Sanctus Real

This weekend was a great run of shows. Each day had good little nuggets of some kind. And when I say, “good,” I mostly mean, “interesting” or “at least makes for a story.” I’ll take the nuggets though…both good and bad. They’re enriching to life.

We kicked things off at the Assemblies of God Headquarters in Springfield, Illinois by playing songs for their chapel service. It was 8am. I’m not exactly nimble at that hour. I dread these days when we wake up, walk off the bus, and go straight to the stage. Don’t get me wrong; I count it an honor to play in places like this. The part I don’t love is that within the course of 2 minutes, I go from being in a cozy sleep-coma in my bunk to playing, “Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord” in a chapel full of extroverted pastors. I’m groggy, and at this point in the day, I can only think about the first half of that chorus. I’m stinky. I have a cowlick.

Cowlicks don’t go away.

Matt was worried after the chapel service that Mark may have rocked the boat because he wore a hat on stage. I discovered, well after the fact, that I had accidentally blown Mark out of the water when my fly was down the entire morning.

Sorry everyone.

The next day was in a suburb of Kansas City. This day had some nuggets too. Near any stage at any concert, you’ll find a big black box with a giant cable about 1” thick running off and disappearing into a little room somewhere. This is the cable that gives us the power to run all the audio and lighting. This day it was tied into the building the wrong way. I got shocked. Before I got shocked, Pete got shocked. Before Pete got shocked, our keyboard sparked and smoke was billowing from the cracks (Pete went to unplug it, and that’s when he got shocked). After our keyboard was done billowing, we tried the church’s keyboard. It sounded better than ours, and we were jealous. It started billowing smoke too (I went to unplug it, and that’s when I got shocked). We stopped sound checking and consequently, stopped blowing things up.
I went outside and roasted coffee. The sound-gurus figured out the problem. We replaced a fuse in the keyboard. All was well.
This night ended with a good nugget because I met Mama Mendes. She makes salsa from organic, locally grown vegetables in Kansas. I traded her coffee for salsa. It was seriously amazing.

The third and final day of the run was in Chicago, and all the nuggets were good (sorry to keep saying nuggets nuggets nuggets nuggets nuggets nuggets). We ate Giordano’s deep-dish pizza and went bowling with radio station winners from Air-1, Joy FM (Tampa, FL), and Shine FM (Bourbonnais, IL). Matt may have bowled the best game of his life. I may have bowled my worst. It was good times, and it was fun meeting everyone.

The show itself sold out and really fun. We played the entire new album, Pieces of a Real Heart.  We got to see many of our long-time Chicagoan friends.  Deer and his heart came out and danced.

That brings us to now. I’m sitting in a coffee shop typing instead of packing for our trip to Australia. We’re leaving tomorrow. I’m expecting it to be awesome.  I heard their toilets flush backwards because they’re in the southern hemisphere. Is that true? If we’re lucky, I’ll get some video and post it when I return ;)

dan