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This Past Weekend in CO, LA & PA (Plus Josh McDowell)
Tue., Aug. 30. 2005 12:49am EDT
Thanks to everybody who came to see us this past weekend in Colorado, Louisiana and Pennsylvania on our whirlwind "Rocky Mountain/Bayou Country/Homecoming Tour."
 Friday night we played for a special apologetics conference at Focus on the Family headquarters in Colorado Springs CO. As usual, the high altitude didn't exactly help our breathing, singing or energy level (tell the Broncos, Nuggets and Rockies not even to bother calling when we become free agents), but what happened afterward really put our heads in the clouds. We got to meet two speakers we've admired for a long time, famous apologetics experts and authors Josh McDowell and Lee Strobel.
God gave us great favor with both Josh and Lee, and each one asked us for some ApologetiX CDs. Furthermore, after our first set, Josh met us backstage and said, "I could just sit and listen to that all night!" Check out the photo of us with Josh in this article. His ministry and books are a large reason why we first developed an interest in apologetics and why we chose the band name.
Although Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family was not in attendance, his wife, Shirley, was. One of the staff told us later, "Shirley was rocking out!" Our bass player, Keith Haynie, replied, "Don't you mean 'walking out'?," referring to the fact that our stage show is considerably louder and wilder than "Adventures in Odyssey." We hope she enjoyed our part of the presentation, but we didn't get to meet her.
We did finally have the pleasure of meeting Focus on the Family's "Plugged In" Magazine Editor Bob Smithouser, though. Bob has been a longtime supporter of ApologetiX, and "Plugged In" has featured us in their publication a number of times in the past five years. He has spoken to J. on the phone several times in the past, and it was great to spend some time in person.
Thanks to Alex and Clay for coordinating our involvement in the event, and to Natalie, our stage manager; Dave, our soundman; Paul and James, our drivers; and Christine, Cindy and Kayla, who supervised our CD table.
On Saturday, we played our second annual August concert in Monroe LA, once again coordinated by our pal Clayton Poland. We were met at the airport by Clayton and his staff of volunteers, all wearing hats, suits and sunglasses (a la the Blues Brothers) and waiting to drive us to the event in classic automobiles Thanks to Clayton and the entire crew, and special thanks to our helpers at the CD table, Jonathan, Cody and Colton (a.k.a. "Coltrane").
With Hurricane Katrina expected to hit Louisiana the next day, we were a little worried about our flights making it in time for our concert in Scottdale PA on Sunday night, but everything worked out fine. Katrina's long-range effects were felt on Saturday -- there was plenty of rain -- but we still had a great turnout. And the only thing that detained us from Sunday's show was the backroads "short cut" we all took from the Pittsburgh airport to Scottdale :)
Scottdale is only 45 minutes from our homebase of PIttsburgh, so we got to see plenty of friends and family there. Thanks to Tina for coordinating the event and to our helpers, Greg, Heidi, Larry, and Dan, who acted as all-purpose roadies and also took care of the CD table. Welcome back to Beth Davis from her mission trip to Kenya! Thanks also to John B. for running the sound and to Bob for taking care of the lights.
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