Last Weekend in Lexington and at LiFest
Sun., Jul. 10. 2005 4:29pm EDT
Thanks to everyone who came to see us this past weekend in Lexington KY and at LiFest in Oshkosh WI. We hope to make it back to Kentucky again soon. We'll be back in Wisconsin this coming Sunday, at Paperfest in Kimberly WI.
ApologetiX superfans Beth and Larry Davis took the opportunity Friday to add Kentucky to the long list of states where they've seen us in concert, but our old pal Jon Eklof was also on hand, which means he has now seen us in a record 11 states! That's a distinction he shares with fellow superfans Chris and Alex Christopherson, who set the record in Iowa three weeks ago. And there are plenty of others who aren't that far behind.
Special thanks to Dave, Matt and Micah at the church in Lexington. Dave coordinated the concert, Matt coordinated the sound, and Micah carved our logo into a huge wooden overlay over a light box at the foot of the stage, so we performed atop a stage with our name in lights. Thanks also to Sandy, Colleen and Tiffany, who ran our CD table. There were two bands on the bill Friday, and Colleen got baptized in between their concerts! The venue was a Baptist church, so she picked the perfect spot.
The opening band at Friday's concert, Redefined, have a tight "jazzy pop" sound and are really great musicians. The group before us on the main stage at LiFest Saturday was the legendary Lost and Found, an extremely talented guitar/keyboard duo with a unique vocal blend and funny, poignant lyrics delivered in a deadpan style. We've met them before at other events we've played together, and they have great hearts.
Special thanks to Sherry and her daughter Princess Heather, who worked our CD table all day long at LiFest with help from our old pals Bob Flaherty and Eric "DJ Smoothie" Gladson.
One of the many people we met at LiFest was a man visiting from Mexico who'd never heard of ApologetiX before. He enjoyed our concert so much that he called his brother on the cell phone in the middle of it just to let him listen. "So your music is going to spread to Mexico now," he told us.
We also got to meet a grade-school fan named Nick who passed out from the heat while waiting for our concert to start! His mother, Brenda, and brother, A.J., asked if we could come to visit him in the medical area, where he was recovering. Although Nick was pleased to see us, his family said he was acting uncharacteristically mellow. We talked to Nick for a while, got our picture taken with him, and told him to come to the table later so we could give him a CD. When they came to table later, we discovered that Nick had no memory of our visit, so it was a good thing we took a photo. But the good news is he had fully recovered.
At the dinner tent for artists, our lead guitarist/producer Karl Messner got to talk with one of the pioneers of Christian contemporary music, Don Francisco, best known for his classic song, "He's Alive." A great storytelling songwriter, Don's lyrical style was a huge influence on our lead singer/ lyricist J. Jackson. "We write many parodies that tell Bible stories from a first-person perspective," says J., "and a big part of the inspiration for that was Don Francisco." Don has his own website; if you'd like to find out more, go to http://donfrancisco.com
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