BEHIND THE SCENES WITH AFT - #7 - NORWOOD



Man, we so very much look forward to "SHOWDAY". It's like the night before xmas - we all get excited! And, on SHOWDAY, we are in total "show mode". Our regular lives are left at home. It's all about the band, the boys, hanging out, rockin' it, killin' it and making friends. This band life is such a blessing to us.

Well, you never know how a show is going to go - good or bad. Sometimes the day starts badly, and BOOM - the show is a killer. You never know.

Today, we hit the road, driving south on Highway 12, as I've done 5 million times, and we missed the cut-off to Highway 7. Duh. We figured it out about 4km down the road. Not a good start.

The only other bad thing that happened at the Norwood gig was on the first song. Again, not a good way to start a show. Robbert Vandergrift's bass guitar cable was busted or something and the bass didn't make a noise. What to do? He jumped off stage, grabbed another cable, plugged in and was set for the second song. Oh boy - we wondered. What's next? Nothing else went wrong. PTL.

The opening band was the local youth worship band named Days Gone Bye, but in the middle of the set they changed their name to Friday Night Freeway. They were also our local loading crew so we made friends immediately. Jack, Blake and Evan helped us unload and saved us a ton of set-up time, so much, that we were nearly an hour ahead of schedule.

After a short soundcheck with FOH guy Jonathan Hooper, Days Gone Bye stepped up. The in-ear monitor system was totally new to them and we took some extra time to get the mix just right.

In the AFT set, we blasted through the usual songs - "Falling Asleep", "Trouble", "Earthquake" and "Meant To Live". Then, Jordan Melo gave us a blistering drum solo! Nice work, Jordy!

After playing our new single (buy it on iTunes, please!) "Way Too Young" we went into the acoustic set, and, once again, uh oh - Pip Lucas launched into "Love Song For A Saviour", which is an awesome song, but the scheduled song is "Me and Jesus". Um...this has happened quite often. I think we need to write the setlist in a BIGGER font!

Well, we played a bit overtime and Pastor Andrew Lacey and Jeff Hackett didn't seem to mind! Thanks guys! Hope to play for you again, maybe in the Fall!