Cornerstone Festival - Musings

As I said before, it's a pretty eclectic group of people here at Cornerstone. In theory, what unites all (or the vast majority) is that we call ourselves "Christians". So what does that mean with such diversity? I'm sure there are people here who wouldn't consider me a Christian being Catholic and all and others that would look down on the kids in black with bullets for a belt. To me, it's simple, you only need to believe that God loves us unconditionally, Jesus died for our sins and that every blessing we receive is through God's grace. Sure, there's a lot of other stuff I believe because I'm a Catholic, but they just make me Catholic, not Christian.

The Cornerstone Survival Guide (http://www.cstonesurvival.com) had some good ideas along these lines....

• "Be prepared to be offended. Not everyone shares your views on abortion, homosexuality, the death penalty or the Clinton presidency. If you find that someone is wearing a t-shirt espousing views that you don't like, ignore them. Or better yet, talk to them about it. You may make a new friend, and more importantly, you may learn something.
• Not everyone holds to the same "holiness standard" that you do. Some people smoke, drink, and wear two-piece bathing suits. Try and focus on the beams in your own eyes before plucking slivers out of theirs.
• Remember that not everyone has had the blessing and benefit of a good upbringing. Sometimes the people who seem to be the most rude and obnoxious are at Cornerstone because they really are trying to live a Christian life. It isn't easy for a lot of people to transcend their upbringing (or lack thereof), show grace and understanding with such people. This doesn't mean that you should be a pushover, or should tolerate abusive or dangerous behavior. It just means that you should try and settle problems with people in a gracious and understanding way, rather than immediately going to security."

As an aside, there are at least 2 other Catholics here - one had a Benedict 16 shirt on and the other a Cardinal Ratzinger shirt. I wore my JPII shirt from DYD but didn't get any comments positive or negative. Wish more Catholics were exposed to Christian music - most don't even know it exists. (I know Boom, Mr. P and I are trying to get the message out) The music quality is good and the message is better.

Cornerstone Festival - Thursday

Before heading out today, we got ear plugs and had lunch at a Dairy Queen which we can't do in the East. Pretty much same quality as a Wendy's I'd say.

The main stage bands were supposed to be Pigeon John, Skillet, Anberlin and Relient K. Unfortunately, Relient K's bus caught fire on the PA Tpk, so they were a no-show. (http://www.timesreporter.com/index.php?ID=69670&r=1). They are just one of the many bands trying to do both Creation and Cornerstone. Stupid to schedule them the same w/e if you ask me. So without Relient K, Anberlin became the headliner and they added Jonezetta as one of the openers. Pigeon John was LA hip-hop which neither N or I cared for. Jonezetta was ok - pretty standard rock stuff.



Before the headliners, there was an awesome sunset. This pic shows the sunset and also the "natural" amphitheater that the main stage sits in.








Skillet and Anberlin blew the place away. Serious wall of sound stuff - N was 2nd row and I was just slightly further back but with no one in front of me so I could get pics. Both N and I had our hearing protection and it made a world of difference. You could still feel the bass (are your pants supposed to move by themselves to the music?) but no numb ears in the morning. It cuts out some of the treble and maybe muddies the sound a bit but that may have been the mixer. I saw another post where they complained about Anberlin being too much bass and distortion. I thought Skillet's mix was much better.

Skillet & Anberlin

As we walked out, we stopped at one of the "after hours" shows - a band called Seventh Star. Very screamo but you could still hear the message - I think one of the line was "you can't do that in God's house". N and I haven't done a lot of it, but if you just wander around there are bands playing everywhere and you might just happen on something good (or really bad ). Anyway the weather was cool and cloudy so we weren't completely wiped by the end of the day.

Cornerstone Festival - Wednesday Night

Nate and I headed back to the Festival around 4 and got to watch a thunderstorm pass just east of us and the festival. I love how you can see the whole storm and that it is a lot further away and bigger than it seems. Not sure I could live in a flat tree-less land but it's cool to visit and for N to experience - he's been East coast/west coast but this is his first visit to the Heartland.

We spent the whole night up at the Main Stage. David Crowder and tobyMac were the headliners, but the Wedding, Everyday Sunday and Fireflight were pretty good "openers". N and I were about 20 feet from the stage for both DCB and tobymac. Both were awesome in different ways. DCB gets everyone moving and I think N called it "rock worship".



David Crowder did a version of Come thou Fount that melded in Amazing Grace that just rocked but also was so worshipful. Even though the rain had cooled it off a bit, it was packed in and moving by the stage so we were drenched. Not sure my old ears and knees are really up for this but I'm loving it.







TobyMac was as always out of control. The crowd seemed a bit subdued at the beginning but really got into when he did the old dcTalk In the Light. He ended with Jesus Freak and Extreme Days - and pretty much brought the house down. N and I were way too close to the speakers - my left ear still feels muddled today. Might need some ear plugs.




We didn't get back until almost 1 AM and N slept almost to 11 AM. Nate is having a blast - jumping, head banging, worshipping - no mosh pit though - I do need to bring him back to his Mom in one piece!

Cornerstone Festival - Wednesday Afternoon

Wednesday is the first "official" day of Cornerstone, not just for me and Nate but for the music and everything else. You can actually get there on Monday to setup camp (N said no camping and I agreed) and Tuesday have some music sponsored by some of the record labels.

N and I headed to the Festival around noon to get the lay of the land - I had no idea what to expect. Even though things were just getting started, I could tell Cornerstone was huge both in the stuff going on and the physical size of the farm. N and I walked around the whole property - we checked out the Main Stage (as you can see in the pic), the merch tent, and some of the food. It was in the high 80s and none of the bands we really wanted to see were playing yet so we headed back to the hotel to chill (literally) for a while. It's a 45 minute ride each way but the car is air conditioned and there are very few trees at the Festival - welcome to the prairie.

A couple initial impressions (though they certainly are influenced by that this is Sat AM when I'm writing and we have 3 nights of rocking under our belt)....I'm not really sure how to describe Cornerstone - It's big and sprawling but has a wildness about it - I think it feels somehow random even though I'm sure it's highly organized, it just doesn't have that corporate feel about it. The people here are as diverse as they come - maybe not so much in race, but you have aging hippies with pony tails, emo kids, goths, families with kids and babies and "generic" teenagers, as well as the guys like me who probably go to a corporate job during the week. The camping is completely crazy - people drop a tent next to the road, next to a stage that has music until 2 AM, anywhere almost.

Cornerstone Festival - The Trip Out

OK, so maybe Friday of the Festival is a bit late to start blogging on Cornestone, but the idea to stop sending email and start blogging only came to me last night. Hey, I'm 43, not 23 and part of the texting and blogging generation. Anyway, a lot of the blog so far will excerpted from emails I've sent - cheating? sure but their my emails. Thanks to Boom and Nancy for putting up with my long winded emails about this trip.

So we headed out on Monday, 6/25 for the heartland. It was me, Nate and Jeff (my landlord's wife's son) leaving just at 9 AM as planned. Jeff was with with us since his Dad (who he spends the summer with) lives about 30 miles off of the planned route to Cornerstone. Jeff and Nate spent most of the trip (OK, all of the trip) playing their Nintendo DS's. It's pretty cool - the DS's can talk to each other so they can chat or see each other if they are playing the same game. Day 1 was home to Angola, IN - about 10 hours with stops. Pretty uneventful - I-80 for lots and lots of miles. I loved when the Nüvi at one point said "Next Turn in 328 miles". One note on Angola - not much there except for the intersection of 2 interstates and some outlets. 2 comments from Jeff - "good thing Mom isn't here or we'd never get away from here" and (to me) "they don't call it a pie in IN - it's pizza - if you order a pie they think you want an apple pie".

The second day was drop off day for Jeff. We got him safely to his Aunt at the Troppa-tanna Tanning Salon and were back off to Cornerstone. I listened to my iPod on random to keep sane while N kept on with the DS. We drove through a couple classic midwest storms today - we could se them coming for miles and then watched the rain come like a line. Not sure why it's that way more out here, maybe the terrain. We drove almost all the way to Iowa before heading south on I-74. We got safely here to Galesburg (the birthplace of Carl Sandburg - who knew?). About 7 hours on the road.

First Post....

OK everybody, I've decided to jump into the blogoshpere. A couple inspirations - first, I'm doing a blog at work for a weight loss contest we are having (more on that in future posts) and second, I've been having such fun writing about our trip to the Cornerstone Festival that I figured I'd use a blog rather than typing the same thing to lots of people in email. And, oh yeah, posting pictures here is easier than trying to resize and send lots of email.

Hope you enjoy it - I think you can subscribe via RSS (if you don't know what that is, ask someone Nate's age!) and you will get updates whenever I post. The next bunch are going to be about our (ongoing) trip to the Cornerstone Festival in Bushnell, IL (http://www.cornerstonefestival.com).