WinterJam Rocks - Deer Do Not

"I gotta feeling that tonight’s gonna be a good night
That tonight’s gonna be a good night"
-Michael Tait, starting off Newsboys' set.

So, Saturday night, about 10:00, my girlfriend Christin and I are sitting in Marty's (Luther College's on-campus cafe), listening to a bunch of students performing at open mic night. I had my laptop, and I was, being a college student, naturally on Facebook. I saw a post from Duncan Philips, drummer for my favorite band, Newsboys, that he was leaving Urbana, Illinois, for an overnight bus trip to Des Moines, Iowa, for the next show on the Winterjam Tour. I looked up the driving distance to Des Moines, and jokingly said to Christin, we could totally do that…four hour drive, 6:00 show, done by 9:45…If we just had a car, we could leave Luther before noon, drive to Des Moines, go to Winterjam tour, and be back by about 2:30 am. Only problem was, neither of us has a car.

Not really expecting anyone to just loan us a car to drive 400 miles for a concert, especially on a few hours notice, Christin went ahead and asked her roommate, Marybeth, if we could borrow her car. Rather to our surprise, she said yes. So, Sunday morning, we ate an early brunch, and left for Des Moines. The trip there was flawless…made good time, found the venue. Still being earlier than we wanted, we went on a rather extensive search for a fast food restaurant for dinner, found an Arby's, and, after a brief not really incident involving a very badly marked one way street and a quick turnaround, found parking at the venue and went in.

The show itself was quite good overall. We were pretty early getting there, so we had decent seats (all general admission). The opening acts were all good, although they played 2 or 3 songs each, so it all felt a little rushed. I had never heard of Revive, or Robert Pierre, so they were both nice surprises. I particularly liked a drum-off thing that Revive did, and it's cool to hear a 17 year old singer with a great voice and some pretty decent songs. Sidewalk Prophets are best described as the sound of Michael Jackson, from the body of Drew Carey. Not what I expected, but sounded good, and very clearly passionate hearts for what they do. Fireflight…not my favorite, and she sounded somewhat like she was losing her voice.

Tony Nolan's talk was a jam packed 10 minutes that was obviously quite effective. I really appreciated that he was willing to make the hard evangelistic statements about heaven and hell that I so rarely seem to hear as a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). His message seemed like a pretty straightforward evangelization talk that I'd heard before (and I think I may have actually heard him before). He did make a point of talking about how scaring someone into Christianity is not really right, but he also sort of used that tactic, I felt. Regardless, everything he said was true. I'm a touch theologically queasy with an illustration he did comparing God's gift of salvation to trading a penny for a $50 bill, just because absolutely nothing can be traded for God's free, undeserved grace, but he also mentioned trading our sins for God's forgiveness, and if that's what the penny represented, then I'm certainly ok with that.

Newsong definitely impressed me. I knew a few of their songs, but they were never a band I would have made an effort to go see. But…they were really really good. Wonderful vocals, deep songs, energetic, passionate…they were great! Reminded me a little of Phillips, Craig, and Dean at Lifest 2009, but Newsong was much better.

On a side note, one somewhat annoying theme throughout the evening was texting…it started to seem like every group wanted you to text something to some number to donate, enter to win, get more information, or something…the only one I did was to try to win a Winterjam prize pack, which I did not win. Oh, and I tried the Newsboys' text "Go" to a number, which I'd tried before, and once again didn't get any response. There were also many opportunities to donate, particularly to Holt International, an orphan sponsorship group that I'd never heard of. Sort of like Compassion International (who I expected to be sponsoring the tour), but a shorter term commitment, and a different approach.

Newsboys were the reason I drove for hours to see the tour. Tonight was my 10th (!!!) time seeing them live, and probably the most different. This was the first show I'd seen with Michael Tait. Having seen him, I think Newsboys are in good shape for the future. His energy is excellent, his stage presence incredible, and he's actually easier to understand on songs like "Something Beautiful" than Peter was. I still miss Peter…hearing Tait do "He Reigns" (possibly my all-time favorite song) just wasn't the same…and I liked how it was before. Still, Tait did a great job…swinging down from a cable after riding the ascending B Stage was great… Biggest disappointment was that "Shine" and "Breakfast" were mashed into a medley of their choruses, and we never got the verses of Newsboys' best known songs. I'm hoping that was because of the really short 45 minute set they were playing, and that at Lifest this summer, they'll do the whole song. Ending song was "Jesus Freak", by DC Talk, and I love how, 15 years later, that song still gets a huge crowd reaction. Great song. Also, I love the release strategy for "Born Again." The CD doesn't come out until June 8, 2009, but if you preorder at a show for $7, they will give you a CD with 5 songs on it (same songs as on their MySpace/Facebook/etc), and mail you the CD when it comes out…here's hoping that this prerelease goes better than the GO preorder did, when I had to make repeated phone calls to actually get the CD...

After Newsboys (by the way, the order of bands for the night confused me…Newsboys definitely should have been second last, or last), Tenth Avenue North played a set, which was good, as expected. I hadn't seen them before, so that was cool. Love the song "By Your Side"!

Finally, Third Day was, of course, awesome. No real surprises there after seeing them at least 4 times before. Always a good show. No encore.

So, after the show. Christin and I get to Marybeth's car, and were actually out of the parking lot by 9:46. We stopped at McDonald's to grab hamburgers, and set off to follow our Google map backwards in the dark. Did pretty well…missed two different turns, but realized both times right away that we'd missed them. Also discovered that Marybeth has a GPS, so that helped on the way home. It started snowing right as we were leaving, so the slippery (very very slippery in some places) road added another element to the drive.

We were within 45 minutes of Luther, on little 2 lane Highway 24, when a deer ran out and hit our car. At 1:30 in the morning. In a borrowed car. In the middle of nowhere. Yeah. We were fine…I had been going about 40 in the 55 mph zone because of the weather, but the weather wasn't a factor at all. There was really nothing I could do…I braked, but just couldn't have seen it in time. The front end of the car was rather damaged…one light broken, front grill basically destroyed…and of course, it's a borrowed car…(a 2000 Kia light SUV). Called my dad at home in Fond du Lac, WI, waking him up. He said to call 911, so I did, and a nice deputy came out within about 8 minutes, and took my information…said I could drive back. So, we made it (driving incredibly cautiously!) back to Luther, and then had one of the most awkward conversations of my life waking Marybeth up to tell her that her car was back…but looked different than it had when we left. Fortunately, she seems ok about it, and understands (thanks!)…at least, she understands when she's mostly still asleep…we'll see when she sees it tomorrow…Anyway, it has indeed been "A good night"...just with some not so good moments.