I’ve been trying out a new website called Animoto, which aims to create 30 second video’s. I’m still playing around with it but I’ve embedded one of the videos in here:
Archive for the 'I've Been On Tour' Category
This weekend was one of the rare so far, this year, where Jim Bailey has been out on the road. And one of the even rarer times when we stay overnight. Jim was there to do some training, an afternoon praise party and a morning show. So, on Friday evening we started the 286 mile drive in two seperate vehicles, though more on that later, after a coffee just north of Birmingham we made the rest of the journey in good time and arrived just before midnight, checked in to our hotel and….
SLEEP
Actually I slept so much that at 8:37 Saturday morning the hotel phone rang. It was Jim; where was I, we needed to go in 5 minutes. D’Oh! I don’t think I’ve moved so fast in the morning for a while. Luckily the Church was only 10 minutes up the road. We were greeted by one of the most beautiful building we’ve ever seen outside of the Anglican Church. After we’d been there are a couple of minutes one of the eldership team turned up, another Dave (I think the world runs on them), followed shortly by a few of the wonderful tech team.
TRAINING
After unloading the van we started preparing for the training. For me, this consisted of plugging in a laptop and sound cable. The rig consisted of 1 top and 1 sub aside. Unfortunately the subs were much much bigger than the tops and everything was a mush. Jim and I even considered bringing in our rig for the praise party later that day. The kind team provided me with Wi-Fi access, and plenty of coffee, so that I could 1. get on with some work and 2. wake up!
I’m getting to know the training pretty well, so for me it was just a case of listening in, drinking coffee and…waiting to soundcheck.
SOUNDCHECK
So it got to the soundcheck and I couldn’t get it sounding how I wanted - it was just bass. No sign of a physical Graphic EQ, so I had a better option….gather all the Mini-Jack to large Jacks I could find and use my laptop as a virtual insert over the system. Strangely I had thought about not brining it, however the free Wi-Fi the hotel offered swung it for me! I set up a quick Logic Pro session with an Aux In and a Graphic EQ over it. After wandering round the hall like an idiot making sure things were balanced and double checking my thoughts with Jim’s on the “new sound”. With a “thumbs up” it was time for the praise party.
PRAISE PARTY
As far as I know 25 people came along to the training and numbers were probably just above, and I’m probably way off, this for the praise party. It’s fair to say Jim struggled, this wasn’t this down to the crowd, more down to sweat + in-ear monitors. We’d had a similar problem before and it occurs when Jim manages to hit the pan button on the pack. My immediate fix was to turn it all up (in his head that is) and go onto the stage and hit the button. Still not great, must have been a hot room and water creating a barrier.
Despite these, unusual, issues Jim still did fantastically. In the absence of Rosie I took over some of the Special FX team role. Oh, I love “A Spitting Image”! If you haven’t seen Jim recently you won’t be aware of the chaos that is created during this song. Along with another of Jim’s friends we covered the audience in water and silly string. I will apologise right now to the person I saw put there hood up and promptly squirted them with water, it was VERY childish of me, but slightly funny!
AFTERWARDS
This being a double gig meant that instead of packing up and driving home we moved the essentials into the beautiful main hall and headed off with one of the Churches leaders, Dave Gregg, for a meal and chat. I found it a privilege to be sharing some of who I am and what I’ve seen with both Dave and Jim as well as listening to what they had to say. After a great meal, you can’t go wrong with steak, Jim and I headed back to the hotel for a pint and early night, though to avoid a repeat of the Saturday morning I booked an alarm call.
SUNDAY MORNING
Another early start, though happily I made it up for breakfast (without the use of the alarm call) which to my delight was a fantastic all you can eat fried breakfast, and by 8:45 I was checking out and jumping in the van ready for the short drive to the Church. We arrived first and waited to be joined by the tech team, worship team and others. Whilst they soundchecked I wired in my bits, Jim put his props up and a fantastic guy, who’s name escapes me, laid a different VGA cable for us. We all finished at about the same time ready for Jim’s sound check which is always an odd time because once I’ve established the FoH rig works is silent - who needs extra noise when Jim’s using IEM?
As it was Fathers Day Jim’s plan had been for a re-dedication of Fathers and the importance of our Heavenly Father as the perfect Dad. I know that he did a lot of his classic songs, plus one or two new ones. The Camels, who were on much better behaviour, performed Jesus and got a couple of the Worship team involved (see photo above). Grandad was Grandad and bought his brash attitude on life to Southport, but it was still good to see him! All too soon Jim’s time was over and the meeting descended into what could be described as a family like Holy chaos, prayer going on left right and centre; The old, the young and the middle aged all joining in. This was Church. This was Family. It was wonderful to see
Pack up came, and went. Jim headed off to the big mountains of Wales and I headed back down South. But what a great weekend!
Thanks to Joe Gisbey from Links International providing a link to this great article from Todd Bentley regarding some of the things happening in Lakeland.
With all that’s been going on in Lakeland, Florida. Things that I’ve seen with my own eyes and touched with my own hands I can’t get one question out of my head
How can things ever be the same?
On one side of things there’s this huge outpouring in Florida. Meetings have grown from 700 to 8,000 and people are clearly having a huge experience of God. Many are being healed and a large number of these have been medically verified. Also, since it began some 60 days ago there have been 13 verified resurrections from the dead.
On the opposite side of things natural disasters are happening. In Burma the official death toll from the Cyclone stands at 78,000 although external agencies put these figures above 100,000. In China the government puts the death toll from the recent Earthquake is in excess of 12,000. While a third Earthquake in Bogota, Columbia, already has a death toll of 78.
If you look at things in a different perspective here in Western Europe we are entering an economic slow down. Rich nations are becoming poor, primarily this is down the cost of crude oil which is currently running at about $135 a barrell. However in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa almost the reverse is happening economies are growing and poor nations are becoming rich.
God is on the move. In a sense it’s a return to the Old Testament values when every 50 years (the Jubilee) things were reset: Debts were cancelled, land was returned and slaves were freed. Wealth was divided equally. It’s almost testament to God’s sense of humor, Bono et al have been banging on for ages about dropping the debt and spreading the wealth and almost with one click of his fingers God has done it naturally. Again the question:
How can things ever be the same?
If you look in one respect there are parallels to the Old Testament. There are also parallels to the New Testament looking at what’s going on in Lakeland puts in mind the book of Acts. After Jesus ascends to heaven the disciples are left waiting around for something to happen. They know that they’ve been promised a helper but have no idea when or where. In Acts 2 they find themselves Jerusalem for the festival of Shavuot, the Spring Harvest, when the Holy Spirit is released. For those disciples who start to speak in the tounges of nations and God, then Peter declares the prophecy of Joel resulting in the baptism of 3,000 they must have had one question:
How can things ever be the same?
At the start of Acts 3 something breaks and we see the first post-Jesus healing when Peter heals the crippled man. There is no laying on of hands Peter, probably overflowing with the Spirit, just commands that this man gets up and walks. And guess what, for Peter & John, the crippled man and those saw him there was one question that they must have been thinking:
How can things ever be the same?
And really that’s where I am now. How do you come back from seeing tumors disappear? From seeing the blind able to see and the deaf able to hear? And ultimately seeing legs starting to grow? You can only be expectant for God to turn up and start doing stuff in your own congreation, and I’d love to see more it at Arun.
I want the signs and the wonders but actually I want more than that. I want the intimacy with God; To know that He is within me and is guiding me and speaking to me daily. I want the lessons I learnt in Lakeland to be with me forever and not just a couple of weeks. And there were lessons, primarily I learnt the vital importance of pressing into what God has for us. Whether that’s in our days at work or in our Church services.
So you don’t like the worship leader, or don’t like the style of preach? Well, have you ever thought that God may want to speak to you in it? All it takes from us is a little effort to get beyond the natural and listen for the subtle heart beat of our creator whispering to us.
I’ll be honest here - I struggled one evening out in Florida they were resting the normal worship leader and had a guest in his place. Instead of entering into a place filled with praise, and errors, as the band practiced and worshipped there was, nothing. Then a Jack Black look a like, with mohican, took to the stage and sang a whole load of songs he’d written and I’d never heard before. Being honest I felt about as connected to God as the biggest Atheist in the world. My friends were fully engaged - Joe was on the floor giggling his head off and Matt was in a similar position, mostly without the giggling.
I, again, felt completely out of sync with God’s heart beat. And then it kinda happened instead of taking the cynical view:
“Oh, it’s not for me this evening!”
I heard the faintest whisper saying “press into me, this is for you!” So, I tried and slowly the negativity melted away and pretty soon found myself face down on the carpet praising God for what he could do both in me and others. The time of worship after that was amazing, almost the most powerful since I’d been there, but I struggled to begin with.
It’s been a journey; 8,000 miles, a lot of sobbing, even more carpet time and even more prayer. I know that I won’t ever be the same, but a week after I started this post I still can’t process it enough to come up with an answer to the question I started with: How can things ever be the same?
I apologise for my lack of blogging. Lakeland has been just so amazing. I could share so many testimonies with what God has done in others, but for me…I’ve just had a transformation.
I’d mentioned to a few people that before I came out here I felt distant from God and that’s totally been transformed. I feel really close, I feel the Spirit more than I’ve ever done. It’s just amazing.
So, it looks like I’m going to be about 24 hours behind with all my blogging. So this is a quick look at yesterday. The three of us (Majai but I’ll get to that tomorrow) set off at about 5:40. Gatwick soon arrived and because of the wonder of online check in we were soon through security and into the no mans land of “duty free” and queueing at Garfunkels for breakfast.
All of us are hungry for God and hoping to see Him break through in a powerful way so we started as we meant to go on: Prayer. I was the reciepient of the prayer and it was for relief from travel sickness. Breakfast came, and went, far too quickly and we soon hit one of the areas I dislike most…boarding. I’d chosen not to take an travel tablet.
Flights are flights and a little dull, apart from the normal turbulence. However Matt prophecsied over me, which I’ll share once I’m back. After the best flight I’ve had in a long time, apart from some turbulence, we landed at Houston, TX and transferred from there to Tampa, FL where we picked up our hire car, which I’ll attach to this blog when I attach my phone.
Being mature and sensible men of God we decided to forget the early night and go straight to the meeting and were there by 21:30, or 02:30 UK, we didn’t get back to the hotel until 00:30, or 05:30 UK, but already we’ve all met with God and he’s bought us too a place where we can rest in Him and fully engage in what He wants to do.
If you watch God TV look out for 3 guys who look like they’ve been travelling for too long…It’ll probably be us.
Until later, Be Blessed Y’all.
Pastor Dave
As I mentioned in my previous post I’m heading out to the revival in Lakeland, Florida, in what is only 12 hours now. Since I booked the ticket all has been a bit hectic. I’ve had to cram six weeks of preparation into 3 days. Still as I blog now my hold bag is packed, as is my hand luggage. My phone and iPod are charged and have been synchronised. I have my glow in the dark bible and a good book (reccommended by Austin Wade). A shiny Vodafone Pre Pay SIM card is sitting in my iPhone for two reasons. The first is that I really don’t want to add extra costs to my poor T-Mobile contract. The second well I’m trying out Vodafone again 8 years after I was first with them.
Many people have been both a little surprised that I’m going and also wondered why I’m going. So here is a quick answer that:
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts at the HTB interview the subject of ordination came up after weighing it up for far too long I finally spoke to ACC’s senior elder/pastor David Thatcher about completeing some formal Theology training. He was amazingly supportive and suggested that I do two things. The first being that I start heading along to a small group (either one run by Joe Gisbey or Matt Ford) while the second is do some research into the differnt theology courses courses on offer. I just feel that Lakeland has got God in it right from the start, aside from the amazing ministry we’re going to get once we arrive, it’s a chance to spend some time with people who are much more grown up in the faith than me.
From the other perspective I really want to bring what’s going on in Lakeland back to Ignite. We’ve been teaching from the book of Acts and our weekend away that starts in seven days time is concentrating totally on the Holy Spirit. The last time this was tried, when we were called “Slam” and before Jon had started regular blogging, (yes, that’s how old we’re talking here! And I did have a quick search) was amazing young people started to prophecy over each other. In short it was amazing weekend. God is already touching some of the young people and I just want to see more. As Jez Wong and I were saying the other day we’d love to see God effect the older people in the Church through the young people.
So, there are my thoughts. Plan A, as I wrote the other day, is to be blogging from Florida, but obviously I can’t guarantee this. If you’re all interested here are the airports that are going to be visited:
It’s been over two months since I’ve last blogged here, which is pretty slack so I thought it was time for a bit of an update.
It’s the winter so things have been a little bit quiet but things are starting to pick up. So, what have a been up to?
Well, I’m working on a few bits and bobs for ACC. With Jim Bailey I’ve completed one gig in Hollywood (which, incase you didn’t know is also a suburb of Birmingham) and one failed gig in Warwick. For those who are interested it failed due to a “Police Incident” on the M25 which meant in 3 1/2 hours we got as far as Heathrow Airport.
As it’s been quiet I’ve taken a couple of breaks. One to Germany and one to see friends in Durham.
This year has seen some excitement. I was lucky enough to get to visit the world famous Abbey Road recording studios with the Compassion Art project. I’m also hoping to be back out with Onehundredhours in the near future.
Last Friday I was up at the YWAM base in Harpenden, Hertfordshire (15 miles North of Watford), to work for CCM band onehundredhours. This is the first time I’ve caught up with them since our initial meeting in July! I was there to prove myself in the glamourous world of the back line tech.
I drove up Thursday evening and after a huge queue on the M25 I made the base without getting at all lost thanks to tom-tom which took me pretty much to the door of their studio. The rest of Thursday evening was spent getting equipment into place at the Chapel and then visiting a gig down in Watford…after that…well…a few of us headed into the TV/Xbox room and spent 90 minutes shooting each other at Halo 2. At least the others did; I was pretty rubbish. When we left it was 2am…oops.
So Friday, got up at 9am and made my way to the Kitchen to find The Knipper up and having breakfast. This being a Christian camp absolutely no one drinks instant coffee so we put on a cafetiere of Fair Trade Kenyan coffee. That’s the best way to start the day. Time passed, more band members appeared sat down and ate and drank with us. At about 11 it was time for work.
My guitar world consisted of Gretsch’s, Fenders, Gibson and Avalon and put together probably cost more than my car! This was a big job. Never before have I been in charge of such valued items. I’ve assisted d:’s tech Lee before but actually doing it is really different. Three main tunings were used: Standard (EADGBE), DADGAD and DADGAE. With sound check and a complete run through done it was time to relax before the gig.
It was only when lead singer, Tre, started to tell me the nightmare stories of previous tech and now band member, Johnny’s, first gig that I started to worry. And was definitely something I didn’t want to repeat.
Gig time. Hand the boys guitars and let things work themselves out. Enjoy the night and only really freak out at one tuning. Retuning a custom Avalon from DADGAD to Standard while a rock song was going on. Not the easiest.
Gig over. Pack up. Say hellos to some, like the traveling Littlehampton contingency. Say some goodbyes, like departing drummer Paul “Pablo” Baker. Head on my way for home. Get home 1:30am Saturday morning.
It has taken me nearly a week to post about Delirious?’s recent gig at ‘The Embassy’ in London’s Mayfair. However, I’m not really sure where to begin with it all. So, here’s my day:
07:30 Pick back line tech Lee up ready to travel to Furious? Records
07:45 Depart Furious? records in Transit van
08:10 Get stuck in traffic jam having covered no more than 7miles
11:15 Arrive venue after a huge traffic jam down Piccadily. Unload van
11:30 Pick up production assitant Tim and head towards Park Lane
11:45 Arrive at Tour Bus in Park Lane. Commence re-loading Transit van.
12:15 Depart Tour Bus
12:30 Arrive back at venue ready to unload the van
13:15 Head off to park van
13:30 Parked van
13:40 Arrive back at venue ready to help where I can
14:40 A job has been found, I’m off to Romford to get a new microphone. Head back to van.
14:50 Depart for Romford, Essex complete with Trevor’s (FoH engineer) mobile phone acting as Sat Nav.
15:15 Sat nav breaks. Many phone calls.
15:25 Sat nav now working.
15:50 7 Miles covered. 10.9 to go.
16:50 Arrive outskirts of Romford. 2 Miles to go.
17:15 Finally arrive at Digital Village (having got lost) ready to buy this new Microphone. Could have problems getting back, the phones battery is now flat.
17:35 Having purchased microphone get back in van and head back to venue. No sat nav. Relying on a battered old A to Z and ‘the force’. I’m doomed!
18:15 Start seeing signs for bits of London I recognise. Maybe I could do this.
18:30 Not far, navigating using an A to Z isn’t one when you’re the only person in the vehicle.
18:45 Trafalgar Square. So close. I can only hope the signs aren’t true and I can get down Regents Street.
18:55 Arrive. Hand Microphone over to Ian Cattle and head off in search of parking.
19:00 Park.
19:10 Arrive back at venue to see another white van. This one’s delivering the PA which isn’t a great sigh. Guess I’d better help with that one too…
19:30 Finally get inside. Say my hellos to friends from Furious/Fierce and Pura*Shop. Also say hi to Dave Wood (who I again must thank for the photo).
20:30 Gig begins. Some serious rocking. Stare The Monster down and Kingdom of Comfort are going to be killer tracks once the new album gets released.
21:15 Get the nod from Ian to retrieve the van ready to get out.
21:45 Return and wait.
22:15 Start loading for run number 1.
22:30 Head off for the tour bus which has returned to Park Lane.
22:40 Arrive at Tour Bus and start unloading.
23:05 Depart Tour Bus.
23:15 Arrive at venue to collect equipment for run number 2.
23:30 Depart for Tour Bus.
23:40 Arrive at Tour Bus and start unloading van.
23:55 Depart for The Dorchester hotel. I’m not staying there. Rather the crew are showering before heading off for Dublin.
00:05 Head for home
00:30 Get Diesel somewhere in South London
01:15 Have slight scare when back end of van starts to slide
01:55 Get back to Furious? records and my car
02:15 Get home and head to bed
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