AWARDS, REWARDS AND GOOD TIMES!

Today, Anthem For Today, the band I manage, was nominated for three Covenant Awards. Woo hoo!

The Covenant Awards are like the Grammy Awards, except these are all-Canadian and only Christian.

Up until today, I've been lukewarm about awards for Christian music. At the Dove Awards in Nashville, it seems every year MercyMe and Casting Crowns compete for awards like Artist of the Year or the Song of the Year. Who's better? I say - who cares? They're both great. Is one actually "better" than the other?

L-R JP Smits (drummer recently left us), Davey Hooper (guitar), Pip Lucas (lead singer),
G.I. Holm (guitar) and Robbert Vandergrift (bass).

Whether it's the Academy Awards, the Grammys, the Doves - the acceptance speeches I really do enjoy. Often there's a humility exposed and a bit of a story behind the winner - I like that.

Today, at 1pm, the Covenant Award Nominees were announced live on a webstream. There was actually a ticker counting down to 1pm. I left the ticker open on my computer all morning.

Then we heard it - we (my band) heard our names announced as a nominee for New Artist Of The Year!  I nearly peed!  Then, two more - Modern Rock Album of the Year (for the album "A Little Louder") and Modern Rock Song for "Inside Out". (List of all nominees here)

All of my previous thoughts about the purpose of winning an award vanished. As an artist, nominations and awards are part of building a resume. People are more likely to book your band for a show when you have some awards to show. I'm not sure it proves that anyone is better than anybody else, but the honour is nice to have.

So, me and the boys will be suited up (as much as you suit up a rock star) and smelly pretty and ready to attend the 2013 Covenant Awards, held at the CTS building in Burlington on November 6th. Wish us luck!