the boys are back in town.

merch table story #5 perhaps? i dunno.
the night wasn't off to a great start. i was late (lost track of time talking to my dear mother on the phone), had to pay for parking (my free parking place is no longer free-grrr), and my hair looked like death. neat-o. but i was working remedy drives merch table so all of those negatives were looking up once i got to the show.
i've seen remedy drive a bunch and may have been just a little obsessed with them about 2 and a half years ago. but it's okay, i went to RDA (remedy drive anonymous) and am in my 12th stage of recovery and am now just your average fan who catches a show whenever she can.
so i got to the venue and was filled in on prices just as the doors were opening. fans came, a lot browsed, a few bought and then the show started. there were 5 bands total and remedy drive was last since they were headlining. it was fabulous. i was impressed with the bands i hadn't seen before and remedy drive always puts on a great show.
once the encore was finished and most of the attendees had cleared the building it was time to start packing up the merchandise. so allison and i started counting shirts and tearing down the backdrop when paul and philip came over to help. at one point philip started singing/beat boxing and a little dance party broke out. i've always embraced my white girlness and my dancing shows it. philip mocked me. then we got talking about europe (they had just been there, i was there summer of '07) and paul mentioned that he spent a day in paris and i asked, "did you like paris?" (a little disgustedly, i didn't like paris). philip mocked me. then i asked what other countries they had been in and did some stupid little hand gesture (i'm a hand-talker) and philip mocked me. i looked at him and said, "wow, you are hating all over me tonight." he chuckled and said, "not hating, appreciating." sure sure. so we finished loading stuff and i went to chat with some other people.
as i was leaving the club, my job done, philip was outside on his phone. i gave a little wave and was about to walk off when he asked if i was leaving for the night. um, yeah, that's why i waved. he told whoever he was on the phone with to hold on for a second and then gave me a hug and said it was great seeing me again. i whole heartedly agreed that it was great seeing him again and wished him luck on the rest of their tour. he saluted me.
oh philip, if you and that gorgeous girlfriend of yours ever decide to call it quits, this girl will gladly take an alphabet drop for you.
xo

a pondering.

another lifelight 2010 story for you....
i was talking to matt (lead singer of the wedding) after their show and we got discussing pranks. apparently those boys in the wedding like to cause a little mischief every now and again (think borrowing golf carts without permission or pelting the audience with water balloons) at different summer festivals. however, they decided not to do anything at lifelight and this is the reason why: lifelight is good to them. apparently a lot of the other summer festivals aren't so nice to them as a band and lifelight has always been stellar to them.
now i'm not saying that it's right for them to "borrow" golf carts but it's also not right of the festivals to treat the artists poorly. i mean, without the artists there would be no festival, without festivals a lot of artists would have a lot tougher go of it. they go hand-in-hand. i'm sure there is a lot of stress on festival promoters/directors/booking agents/etc. but i find it incredibly sad when they don't treat the bands very Christ-like. when they forget the big picture of the festival, the ministry and music of it all, and get caught up in unnecessary details. likewise, it's sad when bands don't feel like they need to respect the festival because they feel like they've been slighted.
i applaud the boys in the wedding for not causing any mischief at lifelight because they didn't want to hurt or anger the people who had been so good to them. i applaud lifelight for being so great to their artists. i think we can all learn a little lesson from the wedding, lifelight, that fabulous movie, high school musical, "we're all in this together."
xo

fashion rocks.

as i've said before, i love clothes. one day in church i got a wild hair that i could combine some of my favorite things and try to make a difference in this world. so i am excited to announce that my apparel line, heartsbeatlove, is officially online and for sale!
my goal is to have profits from the shirt sales go to a non-profit doing their part to make the world a better place. for the first line i've chosen NightLight to highlight and give money to. they are based out of l.a., atlanta, and bangkok and are working hard to stop human traffiking while spreading the message of hope. i truly admire the work they are doing and the souls they are rescuing!
please visit: heartsbeatlove.bigcartel.com and pick up a shirt!
please also: check out heartsbeatlove on facebook, myspace or shoutlife and be a friend, a fan or whatever the site calls it :)
xo

15,000. no lie.

so it seems as though my summer has been filled with "chance of a lifetime" opportunities and i was completely stoked when another one came my way this past weekend. there was a little festival called lifelight happening in the town of sioux falls, sd. i say 'little' but it's really not so little. lifelight is one of the few free christian music festivals in the country and attracts crowds of thousands! it's an amazing three days of music and ministry.
i know some wonderful people at an organization called shoutlife.com (a fresh approach to social networking- holla!) who were gracious enough to let me do a couple of stage spots to promote shoutlife! from main stage. the first one was on friday, it went great! did a little plug, threw out a couple shirts, one kid (of about the 100 or so that were in the audience) recognized me later and asked to take a picture with me, fun times!
the second one though, this one really takes the cake. it was a bit more of a prime time so i knew there would be a few more people there but we'd already done it once, how intimidating could it be? well let me just tell you, our time to talk was directly after those fabulous fellas from family force 5. that's right kids, we ran on stage right as family force 5 was running off stage. pretty sure i got some of fatty's sweat on me. the crowd was ENORMOUS. there were at least 15,000 people there and they were all looking at me and amanda. oh-my-lanta. and as if that wasn't enough, i was a bit stupid and wore a dress that day, and it was windy! i mean, it's south dakota, i think it's always windy. so not only did i have the piercing gaze of thousands of eyes on me, i was worried that a strong gust was going to kick up my dress and expose my pink undies to the world.
amanda did her ditty about refuge radio and handed the mic to me....i was on and all i could think was, "you'd better rock this or you're going to look like a big loser." thankfully, Jesus helped me out and i got all the right words out, got the crowd to make a little noise for the backstage meet and greet passes we were giving away and the wind behaved so no one saw my underpants. what a frickin' rush! both me and amanda were shaking and laughing from adrenaline as we ran off stage. we probably looked like total goobers but hey, we were just on the jumbo-tron! larger than life, baby!
xo

live on air.

exciting news....this girl right here is going to have her very own radio show!! the college that i work at has a very small radio station and i get to have my very own show over the dinner hour 3-4 nights a week (depending on my schedule)! the beauty of this is this: at the moment the station is streamed purely online, this means that anyone can listen- including you!!
i'm thrilled over this opportunity and i love the chance to try something new that may be something i'd want to do more than just dabble in :) it also gives me the opportunity to get new Christian music into the ears of everyone on-campus...and anyone else who may choose to listen, haha! i mean, i'm sure michael w. smith is a great dude and who doesn't love a little old school audio adrenaline every now and again but there is some in-frickin'-credible music out there that deserves to be played.
xo
p.s. if anyone has a fantastic idea for a radio segment please let me know!
p.s.s. goodbye summer, hello fall.