A Whole New World

I'm engaged.

Yes, I'm about as shocked as you are, and I honestly have no clue where the future is leading; It feels as if everything I know is changing, or has become certainly uncertain. The one thing I know is this: I found a young lady who wants to stick it out with me... she must be nuts.

Ive posted 3 times this year. Yikes. This year can simply be described as utter chaos. It seems as if I've been all around the United States, into Canada (a few times) and back again without time to update the website at all. I've had several designs mapped out as the year progressed for the website and never actually saw it to fruition. I'm looking to get Adobe Flash soon.

Since I'm doubting that I'll be able to update again before the year end, I'm going to do a quick recap of the year:

Way FM 10

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This was a short 8-10 date tour with Jeremy Camp, The Afters, Chasen, and Jason Gray. It seems like it lasted a lot longer, but it was a ton of fun. The bands, and the crew were all great to hang with. I enjoyed getting to know everyone, and spending time touring the WAY FM circuit.

We had a Maxx Touring rig out that included 4 genie superlifts about 18 Elation 250s,2 DL2s, a bunch of Elation Opti PArs, and 8 of some sort of Elation Strobe light.

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Jeremy Camp Acoustic Tour

This tour was longer than the WAY FM tour, consisting of more than 20 dates across the US and presented a new challenge for me. The trick with the acoustic tour was to keep the look of the show conistent across every venue, without carrying the same equipment from show to show. It was a fun show because at times it felt as if I were just pulling rabbits out of my hat... I'm still thinking about chainging my logo... er, making a new one... or just having one at all.

I'm off topic. Go figure. The "tour look" featured a background that had the ability to change color, with 4 - 8 moving spot lights that ranged from some Chinese 250 fixture to Mac 2Ks. I generally asked that there be 9 lekos available for use, and I would spot each member of the band with a real tight focus. It was so tight that if they stood up, they'd be in the dark. I continued to use Jeremy's Vista S3. I ran that entire tour live, because I never knew what I was going to get from show to show. It tested my ability to creatively think ahead and many days I felt as a part of the band, because I needed to change when they changed. The set gave the idea of a living room, and a lot of evenings it felt like we were sitting in an extension of Jeremy and Adie's living room. There was a lot of joking, talking, requests, and random incidents that would happen if we were just chilling at the house with our instruments.

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Summer -

Travelling with Jeremy, I don't remember a lot of the summer. We did a few festivals here and there, I remember Seattle, WA and San Diego Co Fair which were both a lot of fun. Then there was Orlando, FL at Universal Studios where we carried a Barco MiTrix wall. It looked awesome, and it was a great dry run for our Fall Tour.

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Martina McBride - Shine All Night Summer Tour 10

Martina McBride. 'Nough Said. We rocked close to 17 shows across 3 1/2 weeks or so, and that's all just guestemation. I had a blast with the MM Crew. She took us into Canada probably 2-3 times, then over to Cor D'lene Lake, Lake Tahoe, and Napa Valley to name a few stops - it was absolutely hands down the best tour I've been on yet. Now don't get me wrong, it wasn't all just wine and boats; it was a lot of tough work, some days we were outside in some nasty heat, nasty cold or just straight up nasty weather, but the downtime outweighed it enough that after it was all said and done, it landed in the positive, and I'm looking forward to the day I go out with them again. Honestly, the scenery was great, the entertainment, amazing; but witout the people that were out there with me, it wouldn't have been anywhere close to as fun.

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Jeremy Camp - "We Cry Out" Fall Tour 10

Jeremy released a CD at the end of the summer entitled, "We Cry Out." This album, contrary to Jeremy's usual style, is filled with contemporary christian music, and was his first full worship album. I can recall the state of mind across the group as the recording process ensued, and the best way I can describe it is "reverence." The album was very powerful, I knew this long before I heard the tracks for the first time, but it wasn't until the album was out that I actually listened to the track "Overcome." I remember being blown away during the shows as we played that song, there was nothing like it, and we got to experience it night after night.

We also travelled with Carlos Whittaker, and John Mark McMillan who were both awesome on stage and off. When the tour ended it was sad to see it go. We're working toward the new year and tours to come, hopefully, Jeremy, we'll be in a town near you, and I look forward to seeing you there,

God Bless -

-Chris-