U2 in Atlanta

I don't have a lot of things on my list of things to do before I die. I'd like to go skydiving. I'd like to visit each continent. I'd like to write and publish a book.

Seeing U2 live was one of the things on my list and Tuesday night I got to accomplish that. Thanks to the kindness of some friends, the Weems, the two couples went down to Atlanta Tuesday night to see U2 play at the Georgia Dome.

When you experience something in life that you've ALWAYS wanted to experience, it's difficult to put into words what you've seen. On some level, you don't want to spoil it with words, because on some level that cheapens it. It almost tries to make something concrete that should be left more ephemeral, almost like trying to describe the wind or love. But I style myself a writer, so here goes.

It was one of the best experiences of my life. I've loved U2 since the Joshua Tree and I really like No Line on the Horizon a lot. Seeing and hearing and feeling songs like Magnificent performed live and then singing out I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For matched with Stand By Me is a live music performance that I haven't ever had whether in an arena or a bar or a small concert venue. U2 puts on a great show, but every now and then, amid the noise and rhthyms and lights and screens, there was a whiff of something else, something Higher and Truer than even music performed at a staggering level shared with 75,000 other people. I believe that somehow God was a part of that time, whether everyone recognized it or not. Was God Worshipped? Not by everyone, I'm sure. But when I sing,

"I believe in the Kingdom Come
Then all the colors will bleed into one
But yes I'm still running.
You broke the bonds
You loosened the chains
You carried the cross
And my shame
And my shame
You know I believed it"

I worship God.

And when I sing Amazing Grace with 75,000 other people before I sing about where the streets have no name, I worship God.

YouTube Thursday: Rick Astley Is In Nirvana

I'm a fan of mashups. Taking two unlike songs and putting them together to form something... new. Here's the latest one I found... It's equal parts brilliant and disturbing.

YouTube Thursday: Total Eclipse of the Heart (Literal Version)

A couple of months back, I posted a link to the literal version of the classic a-Ha video, Take On Me, which I found pretty hilarious. And last week, I came across the literal version of one of the greatest "HUH?" videos of all time.

Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart

YouTube Thursday: Bach Toccata and Fugue D Minor on a Giant Freaking Piano

YouTube Thursday: Always Be My Baby - David Cook

TiVo is the greatest way to watch American Idol. You can skip the inane intros, and the inane judge, and listen to the songs and what matters from the judges. This year, I'm pretty much thinking Adam Lambert has it locked up.

Last year though, it was pretty obvious that it was going to come down to David Cook and David Archuleta. I was always a supporter of Cook because I liked his harder edge to the songs he chose and performed (and that Archuleta looked dead behind his eyes). At any rate, I knew for certain that David Cook was going to win after the Mariah Carey week where he turned a lightweight fun pop song into a really solid rock ballad with "Always Be My Baby."

YouTube Thursday: Sound of Music

So yes, to answer the question that's on almost no one's mind, yesterday was my April Fools' joke. I can't decide whether it's good or sad that so few people were taken in by it, outside of some people initially. At any rate, it was fun. And also, if you're looking to do the upside down text like I did in the follow up post, you can find it here: http://www.sevenwires.com/play/UpsideDownLetters.html

As part of my penance, I offer this YouTube clip of people dancing to Do Re Mi from the Sound of Music in a train station in Antwerp, Belgium.

YouTube Thursday: U2 - Magnificent

Last week, super-mega band U2 played every night on the Late Show with David Letterman. I would say, "To promote their recently released CD 'No Line on the Horizon,'" but seriously, did they really need to promote it? It was going to sell a million or 15 copies anyway.

At any rate, here's the band doing one of my favorite songs on the new CD, Magnificent. And as you listen, ask yourself this question... who are they singing about?

YouTube Thursday: Tokens Show

Last December, Sheryl and I got to go out and see the Tokens Show at Lipscomb University, directed by Lee Camp, of whom I've spoken fondly before. We really had a great time at this Prairie Home Companion meets theology discussion. Here are a couple of videos from it, and one from a previous show.

Joy To the World


Closing Monologue: Silent Night


Class and Grass


Tuesday, March 3, at 7pm, is the next Tokens Show, and it will feature will feature musicians Vince Gill, Sonya Isaacs, Odessa Settles, and Buddy Greene; interviews with Will Campbell (author of Brother to a Dragonfly) and Brad MacLean (on his work on death-row), and much more. Sheryl and I had an absolute blast at it and if you're in the Nashville area and can make it, I can almost guarantee that you won't be disappointed. Tickets are on sale at http://www.ticketmaster.com

Tokens Show: The Revolutionary Christmas

Just before the election, I posted a quote from Lee Camp, spoken during the Tokens Show in September. What is Tokens? Well, back then I said, "a theological variety show, what could be considered a "Christian version of Prairie Home Companion," called Tokens, although to describe it like that sell both Tokens and PHC short. It combines story telling, music, interviews, and skits, to talk about some of the pressing issues of the day." After going to see a live version last night, I would say that that description captures an idea of it, but it's really no good without seeing it in person.

This show's theme was The Revolutionary Christmas. And it was very, very good. Lee started it off with a monologue, then the Most Outstanding Horeb Mountain Boys gave us some bluegrass, which morphed into Jew-grass, which was pretty cool. Andrew Peterson sang. Buddy Green sang "Mary, Did You Know?" A group called the Annie Moses Band (mainly strings) did a song called Sussex Carol which was amazing and I immediately got it off Amazonmp3.com when I got home. There were some skits about Christmas, including a visit to the Christian Shopping Mall, complete with Jesus Figurines, including Terminator Jesus. Interviews with book authors that were more than just talks.

Look, it's tough for me to do it justice with words. If you can, you should really try to be there in person. It was fun, funny, poignant, thought-provoking, challenging, enjoyable, uncomfortable, and just really, really good. If you enjoy great music, pointed commentary, funny skits that step on your toes, singing, laughter, worship, any or all of those, you should be at the next one in March. You can keep track of it at www.tokensshow.com


Thanks to Lee and all the people that worked it to make it happen and even thanks to Lipscomb for allowing them to put it on.

Straight No Chaser: Holiday Spirits

Last year about this time, I discovered a video by an acapella group called Straight No Chaser doing a version of the 12 Days of Christmas.



Here's the story, condensed from this article in the NYTimes and this video.



The group formed back in the late 90s at Indiana University and when they graduated, they split up. They got back together in 2006 for a reunion and one of the guys had videos of a performance and put it up on YouTube since the members of the group were now living all over the country. By the beginning of December of 2007 about 100,000 people had seen it, which the group thought was pretty cool. But by the end of the first week of December, they had 200,000 total. By Christmas, 6 million people viewed it as well. And one of them was an executive from Atlantic Records who decided to call up and see if they wanted to get back together to capitalize on this and do a Christmas CD. And as you might be able to tell from the title of this post, they did, and it's called Holiday Spirits.



And it's good. They do a lot of standards as well as some fun ones, like Little Saint Nick. And they include the live version of 12 Days of Christmas, which is also good, but it's honestly better with the video. So, if you're looking for some new Christmas music, I'd give this one a shot. The production is great and the harmonies that these guys pull of is really, really excellent. Even if you don't typically like pop acapella (like me), give this one a listen.

YouTube Thursday: Guitar Hero on Drums

I'm a casual gamer. I like playing on my Xbox360. Quite a few driving games, some shooters and RPGs, but definitely the music games, like Guitar Hero and especially Rock Band.

Yesterday, Scott Freeman sent me this video of a guy who hooked up a MIDI drumset to his computer and routed it through his console and came up with this on the hardest song in the entire Guitar Hero 3 game, Through Fire and Flame.



And just for some context, here's the same song played on the guitar controller.

Oh yeah, by a 9 year old....



And here's the music video for the actual song by Dragonforce, just for comparison to what real guitarists do.

YouTube Thursday: Epilogue/Amazing Grace - Phil Keaggy

I got exposed to Phil Keaggy back in the 80s. He released a CD called Phil Keaggy and Sunday's Child which was a rockin', late-Beatles feel to it. Through that, I got exposed to his instrumental work, specifically ones like Beyond Nature and The Master and the Musician.

The last track is one called Epilogue/Amazing Grace and it's an original piece that gets meshed with the hymn that just works in an incredible way. I've loved this song since I first heard it. We used it in our Prelude music at our wedding and it's one of the songs that I want played at my funeral (many, many years from now). Oh, and it's 9 minutes long.



More of (a very young) Phil playing around with the Ebow that he uses to make the synthesized sound on the guitar. (Check out the acid stonewashed jeans!)

You Tube Thursday: A-Ha's Take On Me, the Literal Version

As a child of the 80s, I was amazed at music videos and can even remember the first one I ever saw (Lucky Star by Madonna). I remember being scared over at friend's house when Michael Jackson's Thriller first aired (we didn't have cable) and staying up late for NBC's Friday Night Videos. One of the seminal videos during that time was a-ha's Take On Me, which combined live action and pencil-like animation.



Now, this is one of those videos that when you watch it, it makes absolutely zero sense in relation to the lyrics.

And so, some kind soul has redone the lyrics to make much more sense in context of the video. And it made me laugh so hard I had tears coming from my eyes.

YouTube Thursday Part Deux: Joe Cocker (Captioned for the Clear Headed)

Joe Cocker, "With a Little Help From My Friends." Woodstock, 1969. Closed captioned for the clear-headed.

YouTube Thursday: Wise Up (Remix)

This is one for the Christian music old schoolers.

I was big into Christian music in the 80s and early 90s. Huge fan of Michael W. Smith, Petra, Amy Grant, Rich Mullins and a few other more obscure groups and artists (Michael Gleason, anyone?) This was also a part of the reason I got a job at a Christian bookstore. But perhaps more about that time in my life another day.

There was a CD that came out in 1989 that were remixes of Christian songs called Adventures in the Land of Big Beats and Happy Feet, and one of the remixes was for Amy Grant's song Wise Up off her record, Unguarded. And after seconds and seconds of copious searching, I present it here for you today.

YouTube Thursday: Every Step You Stand By Me

About three years ago, I went through a kick where I loved mashups. For those of you unfamiliar, mashups are taking two separate songs and mixing them together to form one song. My criteria was fairly stringent. I had to know at least one of the songs and the mashup actually had to be good. Fulfilling these criteria proved more difficult to meet than I'd thought, but I found some good ones:

• I Wanna Dance with Some Bono - U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday mashed with Whitney Houston's I Wanna Dance with Somebody
• Oops Slim Shady Did It Again - Eminem's Slim Shady mashed with Britney Spears' Oops I Did It Again
• Booty-stitious - Destiny's Child's Bootylicious with Stevie Wonder's Superstitious
• Owner of a Lovely Butt - Yes' Owner of a Lonely Heart with Sir Mix-A-Lot's Baby Got Back

And a bad ones like the Chariots Killed the Radio Star - Vangelis' Chariots of Fire with The Buggles' Video Killed the Radio Star.

However, one of the best ones I found was this one which is a mash of Ben E. King's Stand By Me and the Police's stalker hit Every Breath You Take.



Still one of my favorite ones. Now, if I could just find a good mash of Queen and David Bowie's Under Pressure with Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby.... Seriously.

YouTube Thursday: Darth Vader is a Thriller

I can only imagine how hard it must have been to do those moves in that costume.

Caption This Picture!

We're going a little old school this week on the picture. But you can still be funny if you want.

Another Happy Birthday

When you blog, there's almost an imperative on you to celebrate and notice birthdays. And if you blog for a while, you end up coming around to those birthdays again and again. In the time that I've been blogging, this is the third time that we've come to my lovely wife Sheryl's birthday.

2006

2007

It might not be the most romantic thing, but I think what I've said in those two years really encapsulates my feelings for my best friend and every day I get to spend with her is another day that I get great joy in my life. She's a great mother and wife and partner. So to her, Happy Birthday, again and I look forward to many more together. To her, I dedicate this song by Eastmountainsouth.

You Dance

I won't face another day
I won't wait until tomorrow
I won't spend another night without you
let me carry you away
let me wake you every morning
let me wander every day beside you

'cause you dance in my head, in my heart, in my everything
you belong

you won't worry 'bout a thing
you can sleep a little longer
you can dream another dream beside me
I could walk another road
I could sing another sad song
but I could never make it home without you

'cause you dance in my head, in my heart, in my everything
you belong

'cause you dance in my head, in my heart, in my hands........

YouTube Thursday: Carry Organ My Wayward Daughter

Japanese girl rocks out to Carry On My Wayward Son on an ORGAN!



H/T: Scott