Snohomishfest 2005

A post draught? Drought, sorry. Draught is some kind of drink. I'll admit to having one before Snohomishfest, but during the festival there wasn't much of a good time to blog. Just watch me make up for the draught. Just watch me. Drought. Right.

This year's end-of-summer time meant the continuation of what is becoming a tradition of both mine and my older college friends; this tradition is going to Freedom Fest, a Christian Music Festival in Snohomish, Washington. For the reason that it is held in the town of Snohomish (a nice rural community) one of the friends who I've been to Freedom Fest with has nicknamed it Snohomishfest. This friend, whose name is Billy, was unable to come this year, which was a disappointment. However the weekend was still one of the best I have had this summer.

It began with a drive, being picked up by two of the people in my four-person group for the multi-hour drive up not to Snohomish but rather to the house of Alicia, girlfriend of one of the people I was riding with, Shawn. The other person was Ginny who drove much of the way and did a lot of cooking during the festival. The deal was that we would stay at Alicia's house; Sawn and I would stay in the backyard in a tent and the two girls in our group would stay in her house. Her parents were quite hospitable, inviting us for lunch two of the three days we were there. When we reached her house, someone (I forget whom) continued the Freedom Fest tradition of finding a bee in the car. Last year, Billy had eloquently shouted "BEE!" leading us all to rapidly exit the vehicle.

The bands were many good and many bad, as at many festivals, I'm sure. The highlights included Falling Up, Superchic[k], Tree 63 and a local/regional band called Endeavor.

Endeavor I suppose I should name first--they were one of my favorite bands of the weekend. They managed to get on the mainstage during the first day, without even having had a CD out yet. That was pretty cool. They then proceeded to wow us with their crazy guitar-work and awesome songs. I'm going to be watching for that CD. For now look them up on purevolume.com and listen to the songs they've got there. My favorite I don't remember the name of. A warning--they are loud. Very. Their guitars scream. But if you listen you can tell they are talented; I wish them all the best in the world of Christian music and music in general.

Falling Up, for those of you who don't know, have a song out on the few good Christian radio stations. I don't remember what it's called, but the chorus has the words "Father, healer, deliver me from brokenness" in it. They were fairly hard rock. Good stuff. They also had one song that they played, apparently about some sad small-town situation in Oregon, where they are from, in which the lead singer seemed to randomly shout out "Disease kills without discrimination" or something along those lines. That was incredibly funny, and I don't think anyone in my group knew what was up with it, or if it had some connection to the actual song. Two other random facts preceded and followed up the song. If anyone knows which Falling Up song this might be, feel free to let me know. They were on night one, followed by Seventh Day Slumber. More about SDS later.

Superchic[k] I have never seen before live, but am glad I did. They play mostly pop-punk stuff, and many silly songs, but their attitude and the serious songs point to Jesus. One friend pointed out that they're a very girl-power band, which is made more interesting noting that only two out of the current six members are girls. The guys sang a song about waiting to kiss guys--that was entertaining. ("Some princes start as frogs, and all gentleman as dogs; just wait till it's plain to see what we're growin' up to be. Some frogs will still be frogs, some dogs will still be dogs, some boys will become men; just don't kiss us till then!") I found that on a lyric site, then modified it for better readability. They were on night two.

Tree63's concert was awesome. It was the last of the last night, and it was a very fun and worshipful experience. It also helped that, unlike with many other bands, I knew at least half the chorus of multiple songs. My group got to be in the front row, which was also fun stuff, if a bit crowded. The song "Joy" went for about ten minutes ("Let me be a shining light for You; let me be a joy to You always") and was awesome. It was especially fun in the middle, when the lead singer requested that the audience peopel with cell phones take them out and wave them around like "lighters." I participated in that, and they even got the light-people to turn the stage lights down/off for it. Quite a fun experience. They were on night three.

The laughable concert of the weekend was Seventh Day Slumber. SDS came out and played a bunch of songs in which lyrics and music do not match (a happy tune for the words "Over and over again, I'm spiraling into nothing!" and a very angry tune for the words "GOD GAVE! ME BACK! MY INNOCENCE!") The part about losing their innocence; the anger made sense there. But why the anger at getting back one's innocence? Making fun of these two songs is a Freedom Fest tradition which was started by Billy and Shawn from some other time they had seen SDS, and which I began to take part in at last year's FF. They also played a song called Candy, which was written by the lead singer for his wife. Apparently, it is no longer written with his wife in mind, and at least according to his present explanation was originally written about Jesus. Were I his wife, I would be concerned for his sincerity, if not feeling a bit slighted. If he had simply given the song a second meaning, that would be okay--but what he did was just lying. Other than that, however bad they are lyrically, the band was musically good and does seem to be basically sincere in their drive for Christ.

We attempted three Bible Studies, with at least two being somewhat successful. The first time around we tried Obadiah, which was fun to read (pounding our fists at the "wrathful" parts) but not really too educational, as given our lack of knowledge about the book we were really only able to discern that someone was going to be punished badly for turning away from the Lord. The second study was the Book of Jude. That was fun because I got to learn from people about the mention of one of the "Lost Books" of the Bible, and we got to ponder the meaning of that verse about Michael the Archangel not rebuking Satan himself, but saying "the Lord rebuke you." The third study was on First Peter. We avoided largely the subject of predestination (mentioned in the first couple of verses) but read verse-by-verse with continuations on complete sentences. Since we had at 2-3 NIVs and one NASB (in NASB sentences are longer) it was an interesting time figuring out precisely whose turn it was. But it was good. Fewer wrathful parts, and stuff about being strangers. Interesting.

Sunday morning we went to the church of the girlfriend of my friend. It was a Free Lutheran Church. I didn't find out what separates Free Lutherans and Free Methodists, and didn't ask. But it was rather interesting to note that when the preacher noted important calendar dates for the kids, he noted Reformation Day. Ginny noted that it might have been to give an alternative to mentioning Halloween; I suggested it might have been just because they were Lutherans. Either way.

I didn't wear earplugs the whole weekend, and someone suggested there might be a ringing in my ears. I think there might have been after the drive back home, in which I thought I knew the way to go, but was in reality directionally challenged/confused. After seeing Tree63, we went to Alicia's house to drop stuff off, said goodbye to Alicia and set off, because Shawn had to be at work today at 11:00 AM. The drive back home was fun. I got to hear the Echoing Green album (Supernova) that the friend-with-the-girlfriend-whose-house-we-stayed-at found, and I bought, as well as some of Five Iron Frenzy's last album (the Cheeses of Nazareth, I believe.) The two of them drove on the way back; I talked to them on the way back, and at one point we three collectively made up a story sentence-by-sentence. No real animals were harmed in the making of the stories.

I am surely neglecting some detail of this (in fact I have yet to mention many of the wonderful CDs I got and will likely get, among other things) and these will be covered in the next Snohomishfest 2005 post. I wasn't sure I'd end up with three whole posts for these three days, but it's going to be at least two. I can't make it one post because I'm already eleven minutes past bedtime at this point in the typing, and need to get to bed. God bless you all, and goodnight!

- EDITED on the 24th at 2:15 PM for a bit more detail and names.)