Decapolis stage.  They have a nice, melodic sound; it's not unlike a lot of other bands that played the fest this year, but they do it well, with a lot of confidence.  The predominant sound at the festival seemed to be moving back toward melody and musicianship this year, which is welcome.  The band also has a well-designed card containing their contact info, a brief bio and description of their sound, and other relevant information.  It's very helpful, even to this random blogger; I'm surprised more bands don't do something similar.

After the aforementioned Dinner Break, I did something I've never done before - I went to Main Stage with the intention of seeing one band, coming back to the Gallery, and going back to the Main Stage.  If you've ever walked down to Main Stage and back, you know that it's not something that's undertaken lightly.  But it was only Wednesday, and I was still brimming with energy, so off I went, to see FireFlight.  Then I hiked back up to the Gallery for The Lee Boys.

The Lee Boys are a family band, playing a form of music known as "sacred steel."  They're kind of a jam band (normally anathema to me, but for some reason, this stuff doesn't drive me as crazy as, say, Dave Matthews or Phish), not unlike Robert Randolph and the Family Band, but with less rock and a little more R&B than Randolph.  The band drove 27 hours from Miami to Cornerstone, and they played a cool show with a sound that wasn't heard anywhere else at the fest this year.  The crowd was a little small, but was very enthusiastic, dancing and clapping along with the band.  It was worth the hike up from Main Stage to catch their set, which is high praise indeed.

Back down on Main Stage, TobyMac brought his big, high-energy show to a big crowd.  TobyMac is turning into a can't-miss show at the fest, if only for the spectacle of it all - 9 musicians on the stage, breakdancers doing backflips off of speakers, a DJ, bone-crunching bass, and some pretty catchy songs.  Of all the former DC Talk members, Toby's music seems the most like the logical extension of the DC Talk sound, but with even more punch than DC Talk ever brought.  I always enjoy TobyMac shows.

There weren't any midnight shows of particular interest to me, so I stopped to hear a bit of Falling Up and then caught most of Cool Hand Luke.  I'm not a huge fan of Cool Hand Luke (mostly I just haven't listened to them very much), so I was content to sit outside the Gallery stage, watch people walking by, and enjoy the cool night air (and some french fries).

Without any of my favorite bands anchoring the schedule, Wednesday looked a little iffy going in, but as it turned out, I saw a lot of really good music that was almost all new to me.  That makes it a successful day, and a nice warmup for the day of total awesomeness that was to follow on Thursday.

JRjr

Here are a few memorable moments from this year's festival (not counting the memorable things my friends did or said, since, well, you weren't there for that...).  Add a comment with your additions.

• Flatfoot 56 doing "Amazing Grace" - we got there at the very end, unfortunately, but were in time to catch the entire tent jumping, moshing, and waving their arms while singing along to a punk-with-bagpipes rendition of "Amazing Grace."  Beautiful!
• A family sitting in the front row at the Violet Burning show - parents and three kids under 10.  The little boy was asleep in his mom's lap.  This led to two great quotable moments:
• Michael Pritzl saying that everybody should come in and listen because their music was safe for the entire family, "just like the radio stations who won't play our music."
• Michael prompting Black Cherry to try to wake up the sleeping boy and Black Cherry responding "Awake O Sleeper!"  Alas, the power of Black Cherry didn't compel him.
• The Family Force 5 Press Conference - all of it.  They answered some prepared questions in great style, explaining the album title, for instance, as a parallel to both ministry and mullets, then took audience questions which were fantastic.  When asked "What's your favorite accessory" (they use a number of props during a typical show), they responded "socks - they keep my feet dry" then "underwear."  When asked what's their favorite song to play, answers varied from "Wipe Out" (for the drummer, since it's pretty much the only song where the drum part could be recognized) to "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."  And, as mentioned elsewhere, their beat-boxing was very fun and unexpected.
• Day of Metal 2007.  This is memorable for me in ways it probably wasn't memorable to those it was intended for.  I loved their signage  - descriptions such as "Death/Black," "Progressive Death / Grind" are so interesting to me, because I haven't got a clue what they refer to.  Besides, where else but Cornerstone are you going to find a Day of Metal just a few hundred feet from every other style of music (exept perhaps classical).

What else was memorable for you?

Let's all just pretend that I'm writing this on Sunday morning instead of Tuesday night and proceed from there, shall we?

The last day of the fest always brings up mixed emotions.  On the one hand, when the fest is over, you get to go back home and sleep normal hours in your own bed and drink out of something other than a water bottle and not have metal bands growling at you for 16 hours a day (unless that's your thing).  On the other hand, when the fest is over, you have to go back home and leave a lot of friends and fun and fellowship behind, and go back to work and traffic and stress over stuff more important than the fact that Copeland and Over the Rhine are playing at the same time.  I used to get really depressed for a week or two after the festival, apparently not an uncommon occurance among fest-goers; it seems like I'm mostly past that now, but it's definitely an understandable reaction.  Cornerstone is an awesome experience that can be hard to walk away from.

In recent years, the festival has been ending with more of a whimper than a bang.  They often used to "save the best for last," with a big midnight show like Over the Rhine or the Choir on the last night.  Now, they don't really have big midnight shows on the last night, so the overall feeling is that the festival kind of just tapers off to an ending.  At least this year, Underoath (not my thing, but a big band, nonetheless) was the finale on the Main Stage, so the grounds didn't feel quite so deserted on the last day.

My day started with the requisite trip to the all-you-can-eat pizza buffet at Godfather's in Macomb.  That place is like "the pizza joint that time forgot."  The same guy has been working there, giving the same spiel when you order, every year that I've been there, since 1998.  I headed to the festival grounds and caught the end of a Tollbooth Talk at the Press Tent.  A former Greenville College professor was talking about "Re-Imaging CCM" or something like that, and it was a fairly interesting discussion.  The event was recorded for a podcast that should be available at the Phantom Tollbooth in the near future.

Next up was the Family Force 5 press conference.  The actual "press" involvement at these things appears to be negligible, but they're still a good way to hear what various bands have to say about their careers, what they've got going on, and stuff like that.  The FF5 conference was hysterical.  As soon as they sat down, they started beat boxing, with the drummer tapping two suckers together to provide a rhythm.  They answered a lot of off-the-wall questions from fans and it was a lot of fun.  Again, it was recorded for a podcast, so keep an eye on the Phantom Tollbooth for that.

Looking at the schedule as I write this, I just realized that I completely forgot to go see one of the best sounding bands that I listened to pre-fest, A Change of Pace.  That's very disappointing - I really wanted to see them play.  Now I'm depressed. :-)

I was the merch guy for Jeff Elbel + Ping again this year, so I went over to the Gallery to talk to Jeff and find out what he needed me to do, and then I hung out and watched Exit the Ordinary.  They were pretty good, and I bet that Gallery slot sounded pretty sweet when they saw the schedule, but for some reason, nobody really showed up to watch them play.  There were a few people sitting in the back of the tent eating lunch, but my friends and I were about the only people actually down front watching the show.  That's got to be a little disheartening, but they played a good set.

Ping's set was solid, as always, and it's too bad that there wasn't a bigger crowd there to enjoy it.  They had a large band with interesting instrumentation (including some violin and some organ), some new songs, some old songs, a cool cover (U2's "North and South of the River") - basically everything that you could want in a set.  I'm sure one of the highlights for Jeff, who we affectionately call "Guitar Tech to the Stars," was getting Mike Roe to be his guitar tech for the set.  Even though Mike only brought a guitar out to Jeff once, he was backstage tuning for the whole set.  I know it's kind of dumb, but I felt pretty cool standing backstage watching the set from the wings and chatting with Mike Roe.  The separation between artist and fan at Cornerstone (excepting the Main Stage) is negligible, so it's really not a big deal, but it was still a cool thing.

After satisfying the CD needs of the throngs of adoring Ping fans and packing up the merch, I set off for Main Stage as fast as my tired legs could carry me to catch Family Force 5.  I missed their first song and a half or so, but still got there in plenty of time to soak in the total crunkness of it all.  The crowd was about the biggest I've ever seen for a 5:30 Main Stage slot - it didn't look much smaller than the crowd that watched Anberlin's headlining show earlier in the week.  A FF5 show isn't rocket surgery, but it's just about impossible to not have fun while they're playing.  There was breakdancing, there was a flying guitar and microphone stand (both fielded perfectly by professional dancer/hype man Xanadu), there were dancers from out of the crowd (including the XXXChurch.com porn bunny, appropriately doing the Cabbage Patch) - just an awesome show all around.  If you get a chance to see the band play live, do it.

Next, I walked about as far as you can possibly walk and remain on the Cornerstone grounds, way back into the woods to a secluded, peaceful campground, where a group of my friends and I convened for our annual Cornerstone dinner.  We had Puerco Pibil, based on a recipe from the Once Upon A Time In Mexico DVD.  It was totally awesome.  We had a good dinner and some good conversation, then headed back to the fest for the last few shows.

We checked out Leeland on the Gallery.  They may have drawn the biggest Gallery crowd of the week, very impressive for the last night of the fest.  And it was a very different (much younger) crowd than you usually see there, too.  I'd never heard them before, so it was an odd feeling to be in a big crowd at that stage and feel a bit out of the loop.  Their set was impressive, and much more of a traditional, old-school Christian concert than I've seen at Cornerstone in a long time.  The singer (Leeland Mooring) spoke and sang with a lot of passion, and the crowd responded - there were a number of teary eyes in the crowd.

The final show on my personal schedule was Sleeping at Last, on Encore 1.  They really impressed me the first time I saw them, a few years ago, but ever since then, their shows have been pretty hit and miss for me.  This year, they had a lot of technical problems and started about 30 minutes late, but once they got going, they sounded really good.  Their music definitely goes down a lot easier in a late night setting than in a hot, sweaty, mid-afternoon slot.  Encore 1 was directly in the "blast zone" of an incredibly heavy and loud band playing on the Underground stage, so in the quieter moments, the mixture of the bands sounded a bit like accidentally opening two MySpace pages at the same time.  But tuning out nearby bands is a coping mechanism that you learn quickly at Cornerstone, and the set was a nice way to wrap up the festival.

Afterwards, my friends and I stood around outside the web trailer (where a bunch of hard working people work literally around the clock to bring you all the photos and videos that you see on the live coverage site) and said our goodbyes.  On the way out of the fest, I retired my battered, sole-less shoes that I've worn to the fest for close to 10 years, and then drove away into the cool Illinois night for the last time (until next year).

JRjr

At the Ping set, I dedicated a new song, "Make Sure Your Eyes are Fine" to my friend (and probably yours) Bruce A. Brown. Luckily, I remembered to add after finishing that song that it was dedicated "for" Bruce, not "about" Bruce. 

"Make Sure Your Eyes are Fine" was inspired by "First I Look at the Purse," a song Smokey Robinson wrote for the Coasters.  Later, in 1972 (I think), the J. Geils Band released a cover of this on their Full House live album.  I had long thought of J. Geils Band as the group that did "Centerfold," "Freeze Frame" and "Love Stinks."  I had no idea what a superbad Detroit R&B rhythm section those guys were in the early days.  They were from Boston, by the way.

Anyhow, I heard their cover and thought, "That is seriously great rock and roll. I'd like to do a song like that."  Then I wrote my tune, and apparently I remembered the Geils track better than I thought.  The chords and riffs are different but similar, and the composition is really close (i.e. intro, verse, chorus, v2, c2, bridge, solo, v, c, breakdown, outro, speed up, thrash, end).

Recently, some friends played an iPod email-game in which you list the first lines of the first twenty songs that play on your iPod in shuffle mode.  Since I shuffled my "Jukebox" playlist, I wasn't surprised when "First I Look at the Purse" came up.  Bruce was the only one who knew that song.  No one I know in the band, or at work, or anywhere else knew it either.  Considering how long and well-circulated the song was, I was at least 35 years late to discover it, too.  Hence the dedication, in recognition of Bruce's encyclopaedic and musical mind.

John Bretzlaff and I had worked out a short "skit" (for lack of a better word) to introduce the song.  But in the moment, I forgot to do it.  I guess it would have been like a Lost Dogs homage.  Maybe next year we can try it, if we get to play.  It's not as if the Dogs aren't known to recycle their jokes from one year to the next.  Our bit went sort of like this:

- previous song ends

- sympathetic audience members clap and/or cheer

Jeff:  "Thanks!  Excuse me just a minute, I need to take care of band business for a second.  Hey, John!"

John:  "Yeah?"

Jeff:  "What's going on?  Is it too crowded in the tent for you?  That was awful.  Your guitar is out of tune, and I heard about a dozen bum notes.  You should have practiced more."

John: "I think maybe you should worry about the plank in your own eye before you worry about the speck in mine."

Andrew (drummer): "One, two, three, four!"

- band plays "Make Sure Your Eyes are Fine"

Yes, it's true.  We no longer make any attempt whatsoever to obscure how utterly corny we are.  We do have fun, though.

Attention, blog fans!  The fest may be over, but the blogging continues!

Due to a variety of reasons (technical problems, insufficient hours in the day, general malaise), a few of us didn't post quite as much as we wanted to.  But Cornerstone is the gift that keeps on giving (today it was giving me complete exhaustion at work), so stay tuned for a few more posts over the next few days as things decompress from the fest, get our CDs unpacked, get our photos uploaded, get our thoughts together, and maybe catch up on some sleep.

One way that I always seem to stretch out the fest is by listening to the huge pile of CDs that I inevitably come back from the fest with - new stuff I bought, old stuff I bought, stuff people gave me, stuff somebody threw at me from a stage, stuff some guy handed me on the corner, etc.  The pile is a bit smaller than usual this year.  In my early years at the fest, I was still finding old stuff that I never got around to buying (usually at Rad Rockers or other used CD vendors), but now it seems like I've just about caught up on all the old stuff that I want.  I suspect I'm not the only one - there seemed to be fewer used CD vendors this year, and even Rad Rockers downsized from their previous, large spot in the corner of Merch 1.

Still, there was plenty of good music available, and it's always nice to buy stuff directly from the bands to help them pay for their gas money or repairs to their van.  (Nowhere else are the struggles of young bands on tour so evident as at Cornerstone, I've found.)  So, here's what I picked up at the fest and will be listening to over the next few weeks.

Grey Holiday, The Afterglow EP

Dear Future, The Emergency EP

Exit the Ordinary, The Place You Are EP

Family Force 5, Replace Me (The Single)  (Got this one for free at a CD exchange table at the RMC BBQ mentioned in an earlier post.)

All the Day Holiday, We'll Be Walking On Air EP

Lost Ocean, Lost Ocean

Seabird, Spread Your Broken Wings and Try EP

The Urban Hillbilly Quartet, Beautiful Lazy  (A guy handed this one to me for free while I was sitting outside the Gallery tent.)

Luminate, Bright and Beautiful EP

Deas Vail, All the Houses Look the Same

Tifah, Safe & Sound

Also, stuff I would have bought at the fest, except I'd already ordered it online, and it came to my house while I was gone:

The Violet Burning Demos (Stars Go Down...When We Were Future Stars, Pomegranate, and Gravity)

I also bought a couple of t-shirts, including the requisite fest shirt with all the bands on the back, and a cheap ($8) Anberlin shirt that's got a nice, simple, clean design on the shoulder.

It seemed to be the year of the EP, as you can tell from the list above.  That's actually quite a good idea for a band playing a festival setting - you can sell them fairly cheap (I paid $5 to $8 for most of the ones I got), so people who liked your set can make an impulse buy and check out your music without having to make the investment of buying a full CD.  Dropping $5 on a band I liked live is a no-brainer; I'm a little less impulsive when it comes to spending $12 or $15.  So, EPs=Good.

Leave a comment - what did y'all pick up at the fest?  Who came back with the most ridiculously over the top pile of CDs?

JRjr

In a few minutes, we'll leave Macomb and head out on our long journey back home -- of all the bloggers you've seen here, I think we have the longest drive - just about 1,000 miles back to our home in Austin, Texas.  That's 1,000 miles to remember the laughter we've had the last week.  1,000 miles to miss our friends but start re-adjusting to the next 51 weeks without them being nearby.  1,000 miles to listen to much of the new music we picked up (looks like only 10 new albums this year).  1,000 miles to stay awake and drive safely (don't worry, we split the drive into two days, since after a week of staying up late and not getting much sleep, it wouldn't be smart to push it).  1,000 miles to consider other topics to blog about (I have several ideas, which will be coming your way in days to come).  1,000 miles to be thankful for such a good week, such good community, and such a good God who takes joy in seeing His children being happy.

1,000 miles which are all long, but which are totally worth it.

Every year on the last day of Cornerstone I feel about the same way.  "I'm so tired and ready to go home" and yet also, "this is the last day so I better soak it all in."  So, with those two thoughts in mind, I ventured forth for my last day of Cornerstone. 

I arrived at the Press Tent for an interesting discussion about "Re-Imaging CCM."  There was lots of great discussion there and at some point I may expound a little further on my own blog.  (I won't use this site as my own personal soap box, however tempting it may be, haha.)  Suffice to say though, the music industry is undergoing big changes and Christian music is just a small niche in that industry, but nevertheless, it will also feel the changes as the industry as a whole changes.  We sat through a couple more press conferences, one by Decyfer Down and one by Sean Michel, a contestant on American Idol this year who was here with his band at the festival.  The most interesting press conference of the afternoon, however, was Family Force 5, as they entertained the crowd with beatboxing into the mikes and answering questions.  They're just a fun band all around and they are still really accessible despite their recent success.

Jeff Elbel enlisted us to help him record and film his show at the Gallery stage so we showed up early and caught a little bit of Spoken Word.  Then we watched Exit The Ordinary, a three piece straight-up rock band that seemed a little out of place on the quieter Gallery stage, but still delivered a solid show good enough to make me pick up their EP. 

Elbel and his band Ping performed next.  Elbel is the guitar tech to everyone during the week of Cornerstone and works hard keeping everything running smoothly at the Gallery Stage, so this is his well-deserved chance to get a little visibility on the front of the stage.  Armed with a cavalcade of video cameras, there was plenty of recordings which will hopefully someday make it into a DVD of some sort.  The highlight of the show for me was his cover of U2's "North and South of the River" which he also performed last year.

I took off and kicked it up to warp speed to get down to the Main Stage to see Family Force 5.  I don't know what to say about these guys.  I'm way too old to like this kind of music, but it's infectious, catchy, and a whole lot of fun.  The crowd was one of the biggest crowds I've seen at the Main Stage for an opening band early in the evening and they did not disappoint entertaining everyone.  I love seeing bands from home in Atlanta make it big and I have a feeling they are well on their way towards that.

Afterwards, I joined friends for dinner secluded away from all the noise in the back corners of the campground.  As we sat around and talked about music, television and each others' lives and just in general, enjoyed each others company, I thought about how many other groups of people were doing this same exact thing during this week at Cornerstone.  This is a reunion time and meeting place for groups of friends year after year.  That's one of the traditions about Cornerstone that I really love.

I went back to the Gallery Stage to see Leeland which was packed out.  I was surprised by the big crowd as this had been the first time I had heard of them, but they brought the crowd into a mood for praise and there was definitely a very reverent and worshipful tone set over the show.  The final show of the night was Sleeping At Last, which fit quite well into the late night with some dreamy songs and airy rock.  Near the end of the show they played one of my all-time favorite songs by them called "Umbrellas" and the lyrics really hit me hard.  Maybe it was just the Cornerstone dust or maybe I was just missing home and was reaching the emotional peak of the week knowing I was leaving so much, but returning to so much also, but let's just say things got a little blurry for me to see.

One of the great quotes that I heard today was, "There is so much love at this festival, now take this love out to the world."  I'm tired and ready to go home, but I'm ready to take a little bit of Cornerstone with me, too.

This single blog comment gets its own entry.

Today, Mike Roe was my guitar tech.

As I said on stage, that's what fourteen years of equity buys you.

Thanks, Mike. :) See you tomorrow in Bolingbrook, when I'll be back to tuning your guitars again.

---

okay, a bit more to this entry. I'd also like to send biggest love to today's very special version of Ping [Al Oliver, Mike Choby, Kim & John Bretzlaff, Andrew Oliver, Matt Gadeken, Dave Dampier], Steve and Dave from Mason Sound, Chris Macintosh, Kyle Farthing and his camera crew, the Gallery crew [Glen VanAlkemade, Chad, Darvin], Trevor Wiitala, Jerry Ray, Jr., Jonathan Dix and everyone who threw up a camera or recorder for us, and absolutely everyone who came to watch us do what we'd love to do every day. There were a couple of train wrecks, but I think by now everyone who supports us knows that Ping is a pick-up band of great players that jumps in and wings it for all they're worth. What a blast. Can we do it again tomorrow?

Our assignment list on the wall inside the web trailer points out the obvious. Last Day!

It's been a long week, but well worth it.

My neck is cramped, my eyelids are heavy, and my feet are blistered and itchy. But you know what, that's OK.

I haven't seen a ton of bands this year. I've spent quite a bit of time, though, just wandering around the grounds, snapping pictures. Next year, we want to make shirts that say "I want to take your picture."

Until then, enjoy some of the shots I've taken thus far. More coming later.

For every Skillet and Pillar who play, there are dozens of fringe bands. Hang around the fringes long enough and you'll see stuff you never would have guessed existed.

No band here has a name more befitting than No Longer Music. It wasn't music. It was, well, who knows. But it was entertaining. There was a crucifixion, resurrection, the whole works in an elaborate stage show. It was bizarre. But strangely cool.

I also checked out the old school '80s metal night. Whitecross and Bride still know how to rock. The guys from Whitecross especially looked super excited to be at the fest. They couldn't stop smiling. They even stopped to take pictures of the crowd packing the HM tent.

Roe vs. Pritzl was indeed all that I expected tonight.  Michael Roe and Michael Pritzl join forces to sing each others' songs and take some playful digs at each other including the playing of the 77's "Greatest Hit", "The Lust, The Flesh, The Eyes, and The Pride of Life."   Afterwards, there was a fabulous sunset going on over the grounds, so I ran out to an open area and shot about a hundred photos.  Just another beautiful day closing down here on the Cornerstone Farm. 

I didn't really have anything I was strongly adamant about seeing in the evening, so I moved around a whole lot and tried to catch as much as I could.  I swung by the HM Mag tent where Whitecross, X-Sinner, Bride, and Bloodgood were bringing the 80's back in a metal way.  I saw a little bit of Bride and though I was never really a metal fan back in the day, they sounded great.  I stepped over then to the Fat Calf Stage where Flatfoot 56 was playing another show.  I'm surprised the tent was still left standing when the show was over.  The concert brought perhaps the most worshipful moment of the fest so far for me when all these sweaty punk kids all sang "Amazing Grace" together at the end of the show.   Gave me goosebumps, I'll admit.

I swung down to the Dance Barn where my friend is keeping things moving along.  His road-trip partner, Doug Theodore, was spinning and the crowd was just beginning to arrive.  After that, I caught a little bit of The Myriad at the Gallery Stage.  I heard that Jonzetta was doing another show at the Anchor Stage so I swung over there, but it was not to be.  So, I headed back to the Gallery Stage to get a good seat for The Lost Dogs.  The four veterans of Cornerstone, Derri Daughtery, Terry Taylor, Mike Roe, and Steve Hindalong delivered once again bringing smiles and howls from their long-time fans.  They even indulged a couple of girls in a little karaoke for the night. 

The weather had been cool all night, but by the end, I was freezing.  As a Southern boy, I have a hard time reconciling shivering in July, but sure enough there I was shaking in my seat.  Brrrr.

...and of course, more pictures at Flickr!  Clicky!  Clicky!

After the solid block of awesomeness that was Thursday, there was no way that Friday could top it, but it still turned out to be a very diverse and enjoyable day, and the weather remained cool and overcast, which makes it a lot easier to enjoy stuff.  Nothing sounds good when you're too hot to move.

I started out by eating lunch and listening to the end of the "State of the Industry" roundtable at the Press Tent.  From what I heard, it was a fairly interesting discussion, although (as much as I'm looking forward to it) I'm not really sure what relevance a new Swirling Eddies album has to the state of the Christian music industry.  Maybe they'd already covered all the big stuff before I arrived, though.

The theme for the early part of the day seemed to be melodic, keyboard and/or chimey guitar driven rock music."  Come to think of it, that seems to be a trend at the festival in general this year.  Can anybody tell me where this has come from?  It's usually pretty easy to identify what wave the popular genres at the fest are riding, but this one has me stumped.  Leave a comment and enlighten me, if you have any thoughts.

Some of the bands that I saw that were along those lines included Seabird, Lost Ocean, All the Day Holiday, Future of Forestry, and Deas Vail.  (Luminate and Edison Glass, who are also in the same vein, also played, but I wasn't able to catch them.)  They were all enjoyable, but unfortunately, most of them have run together in my mind.  I bought CDs from Seabird, Lost Ocean, and All the Day Holiday (in addition to the Deas Vail CD that I bought yesterday).  I probably would have bought a Future of Forestry CD, too, but I needed to hang onto some money for food.  I can grab it online later.

(Which brings up a sidebar that kind of fits with my earlier "progress" post.  Back in the day, this was pretty much it for getting CDs from these bands or hearing their music, unless you happened to live in their area.  Now, you can listen to every band on MySpace and order their CDs online, which is pretty awesome if you can remember which bands you liked.  I guess that's where something like Disc Revolt comes in, where you can buy download cards at live shows and grab the music when you get home.  The only downside to this, fest-wise, is that bands seem to have less of a presence in the merch tents.  The tents are largely populated with booths selling clothing lines or accessories, or advocating causes - the number of dedicated band tables seems way down this year, which makes it a lot less fun to wander through the merch tents.)

The only big shows by my favorites yesterday were the Mike Roe solo show in the afternoon, the Roe vs. Pritzl show in the evening, and the Lost Dogs show at midnight.  (Mike Roe and Michael Pritzl are competing with Jonezetta for "hardest working performer at the fest" status.)  The "old guy" demographic, of which I'm probably a part, seems a bit down this year, so I was able to snag a front-and-center spot in the Gallery for all three of those shows.  Mike Roe's solo set was a nice, relaxing set of his solo songs and some 77's favorites.  The Roe vs. Pritzl set was a nice, relaxing set of Roe, 77's, and Violet Burning songs, with some banter and schtick thrown in for good measure.  I kind of wish those two would rock it out a bit more in their sets together.

The Lost Dogs played the midnight slot, and it was the first show of their tour, so they were a little loose but still as fun as always.  They played material from throughout their career, with an emphasis on their latest album.  The show was fun, the setlist was a bit different from last year, and the schtick was mostly fresh.  One highlight was "Lost Dogs Karaoke," where two brave audience members came up on stage and sang with the band (to varying degrees of success) on songs of their choosing ("Bad Indigestion" and "Moses in the Desert," running the gamut of the Lost Dogs diverse catalog).  They closed their 90 minute set with "Eleanor It's Raining Now," featuring a SMOKING guitar solo by Mike Roe.  The guys in the band are legends of Cornerstone, and of Christian music, so check them out if their tour comes to your area.

The rest of the day was spent surfing from stage to stage checking out random stuff from a wide variety of styles.  That sort of "stylistic whiplash" is one of my favorite things about Cornerstone.  Some of the things I saw included

• Redflecks: a female-fronted band with a very alt-80s sound

• Breaking the Silence: another female-fronted band, this time doing hard rock

• Discover America: I didn't hear enough to get a feel, but I think it was broadly indie rock

• The Wayside: always-enjoyable roots rock

• Random Ska Band: I didn't catch their name, but I saw what may have been Cornerstone's last surviving ska band playing a generator stage

• Mike Dunn and the Kings of New England: more roots rock.  Their flier ("It's Not Metal") pulled me in, and they were pretty good.  They were having technical problems and they weren't super-tight, but they had good songs, they were having fun on the stage, and they were playing a style that's underrepresented at the fest.  Their cover of Tom Petty's "American Girl" was one of the highlights of my day.

• Flatfoot 56: I caught the tail end of their raucous set on the tiny Fat Calf stage - I'm amazed the tent was still standing when they finished.  Their closing version of "Amazing Grace," with a mixture of chaos and worship from the crowd, was one of the coolest things I saw yesterday.

• Doug Theodore: DJ sets aren't really my thing, but I usually make it a point to go down to the Dance Club for a bit of thumping music every year.

• The Myriad: More spacey, melodic rock.  They seem like a band that I should like - they're tight and have a good sound - but for some reason they've always left me cold.

And finally...METAAAAAAAAL!  The festival hosted another old-school 80s metal night this year, featuring Whitecross, Bride, X-Sinner, and Bloodgood.  I wasn't a big metalhead back in the day, but I've always enjoyed some shredding.  Unfortunately, I had to miss Whitecross and X-Sinner, but I did see a couple of songs from Bride, and they sounded about like I remembered.  The crowd wasn't spilling out of the tent, but it was impressively large, and not just a bunch of old dudes.

I also heard that Oz Fox (of Stryper fame) was playing with Bloodgood, so even though I never listened to Bloodgood, I went to check out their set.  As it turns out, it was awesome.  Between Fox and the other guitarist, there were probably more notes played at this show than at any other show at the festival.  The singer's voice was still in fine form to hit all the high notes, and bassist Michael Bloodgood (talk about a guy BORN to play in a Christian metal band...) might have shaken one of my fillings loose.  The crowd was into it, pumping fists and singing along, although I didn't see any hair windmills.  This was probably one of the most surprisingly fun shows of the festival for me.

Now, one more day to go...

JRjr

So, yes, I'll admit it -- I'm a wimp and don't really enjoy camping at Cornerstone.  Having done it 6 of my 8 fests, I think I've given it a good try, and so we're staying in the dorms at Western Illinois University this year.  Actually, my husband (who has been to 11 fests since '95) has never once camped.  Both have their pros and cons:

Camping:

• Pro: easy access to go back to your campsite and take a nap, cook dinner, change clothes, etc.
• Con: hard to sleep comfortably when there's rain or excessive heat
• Pro: free (included in ticket)
• Con: have to bring all sorts of gear (which isn't too bad when you're coming from Illinois, Iowa, etc. -- but is much harder when you're coming from Texas, like us)

Dorms;

• Pro: Guaranteed not to leak, and has beds that aren't on the ground
• Con: driving an hour a day (round trip -- worse if you stop by Walmart, which always takes more time than you think...) to-and-from the fest grounds
• Pro: Nice hot showers, without a wait
• Con: the A/C can really be overpowering.

Weigh the options for yourself and decide.  By staying here, we miss out on morning activities (but we still make it a point to be there by lunch pretty much every day), and we do spend more time driving -- but it works well for us.

So, if you're considering Cornerstone next year but don't want to come because you don't want to camp -- consider the dorms.  I promise I won't call you a wimp if I see you in the halls. :)

I'm really not primarily a main-stage person (i.e. I don't just sit there all week -- I really do go to mostly other shows), but since my fellow bloggers didn't cover that scene as much, I figure I can give a unique contribution there.

Among our group, just Matt (my husband) and I went down on Friday night just for Switchfoot.  Others in our group, saying that it wasn't worth walking down there for one band (that they weren't really into) skipped -- and missed out on one quality rock and roll show.  We put in our earplugs, dropped our heavy backpacks, and found space in the crowd just a few feet off the walkway into the crowd from the stage.  Having seen Switchfoot just a few months ago, we expected the band to mostly play songs from O Gravity (their current release), but we were definitely satisfied when they pulled out quite a few from the prior albums.  Like every other time we've seen Switchfoot in the past couple of years, they brought a good show and the crowd loved it.

Switchfoot has a solid Cornerstone history - they mentioned this was their 7th show.  Jon Foreman even gave a shout out to Mortal and Fold Zandura -- one of which was probably on the list for my first Cornerstone back in 1998 (bands which featured Jerome Fontamillas, who joined Switchfoot a few years ago).

One of the best bits during the show was when Jon announced that they'll be touring with Relient K this fall.  Considering that those two band's most current albums pretty much rotate in my car stereo these days, we'll definitely have to make plans to see that tour.

No blog entry last night; sorry.  The days have been good and long.  I'm blessed to be able to sleep in a hotel room.  I do miss some of the joy of the Cornerstone camping experience, but there's not much sleep to go around and a room with a fan running means I get a few hours.  At the grounds, I'd probably get a couple.  Light sleeper.

Friday: Mike Roe, Deas Vail, Mike Pritzl, Bluebirds and Bright Lights, the Myriad, Roe vs. Pritzl, Tess Wiley, the Lost Dogs.  All at Gallery.  All pretty fantastic.  A good day.  The afternoon at Gallery was pretty easy on the stage crew, with three out of four acts having very limited stage plots.

Roe asked for requests during his set.  I called for the Allman Brothers' "Whipping Post."  I apologize.  I meant to call for "Jessica."

I got the Cajun red beans and rice, and the "benevolent burrito" at the vegetarian stand yesterday.  Tasty.

Today's the big day for Ping.  4:15pm at Gallery.  I'm going to try to get us on early if possible; we have ten songs to play.  Hope to see you there.  Must go.  Guitars to restring, pedal boards to repair, etc.  See you soon.

To all of you who are hanging on the edge of your seats waiting to find out what I had for dinner on Thursday, sorry I missed posting about it - sleep became a slightly higher priority once the midnight shows kicked in. :-)

I've mostly been sticking to the old, reliable standards for the last 2 days - a Pizza Hut pizza and breadsticks, a turkey sub from Subway, etc.  But I did try a couple of new things.

On Thursday, I tried a chicken gyro for the first time, and although it's a bit pricey ($7), it's quite tasty - a grilled chicken breast wrapped in a pita with some kind of ranch-like sauce and some onions.  I liked it so much the first time, I had another on Friday.

Last night, I had a big craving for "second dinner" before the midnight Lost Dogs show.  What I REALLY wanted was Waffle House, but that wasn't available, so I took a flier on the chicken melt from the fried stuff vendor.  It wasn't bad, except for the tomato they snuck in on me - a grilled chicken breast, some bacon, some kind of sauce (it was dark, so I couldn't quite see to identify it), and a slice of cheese.  Better than I thought it would be; I was a bit skeptical.  I also got an order of fries, because they had the third greatest condiment known to man (cajun spice) in copious, self-serve quantities.  Awesome.

One last new treat that I discovered last year, and have been taking full advantage of this year - the meat locker place that sells ribeye sandwiches and so forth also has really good ice cream.  Ice cream at Cornerstone is a total luxury item.  There used to be a Dairy Queen trailer on the grounds, but it was like an hour wait to get anything from them, so you had to be REALLY committed to ice cream.  But at the new place, you can just walk right up and they'll hand you ice cream (in exchange for a small fee).  Even though it was like 55 degrees last night, that's just too great an offer to pass up, so I took it down to the nice, warm dance club and ate it while I had fun watching the dancers and having my brain rattled (in a good way) by a DJ set.

JRjr

A few things have changed since my first Cornerstone in 1998.  Being very much a creature of habit when it comes to Cornerstone, I've got mixed feelings about some of the changes.

Back then, cellular telephone coverage in Macomb, let alone in Bushnell or on the festival grounds, was pretty much nonexistent.  Now, Macomb and Bushnell are covered quite well, and there's a temporary tower covering the festival.  It's a mixed blessing - on the one hand, it's nice to be able to call home without having to stand in line at the bank of pay phones, but on the other hand, now you've got to deal with things like phones ringing during shows (I'm looking at you, guy at the Over the Rhine show).  Also, some of my friends have a bit of dread that they'll get sucked into work-related calls while they're here on vacation, but I guess that's the price you pay for progress.

When I first started coming to the fest, it was largely due to the urging of a group of friends on the Internet, but oddly enough, I had no way to get ON the Internet while I was here - I didn't have a laptop, and even if I did, dial-up service wasn't worth figuring out.  Now I'm sitting on my MacBook in the WIU dorm on the school's wireless LAN.  Again, that's good and bad.  On the plus side, I write this blog and research bands on MySpace in the mornings before heading out, but on the other hand, the fest has lost some of the feeling of "retreat" for me, of disconnecting and getting away from "real life" for a week.

I think it's great that we have the ability to stay connected with people anywhere in the world FROM anywhere in the world, even from a cornfield in rural Illinois, but it does force you to spend a bit more effort to connect with the actual people that are there in the cornfield with you.

JRjr

Fantastic weather today. Hopefully the rain clouds have blown out and we are in for two days of unbelieveably pleasant weather. It may even drop into the 50's tonight. Dress warmly, kids!

So far, it's been a whirlwind day here. I have to say that I'm liking this new trend of bands with chiming guitars, keyboards, and heartfelt high-pitched vocals. It's totally gettng to the inner-teenager in me that refuses to grow up. Some of them sound alike, but I can listen to a hundred of these bands all day long and I won't complain. That being said, we tried to sample as many as we could around the festival this afternoon. The first band we saw today was Seabird. After that, I ran over to the Anchor Stage to catch a little bit of Redflecks, a female vocaled band with some older influences, almost like Blondie, but I don't think that's a very good comparision.

My friend at the Tastyfresh.com van was doing a DJ session, so I hopped over there to visit him. The folks at the dance forum/website have installed a DJ station with turntables into the top of a minivan and are doing impromptu generator shows from there. I've got to say that it's a pretty cool visual sight and it's successfully getting them attention from fest goers for their shows at the Dance Barn at night.

After stopping by there, it was back to some more rock and roll. I get back to the Indoor Stage and Decapolis Label Stage to first see All The Day Holiday, a band whose first album was produced by Ric Hordinski. The band features drums up front of the stage, much like Mute Math, bedecked with balloons all over the stage. Then, it's a quick leap over to the other stage to see The Future of Forestry. The band features guitars, keyboards, and even a theremin and they sound great. I'm loving all these new bands with lush instrumentation. Deas Vail plays at the Gallery Stage, so I hike over to there again. The band sounds a little bit like Mae and they deliver a great show.

Michael Roe is playing with Michael Pritzl tonight in a show called Roe vs. Pritzl. The two formed a friendship after sitting out late one night at their hotel after a show here at Cornerstone and the recent tour is fruit of that friendship. This afternoon, Roe first played a solo show at the Gallery tent touching on many of his classic solo songs mixed with some work from his band, The 77's. Right now, I'm taking a dinner break after seeing a little bit of The Wayside at the Jesus Village Fish Fry and Something Something Else Tent. Michelle and John Thompson have served for years behind the stage working hard with bands here and it's always fun to see them on the front of the stage for a change.

Tonight I'm looking forward to seeing Roe vs. Pritzl and the Lost Dogs. These are the veterans of Cornerstone and they always bring entertaining shows year after year. There will lots of laughs at each others' expense and lots of good music surely to be bad.

Ta-ta for now, kids!

   The big news of the evening came when I learned that Relient K's bus blew up.  No really, as in burned to the ground on the way to Illinois.  I hope everyone is okay.  That was unfortunate for us because it totally changed the Main Stage schedule.  That was good for Jonezetta, who gained a Main Stage slot and from what I hear rocked it out, that was bad for me because it pushed Anberlin into the headline slot and therefore in conflict with Leigh Nash.  Bummer.

   As Jeff Elbel said, the power cut out during the middle of the Violets set, but it didn't dampen the energy on stage.  They still managed to bring enough rock to satisfy my rock n' roll craving.  After getting a great spot (and taking some of my favorite photos yet!) of The Violet Burning at the Gallery tent, I decided I'd best bunker down for the evening here.    I would love to run down to the Main Stage to see Anberlin, but that would probably mean giving up this prime real estate.  Plus, it would also mean missing Ric Hordinski with Leigh Nash which was a combination that intrigued me to no end.  So I stayed put. 

   The performances in between did far more than pass the time.  Ric took the stage with his band Monk and jammed it out with his three-piece band.  Hordinski's bemused facial expressions are priceless and he has no fear of abusing his guitar as he runs the strings across the tent poll, slaps them with a guitar cord and in general, bangs the strings about as hard as he can.  The bass player hopped around and bounced on his feet while the drummer was just as active.   Rosie Thomas followed and I'll admit that I'm only familiar with her work by way of Sufjan Stevens, but her squeaky voice is quickly replaced by beautiful singing.  Her songs are beautiful and her stage banter is cute in an awkward way.  Her alter-ego, Sheila, even made a guest appearance at the end of the show.

    Monk proved to be a great backup band for Leigh Nash.  I enjoyed her show last year where she was only accompanied by an acoustic guitar, but this show had a lot more depth to it.  Michelle Thompson of The Wayside shared the stage to sing background for a couple of songs as Leigh Nash once again charmed us with her sweet vocals and banter about her son.

    Over the Rhine is probably one of the big reasons I'm here at Cornerstone this week, so this night is pretty much the apex of the festival for me.  Hopefully, it's not all downhill from here.  Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler have become standards for this midnight slot at the Gallery tent and year after year they prove why they deserve it.  The four-piece band with Mickey Grimm and Jake Bradley debuted many songs from their upcoming album The Trumpet Child.  Grimm got halfway into an amazing drum solo when the power cut out again at the Gallery stage, but it didn't deter the drummer as he frantically continued.  In no time the power was back on and he never missed a beat.  Good times. 
  
    I have to say that the ladies really brought their "A" game today.  Between all the vocalists and instrumentalists in The Divine Soliders, Tifah, Rosie Thomas, Leigh Nash, and Over the Rhine, there was much talent to balance out the overwhelming testosterone in rock and roll here at Cornerstone and the festival is so much the better for it.

    More pics now on my Flickr site from Thursday!

If Wednesday was the "Day of Metal," which you'd know about if the browser hadn't eaten my post from yesterday, then Thursday was the "Day of Awesomeness."

Sometimes at Cornerstone you can tell how great the lineup was based on the stuff that you didn't see.  Here's some of what I missed yesterday: Jonezetta (twice), Leigh Nash, Starflyer 59, and Copeland.  And as much as it pained me to miss those shows, I'm still very happy with what I did see.

I began the day at the New Band Showcase.  Hip hop collective the Divine Soldiers was first on the bill, but unfortunately, they were late.  According to one of the MCs, they got lost (which seems to be a theme with the bands at the fest this year), ran out of gas, and he got beat up.  But apparently none the worse for the experience, the band (two MCs, three background singers, two guitars, a drummer, and a keyboard player) rocked it for the two songs they were able to play.  It was very disappointing that they didn't get to play more.

Sometimes the scheduling will give you musical whiplash, so next up on the stage was Tifah, a band with a female singer that brought to mind Paula Cole or Sarah McLachlan.  Their music was driven by piano and violin, but their bassist was excellent, and the guitar and drums produced a sound that was driving and intense.  A highlight was their cover of Radiohead's "Karma Police," a song that I've never liked, but they made it sound good.  They were probably the best band I'd seen up to that point, and I bought their newest CD, Safe & Sound.

After catching a bit of another set from Dear Future (their sound was even better on a larger stage with a better PA), I went to the Gallery stage to see Michael Pritzl of the Violet Burning do a solo acoustic set.  He played songs from several Violet Burning albums, and took requests from the crowd.  It was a nice show, and as he played, I saw Black Cherry, bassist for the Violet Burning, jogging around and warming up backstage, foreshadowing the rock that was to come.

But first, I surfed around a couple of stages to check out some acts I was curious about.  I caught the end of Mark Lee Townsend's set, and he closed with three fun covers - the Police's "Message in a Bottle," the Partridge Family's "I Think I Love You" (on ukulele) and the Queen classic "Bohemian Rhapsody," accompanied by only an acoustic guitar and the crowd's singing.  It wasn't what you'd call "good," but it was a lot of fun.

Next, I caught the last two songs from Well Put, a rapper from Canada.  He had a fun style, talking directly to the audience in his rapping about as much as he performed pre-written lyrics.

Then, mostly on the recommendation of a guy I talked to in the bathroom here in the dorm at Western Illinois University, I went to see Deas Vail, who turned out to be another of the best shows of the fest for me.  They had a very melodic sound that I don't have a good comparison for - maybe Copeland?  They're playing the Gallery stage today, so maybe I'll find a better comparison.  I bought their CD All the Houses Look the Same.

At last, it was time for the main event, at least for me - the Violet Burning.  They're one of the only "will not miss this band for anything" bands on the schedule for me.  I secured a spot front and center at the Gallery, and the band brought the rock in a HUGE way.  They were playing as a 4-piece, with Michael Pritzl on vocals and guitar, Black Cherry on bass, Chris Buelow on guitar, and Lenny Beh on drums.  The wall of distorted guitar was massive (my ears are still ringing this morning), and the band rocked the Gallery like it has seldom been rocked before.  In fact, they rocked it so hard, they killed all the power to the stage.  During the 10 minute forced intermission, the crowd demanded (and received) a drum solo from Lenny, and then Michael invited a guy named Chris from the crowd to come up and do the same.

The show was fantastic, and was even more impressive when I talked to Michael after the show and found out that he'd messed up his knee at a recent show in Germany, had it all taped up, and was having a bit of trouble with it.  You couldn't tell it from the way he was jumping around during the show - he gave it everything he had and more, which is one of the reasons I love the Violet Burning.

The Main Stage schedule got rearranged because Relient K's bus broke down, caught fire, and burned up on a road in Pennsylvania.  Everybody associated with the band is fine, but they lost some gear and weren't able to make it to Cornerstone.  All the other bands got shifted a spot later, and Jonezetta was added to the lineup to fill the open spot.  I missed their set, and I'm sure it was awesome.  If they didn't dedicate their song "Burn It Down!" to Relient K's bus, they missed an opportunity. :-)

Because of the schedule shuffle, I was able to catch a bit of Monk's set and all of Rosie Thomas' set on the Gallery.  Monk was entertaining from what I saw, but I had to do a bit of running around the grounds and missed most of it.  Rosie Thomas was very mellow, but far more entertaining than I expected.  Her stage persona is quirky, weird, and funny, but her songs are  serious and beautiful.

After her set, I had to make a choice - Leigh Nash (with the guys from Monk as her backing band), Starflyer 59, or Anberlin.  I needed some rock, so I went with Anberlin on the Main Stage.  The band's performance was great - high energy, and a good mix of songs that included some of my favorites from their last two albums.  Unfortunately, if there's ever been a worse sound mix on a Main Stage set, I haven't heard it.  The low end was overpowering and distorted, making it hard to even tell what they were playing at times.  All of the background vocals and most of the subtleties of the guitar work were lost in a wall of boom.  The bass for the Toby Mac show the night before was tight and punchy, so I'm not sure what the problem was, but something was definitely not right, and it spoiled what should have been a great show.

Over the Rhine closed out the evening with their traditional midnight slot on the Gallery stage.  They played about 90 minutes, featuring a number of songs from their forthcoming album The Trumpet Child, as well as stuff from their last two albums, a cover of Gillian Welch's "Orphan Girl," and a surprising Over the Rhine oldie, "And Can It Be."  Linford and Karin were in fine form, and the new additions to the band (Mickey Grimm on drums and percussion, and Jacob Bradley on bass, upright bass, guitar, dobro, and lap steel) were amazing.

Grimm is a very entertaining drummer with a quirky style that blends nicely with the mellow stuff the band typically does, but he's also able to show off, as he demonstrated with a drum solo that was so awesome that it killed the PA on the stage, and then brought it back to life again.  Bradley's bass prowess was familiar from his long stint with Vigilantes of Love, but he showed an impressive range of skills last night, switching from instrument to instrument and sounding great in the process.  His dobro solo  during "Orphan Girl," and his lap steel playing during the closing song, "Fool," were highlights of the evening.

The weather for the day was fantastic - cool and overcast, with a bit of light rain in the morning.  The festival is so much more fun when it's not an endurance test or a fight for survival.  Hopefully the good weather and the great performances will continue today...

(For some photos that aren't nearly as good as the ones on the official Cornerstone site, check out my Flickr page.)

Might be a short entry.  Tired at 3AM, and must get back to it first thing in the morning.

Today was an interesting day - in the sense that "interesting" is sometimes a positive adjective, sometimes a negative adjective, but always the opposite of boring.

The day began fairly easily, with two out of the first three acts being singers with acoustic guitars - Compassion International spokesfella Justin McRoberts and Michael Pritzl of The Violet Burning.  Erik Brandt (formerly of Urban Hillbilly Quartet was only slightly more complicated - he played a couple of guitars, as well as piano.  Noah Riemer of Ticklepenny Corner played drums with him, and a friend from Australia blew some mean harmonica on a couple of songs.  Erik's set was great.  I got his newest disc.

Paper Route made up for all the easy stuff.  Holy moly, now there's a band that makes the oversized Ping ensemble look like a soundman's walk in the park.  For the unfamiliar, this is a five piece that brings about (literally) 30 instruments (the bulk of them electronic).  Not a typical Gallery Stage band at all.  They'd be a killer double bill with Mute Math, I think.  As involved and hectic as their set was, Paper Route did my favorite set of the day, and you could actually hear most everything, which is a testament to Dave of Mason Sound, who had to sort what was where at any given moment.

I mixed The Violet Burning.  It sort of felt like when another pilot puts the plane in the air and lets you grab the yoke, though, because Steve of Mason Sound did the hard part of doing the line check and dialing in basic sounds.  I worked with the balance and tweaked what needed tweaking as the set went on.  I was also tracking the set on my ADAT rig, which I brought to record Ping on Saturday.  TVB was really cooking by the time they hit "The Sun and the Sky," and that's when the power went out.  For 15 minutes.  After having gone out twice yesterday.  Very bad.

As stage manager, I promised Mike to make the time up, and resolved to work with set changeover and the other bands to get things back on track.  Mike took those fifteen minutes and another twenty beside, and finished reeeeally late.  An emotional set to be sure; he recaptured his momentum quite well, I thought.

After that, I ran for my appointment to mix The Wiitala Brothers at Encore I.  Very different sounding tent, acoustically.  More brittle and sharp.  Probably good for the hardcore stuff they feature.  The vocals seemed honky, and needed the mids scooped and lows dropped.  But the power stayed on.  I like Chris and Trevor's music more the more I hear it, and look forward to hearing "Bad Blood" when they're able to record and release it.  I put a lot of reverb and delay on Chris' vocals; maybe a bit much.  What the hey, it's space rock.

I drove back into town to restock on ADAT tapes before Over the Rhine.  I tracked their set to 16 channels out of their 21.  I had to lose hi hat, both toms, Jack Bradley's vocal and drummer Mickey's vocal.  Many of the tracks should be usable, though whenever Mickey got cranking, the channels clipped like mad.  Can't use clipped tracks on the old ADATs, sadly.  Kick and Snare can be replaced, but the overheads are useless when clipped.

I liked the new stuff from "The Trumpet Child."  I think it was the title track where Mickey really got especially cranking, and then the power went out again.  AArgh!  I hated to lose that performance from the tape.  There were other weird PA noises coming through the PA, so it'll be interesting to check these when I'm back in the studio and see what there is to work with.

A bunch more people asked about the house music today: "Scripture Memory / Pop Symphonies" by Rick Altizer.

Guess it wasn't a short update, was it?

Hello kids,

Today is a pretty big day for me. I've got a lot of my favorite bands coming up today. So far, the festival has been mostly about discovering bands that I've never heard of and that's pretty cool, but I'm ready to see some of my favorites like The Violet Burning, Anberlin, and Over the Rhine.

However, the afternoon has been usurped by some more new bands that I've never heard of and wow, am I impressed. We started off the day at the New Band Stage to see The Divine Soldiers. Unfortunately, they showed up late and only had time for two songs, but it was enough for some fun hip-hop with lush female background vocals. Too bad they couldn't have played some more. After that, Tifah took the stage and I was taken by surprise by their intense but relaxed sound that reminded me a little of one of my favorites, Over the Rhine, though not exactly like them. A violin and eletric guitars accompanied bass and drums with piano to produce a big sound. They even did a cover of Radiohead's "Karma Police" which was totally different than the original, but impressive all on it's own.

Micheal Pritzl performed a solo set at the Gallery stage before his set with The Violet Burning tonight. Pritzl took requests from the audience and even ribbed some of his friends like Doug Van Pelt of HM Magazine and John Thompson who watched on from the crowd. After that show, the band Paper Route played and I couldn't get over how many different instruments each band member could play. They swapped guitars for keyboards and then for shakers and all sorts of stuff and took me by surprise.

I'm still ready for my favorites tonight, but I'm glad I got the chance to explore some pretty amazing stuff out at Cornerstone this year first.

Hello! Guess what happened yesterday... IT RAINED! I still tried to do as much as possible, but my shoes broke and I was walking around in the mud. The internet here is very slow because there are a million people working on it. That is why I don't have pictures up, because the internet is too slow for it to go through. I still owe you pictures of Write This Down, Gwen Stacy, and Sullivan. I have more pictures from yesterday as well. I went and saw Showbread, thehandshakemurders, As Cities Burn, The Wedding, The Guerrilla Cadets, and Write This Down AGAIN! I have pictures from Showbread and As Cities Burn that I can HOPEFULLY post soon. I also have an interview with some of the guys of August Burns Red, I will type up and post!

Today it is raining, but I have to admit it is a nice break from the sun. I am going to see The Wedding again so I can take pictures, Relient K, Anberlin, The Chariot, Copeland, and the Goodnight Fight. I will also be attending Bradley Hathaway's Performance Art, and Shane Claiborne speaking about being an "Ordinary Radical". Today is busy with seeing all of those people and doing an interview with The Chariot.

I have two hour break after my Chariot interview, so I will try my hardest to update again!! I'll have to try doing these pictures again!!

God Bless.

The first night of Cornerstone is now done and it's a great opening verse in this song we call Cornerstone 2007.  After dinner, we made the long walk down to the Main Stage.  Main Stage is quite a distance from the rest of the tents at the festival.  For some people, this is where they stay all week.  For others like me, it's a bit of an investment to walk all the way down there and I was brave enough to make the hike twice.  Working on my cardio, you see.  We started out the night at Main Stage with Fireflight who proved that girls can rock just as much as the guys.  After that, I had a decision to make.  I could either stay and see David Crowder Band or walk back up to see The Lee Boys.

I figured I'll get see David Crowder Band again sometime soon, so I hoofed it up to the Gallery Stage to see The Lee Boys.  The band had driven all the way up to Miami (twice the distance of our very long drive) to deliver their pedal-steel driven jamming that is somewhat like Robert Randolph and The Family Band.  The sound was smooth and the crowd was dancing.  I know David Crowder Band is considered worship music and rightly so, but there was a lot of worship going on at this tent tonight, too.

We hiked back down to Main Stage to see the headliner for the evening, Toby Mac.  I'm going to make an admission and both shame myself and age myself at the same time.  I was a pretty big dc Talk fan way back when.  I bought Free At Last in high school.  I saw them in concert I don't know how many times.  After college when dc Talk broke up though, I moved on to other stuff.   I haven't really paid attention much to Toby Mac's work since then, but I really enjoyed the lively action and music. 

At the end of the evening, I ended up making a quick circuit around the grounds to catch as much as I could during the midnight encore sets.  I caught a little of Falling Up at the Encore 2 stage and then swung by the Gallery stage for a packed out show by Cool Hand Luke.  I also stopped by the Dance Barn to check in with my friend who is running the stage this year.  We walked around the grounds a little bit and shared our experiences so far. 

Cornerstone is funny in how it works into your system.  You can only attend so many years at the festival before wanting to add your own art or contribute to the festival in your own way.  In my case it's this blogs and my photos.  In my friend's case, it's running the Dance Barn and doing his own live PA.  Maybe that's why there are so many generator bands here.  We all want to create something while we're here for this week.
(By the way, I'm uploading photos to my  Flickr account  as the week goes along, so check it out.  Apparently you can add photos here to, but I'm too dumb to figure it out.... so visit my Flickr account and comment away!

Wednesday started out with the best kind of food - FREE!  My friends at the Phantom Tollbooth host the "RMC BBQ" every year at the fest as a time for denizens of various online newsgroups, mailing lists, and message boards to get together and put faces with names.  Jon and Julie Dix, I think, fixed some pork BBQ, so I had a sandwich, some chips, and some good old store-bought birthday cake.  Tasty!

I had one of my favorites for dinner - the Cajun Alfredo pasta from the pasta trailer.  That's something I look forward to ev