Year 3, March 18th-19th, 2018: Newboys UNITED!!!!!!!

AAHHHHHHH!!!!!!  So much fun!  Yes, this post will only be about the Newsboys United concert Justin and I attended, so if that doesn't interest you, please skip this post.  It will be a long one!  But the day(s) went on without a hitch!  Praise the Lord!  I was super nervous about driving and checking into a hotel by myself, you know, doing the adulting.  Of course I can do it, but I've relied on my concert buddies to do it in the past, except that one time that I drove all the way home from Nashville, TN driving my friend's car while she rested because she needed to go to work the next day.  (that was 10 years ago)  Anyway, I was able to perfectly time everything!  We left at 12:30 pm and arrived in Ft. Wayne around 2:15pm.  Checking into the hotel was a breeze, although we had to call someone to the front desk.  They seem to be short staffed, but they also were full the night before and still had a lot of cleaning to do.  But the young lady was able to get us into a room quickly.  I was very nervous about this hotel because it had mixed reviews, and the reviews weren't lying.  It wasn't the cleanest hotel I've ever stayed in, but I just keep thinking about the video we watched during the concert about the slums in Africa and how gross it is over there.  Still, I tried not to touch too much.  I think a lot of people would have gone somewhere else.  The beds were clean, the heat worked great, the TV also worked fine, the coffee pot was clean, most of the lights worked, the beds were soft, and it didn't smell like smoke.  But yes, it wasn't perfectly vacuumed and the shampoo samples were slimy from just sitting there collecting dust.  The continental breakfast was a joke.  The waffle maker was on but there was no waffle mix.  There were two cereals, coffee, drinkable yogurt, one kind of milk, eggs (that were nasty), and biscuits and gravy.  And the room itself was dirty.  Ew! We ate quickly and left for Tim Horton's.  I wouldn't recommend this hotel, the Magunsen, but it was cheaper than all the other hotels, so we went for it.

ANYWAY, we checked in, rested for a little bit and then headed to the venue about 3:10pm.  Perfect timing, too!  The venue was just a block away, and we got a front row parking spot.  We had early entry passes, so we stood in one line where as friends of ours stood in the general admission line.  That line was first come, first serve seating just like WinterJam.  I'm so grateful I paid extra and had assigned seats.  We didn't have to get there at 3:30pm, but it gave us time to take a breather and be some of the first through security.  Security was a breeze and the staff were friendly, especially if you were friendly to them.  We also got to talk with a mom and daughter while we waited in line which was nice.  I had brought some of my scrapbooking pages from 18 years ago so I was able to share that with them and our friends we saw. After security, we picked up our special "VIP" badges!  We had the "premium" badges that let us get in early and hang out for a Q and A session.  The "ultimate" session allowed you to meet and greet the band and get a picture.  The "ultimate" badges/seats were TWICE the price of the "premium" ones and the seats were not any better than our seats.  Basically, you were paying $40 for ONE picture with the band.  Not worth it in my mind.  You could also meet the band if you became a sponsor for a child in the Child Fund program.  I wasn't going to do that either because those kinds of things are a family decision that should be prayed over and we can sponsor kids in many different programs at any given time.  I'm glad that the Newboys were trying to get the number of sponsorships up by offering that to the first 300 sponsorships, but I wasn't buying into that.  We do have one sponsor child that is about Keturah's age that Jared picked up on one of his trips for the school in Canada.  So we pay extra to have funds sent over the border to pay for that monthly sponsorship program, go figure.  Oh well, we aren't going to drop the poor girl just because we moved to the States.  But I digress.....

Q and A was a load of fun!  Justin was able to ask a question!  I took a lot of footage of all the answers to questions because you don't see those videos on Instagram very much.  I'll put the answer to Justin's question below.  His question was about what it's like to be on the road so much.  Michael Tait (the self proclaimed "chocolate" one) answered it and made a point of using Justin's name.  Tait is hilarious and fun!   He also said that he was the chocolate in between the two vanilla cookies (an inside out oreo) when he was part of DCTalk.  I met him years ago and he is a super tall, super friendly guy and does well singing lead in Newsboys.  Anyway, we did get to hear the quieter members speak a couple of times, too, Jody Davis and Jeff Frankenstein.  Phil Joel didn't really answer a question, but he did talk a lot when he band, Zealand, opened up the evening.  There were questions like what songs would they recommend to play during a prayer/worship time at a Catholic school and how did they decide to do this tour now and what's your favorite song to play and do you ever get tired of playing those songs?  I liked the answer to that last one because Peter Furler, the former lead singer, said, no, they don't get tired of it, because the audience is different and connects differently to each song each night.  Someone asked about how the band started and all that, and the answer was that it started in Peter's parents' garage.  They also told how they came to America, to L.A., took a cab to an address which was a PO Box, started knocking on doors and finally someone let them join in on their Christmas Day celebrations (who travels on Christmas day?)  Very humble beginnings, but funny story.  Oh, I liked this question too about if they have ever been to a Sunday morning worship service where one of their songs were sung (like from their worship album/sets).  Their answer for that was that every concert is really a worship service because at least some of the music is "vertical" music, aka worship music.  I agree that there's an element of that.  I don't look for it, but I know that's where their heart is.  It was an awesome 30 minutes of one on one with the band.  Then they had to get ready for the evening while the rest of the crowd was let in at 5pm.  The official start time was 6pm with a guy that has toured with them before, then Zealand, and finally Newboys started around 6:45pm.

While everyone else was coming in, Justin and I went to look for a little dinner.  I was able to sneak in a few granola bars, but of course no water bottles were allowed.  We purchased one bottled water, one fountain drink, and two things of nachos for the grand total of $21.  Yes, EXPENSIVE.  And we didn't even eat all the nachos.  We should have shared one nacho.  We were also excited that there was a Tim Horton's kiosk, but it wasn't open (thus we went to Tim's on our way home the next day.)  Justin was reminiscing of all the time he had hot chocolate and a doughnut at the hockey games in Charlottetown.  It's so awesome we have those fond memories from there and when we do have Tim's, it is a bonding moment and a time to remember Canada.  All 6 of us think Tim's is special and it makes us smile ear to ear.  Anyway, no Tim's at the concert.  After eating half of our nachos, we headed out to the merchandise tables.  Wow are things expensive!  $20 for drum sticks, $25 for a baseball cap and $25 or more for t-shirts.  We ended up not purchasing anything because Justin really wants a beanie, not a baseball cap.  He actually found a plain beanie (winter knit hat) on the internet in his favorite colors and wants me to stitch on something that looks like the Newboys logo.  I'm not talking about a patch either, but actually creating the stitching with N/B and a circle around it.  Ok, then, add that to my long list of projects.  We'll see on that one!

We ended missing the single guy, but did take in all of Zealand's worship music.  It was fun to see Phil Joel at the helm again.  He's so quirky though!  He wears bell bottom pants that were quite popular in the '70's and again in the '90's but no one wear now.  Instead they all wear "skinny" jeans that are tight at the ankle like they were in the '80's.  Go figure.  And his signature head of blonde curls is going strong.  He doesn't even look older.  In fact, they only want that significantly looks older is Jody Davis.  We found out the "baby" of the band, aka Jeff Frankenstein is 43 years old, Phil Joel is 45, and the other 4 are 51/52/55, in that range.  Um, yes, they are old! And I think their kids are either Benaiah's age or a bit older.  But they don't talk about them as much.  Although, when Michael Tait was on stage, he did mention that Jody has 4 girls, Duncan has 2 girls and 1 boy, and Jeff has 2 girls.  Tait has never been married but he is the youngest of 8 kids.  His dad was a cab driver in Washington, D.C. who evangelized to every passenger, lol.  Yes, DCTalk really did come from being at a college near Washington, D.C.  The 'Boys did play "Jesus Freak", which is DCTalk's most famous song, during the spinning drumset event, so that was a nice touch.

Ok, onward to the full concert part!  They sang a ton of songs, but shortened a bunch of them.  The Newboys incorporated a lot of their old music videos which was a walk down memory lane for me and helped the audience see just how much the Newboys has evolved.  The first set was by the current Newboys, Tait, Jeff, Duncan, and Jody, aka Newsboys 2.0 as the call themselves.  Then Peter Furler and Phil Joel joined them.  They sang together for a while, and then Tait left the stage so that Peter and Phil could do the older songs, aka, with Newboys 1.0.  They had an intermission and after that, I think it was Tait and boys for a little bit before the the other two joined them for the last couple of songs.  There was a couple of "story times" and right before intermission, the single guy came out and talked about Child Fund and shared a couple of videos that he and Duncan had shot while they were in the slums.  In those slums, you will find children drinking water that was basically sewer water (if they had a sewer).  Every stream is contaminated because it runs straight down the middle of the road and is filled with trash.  There is trash everywhere, it literally looks like a garage dump.  It's disgusting, but the people don't know how to advance themselves out of poverty.  So like any good sponsorship agency, they help the children get an education, food, and health care, but they also take care of the parents providing job training, too.  And they provide water tanks and teach basic hygiene to help stop the spread of disease.  It's a noble cause for sure, and it will take many, many agencies to take care of the poor of this world.  It kind of makes you think about the money you are spending on even attending the concert, doesn't it? Oh, and the graduates of the program do become doctors and teachers and give back to their communities.  One lady who was part of the program now oversees the program in her whole country (I think it was Guatamala).  I hope they did get a lot of sponorships that evening.

Let's see, highlights for me during the evening were the oldest songs like Not Ashamed, Shine, and Breakfast.  You could definitely tell (and this happens at Michael W. Smith's concerts, too) which fans became fans during certain time periods.  Some were more animated during Michael Tait's set and some, like me, were more animated during the Peter Furler set.  I like the new songs, but they don't hold that special meaning of "these are the songs of my childhood" that the older songs do.  For Justin, he does know and enjoy the older songs, but he knows the newest ones best.  Missing 10-15 years of CCM though means there are songs you've never heard before.  But overall, I was able to sing and dance to most of them.  I took a ton of pictures and videos and it's going to take awhile to get all of those put together.  Since my phone is acting up, and all the videos are on there, I have to focus on cleaning them off first.  I filled my phone's memory bank!  I even had to take off a bunch of apps to make more room!  I took all the videos on there so I could use Leah's camera to get good still shots.  I got some really great ones as you'll see below.  It's a got a great zoom on it and a lot of the shots weren't blurry for once!  I will say that my body did start hurting from the get go, and because we were on the right side of the catwalk, I had to angle to the left and that was not a good thing for my left shoulder.  I think the concert was less fun for me because of that, but oh well, it's my new normal.

Yes, we were just a few feet from the catwalk!  I'm pretty sure the guys looked in our direction numerous times!  It was so fun being so close!  And the light show was incredible!  They had some rotating light boxes that not only rotated but the lights themselves could be configured to blink on and off in certain patterns.  It was a simple set with 3 large screens behind them and one short but wide screen in front of the drum set.  There were normal strobe lights and some dry ice fog as well.  I took some great footage to show Benaiah and his friend Matt, not that we want to incorporate these elements into Sunday morning worship, lol.  Oh, and we were right under the speakers.  I didn't mind it during the concert, but for a few minutes afterwards, I couldn't hear as well.  Justin used earplugs for a little bit.  The concert was over by 9:30pm though.  I think we could have driven home that night if I hadn't already paid for a hotel.  But I know my body would have felt way worse today if I hadn't rested.  Navigation back to the hotel was easy, too.  We had waited for the majority of the crowds to leave, so that helped.  We definitely weren't ready for bed yet, so I started loading up pictures to the photo sharing app and Justin messed around with his phone.  Thank goodness the wifi was excellent at the hotel so I could get a jump start on today's work!  We watched a reality show on rescuing big rigs in the northern plains states and Canada.  One guy had a 2,400 mile round trip to make to bring back another truck to B.C., Canada.  The other part of his crew had to deal with a semi that had wrecked on the side of a mountain, which the rock wall opened up the side of the trailer like a tin can, making the truck and the rocks very unstable.  It was pretty scary.  But it was much better watching that than all drama on another reality show about 1 husband and 3 wives!   Oh my goodness!  No wonder how culture is messed up if we are regularly consuming this stuff!  Garbage in, garbage out (which includes overuse of social media, I know).

We went to bed around midnight and my alarm went off at 7:30am.  We slept great, rolled out of bed quickly and was on our way to Tim's within 30 minutes. After Tim's, where a guy paid for our extra order of Timbits for the others because he accidentally cut us in line, we were on our way home about 9:15am.  We arrived home by 11am, right on time.  The roads were fairly clear except for the usual hot spots around the cities, especially 465 and 69 on the northeast side of Indy.  The weather was warmer and clearer today, so it was smooth sailing.  I listened to podcasts and Justin napped and played his DS.  We had nice little chat about small groups and Crave and friends.  We got home and Jared left for the office and I was left to pick up where he left off.  I had a doctor's appointment at 1:30 pm, so he came home again and stayed.  Poor Abishai won't know what to do tomorrow without his Daddy to pal around with.  Those two have a special bond.  Abishai barely wanted to talk to me today.  We did play several different things like hide and go seek and running around being ghosts.  Yes, Abishai learned how to play hide and go seek!  He probably got it from a TV show, but how cute is that!  He hides his face and counts to 12 and then says, "Hm, where Mommy? Hm, where Justin?" just like we do when we are the seeker.  Adorableness!

All in all, it was a successful (and much more expensive than I anticipated) trip!  I have to do a better job at budgeting for big things like this, but hopefully next time it won't involve a hotel and extra food.  Live and learn!  We had a blast and made some great memories!!  Here's only a sampling of the pictures I took!  I will have to borrow Leah's camera again for the next concert because these pictures came out much better than I had anticipated!  Also, I will link up the YouTube playlist of the video clips I took of every song.  They are in the right order right now as I publish this and hopefully I can go back and label each song as well in the description box below the video.  If not, any fan can figure it out.  There are also clips of the Q and A session.  So, here goes!

Newsboys March 18th, 2018 Playlist Ft. Wayne, Indiana

Fangirling moment!  We are here in the building and look how close we are to the stage and to the Q and A panel!  It was so worth paying the extra money to get 9th row and have this little one on one time with the band.  And to have assigned seats!  I can't believe we're here!

I meant to take a better picture later, but this will have to do because I'm a week behind on the blog now.  This is our special lanyard we received for paying extra for seats and the Q and A.  We were premium VIP's but not Ultimate where you can meet them and take a picture with them.

The Newsboys in their entirity!  Newboys 1.0 and 2.0.  Actually, probably 8.0 because there were several different configurations before they became popular.  The Q and A was very casual and relaxed, and hilarious!

Michael Tait (formerly of DCTalk), lead singer, and Duncan Phillips, long time drummer.  Both of these guys are in their 50's and you'll see them play themselves on the 3rd installment of the God's Not Dead movie.  They are definitely the outspoken extroverts of the band.  They love to post on Instagram, especially Duncan.  Tait is not married, but Phillips has 3 teenagers/pre teens in the house.

The quiet ones, aka Wolverine and the Baby of the band.  Nah, it's Jody Davis and Jeff Frakenstein, both of which have been with the band since I started listening to them 25 years ago.  Jody really does remind us of Hugh Jackman and he plays the electric guitar and sings.  Jeff is the keyboardist and is the youngest member of the band at age 44.  They only one who doesn't sing is Duncan, and that was one of the jokes.  And these two really don't talk much.  It cracks me up.

These two are the ones that came back from Australia for this tour.  Peter Furler was one of the founding members of the band and it was in his parents garage that that band got started.  They had to change their name from "The News" to the "Newsboys" in order to stop the confusion from some other famous artist and his band.  Peter sings and is another outspoken sarcastic member of the bunch.  Next to him is Phil Joel with his signature strawberry blonde curls.  His hair and clothing style has not changed in 25 years, and again, this cracks me up!  Phil Joel is part of a new worship band in New Zealand called Zealand.  He has had a couple of solo records while he was part of Newboys and just afterwards but decided to go home to New Zealand I assume to raise his kids nearer his family.  He's very sweet and plays the bass guitar most of the time.

So much joking around!  Even pointing out the fact that some are more introverted than others.  But at the same time, they all love each other and there is a feeling of unity and not divisiveness.  It's so cool how the band has evolved and their style has changed somewhat and yet, they can all sing the older songs as well as the newer ones and even a DCTalk song! 

Best buds.

See?! Jody on the left could be the next Wolverine!  Poor guy hasn't aged that well.  But he can still play a mean riff on the guitar.

Phil Joel's worship band Zealand played right after a solo artist I hadn't heard of.

Zealand.

Now how does he have time to brush all those crazy curls!

Um, those pants are um, not as fashionable as he thinks.  Yes, he's very tall and skinny and those just might be like leggings.  He wears wide on the bottom bell bottom pants like he's still living in the 90's.  Fun!

Time for the main act!  We loved the silhouettes!

Although we were on the right side of the stage right in front of Phil Joel and Jeff Frankenstein, it was really hard to get a clear picture of Jeff because he's somewhat in the dark all the time.  But he's my favorite because we play the same instrument.  Plus, he's not that much older than me.

The light show was amazing of course.

The catwalk wasn't very far from us either and they used it often.  Michale Tait wears this red jacket for the 1st part of the show.  He's very energetic and bounces all around the stage like he's 21 instead of 55 years old.

It was also hard to get a good shot of Jody because he was on the opposite side of the stage.  But he seriously looks older with that full beard.  But without him, there would be no awesome electric guitar and background vocals!

Ah yes, great picture of a super sweet self proclaimed "chocolate" guy singing with a bunch of "vanilla" guys.  The youngest of something like 9 kids, grew up in DC, and now does this.  Sweet!

Pulling out the big guns! But seriously, you can't play drums on a spinning drumset without having some strong arms!  Not bad for being in his 50's, eh?  And the funniest one of the bunch.

They showed all the old music videos for the older songs on the back screens.  It was neat comparing the live versions of themselves with the older video versions of themselves.

Great set!

Still having fun.

When the old bald guy from version 1.0 joined the newer braided hair guy from version 2.0.

Sing it!

Now this is what I call United! Never enemies, never rivals, just friends.

Incredible graphic.

Mr. Phil Joel on the bass guitar singing Entertaining Angels I believe.  He sang lead on that one way, way back.

The Aussies came back!

These two have been with the band since the beginning or nearly the beginning.  Duncan on drums stayed and Peter left to spend more time with his family.

What did I tell you? Leah's camera got some incredible shots!

Why did you have to hide in the dark, Mr. Jeff, the "baby" of the band.

So cute! Peter pulled this little girl on stage to dance with her during a song that talked about daddies and little girls.

Occasional Jody and Phil went down the catwalk, too.  It was hard to get good pictures because I was essentially looking behind me and they were playing to the rest of the audience.

And go!

Good night you all! (Just kidding, we totally have like 10 more songs to play).

Goofballs.

I LOVED Michael's jacket!  Wowzers!  First of all, I'm not sure how any one of them could wear suit jackets on stage, but they do.  Sometimes they take them off, but Tait seemed to like having his on.

These cool light bars rotated or stayed in place, flashing lights or steady lights, one color or many colors.  They were really neat!  I thought Benaiah would appreciate them.

I didn't know this song.  It's not something I've heard Newsboys sing before and it's not something we sing in our church.  But kind of neat in that it was church chorus of some kind.

They play one DCTalk song from 1992 called "Jesus Freak."  It was the #1 Christian song among my friends and I, and every Christian teen I think.  That and "Place In This World" by Michael W. Smith.  Anyway, I find it interesting that they choose that song to play when the drum set rises up, turns on it's side and spins really fast.  They've been doing that trick for nearly 20 years!  Duncan's seat does have a back to it and at least a lapbelt, but I can only imagine how hard it is to stay in place AND drum.  It's so awesome!

Nobody beats Duncan at drumming.  Nobody.  Incredible!

God's Not Dead!  Of course!  This is how I knew they were coming back after that somewhat fake break.  Actually, I think that was when they announced an intermission.  Anyway, this is one of the songs that they have to play every night because it's now a movie, scratch that, it's now 3 movies!  They do incorporate a couple of the Newsboys in each movie and show shots of some concerts when they play it.  The Newsboys wrote it and a film producer from Pureflix I believe picked it up.  It's fun to see a real band play themselves in a movie.  The movies are great though.  And as you often see on Instagram, Michael Tait totally did the "lift one leg up as high as I can as I hope down the catwalk" dance move.  You'd have to watch the video to understand, but it's like his signature move for this song.

After some research, I found out that Cory Carnes actually wrote this song and both Newsboys and Newsong covered it.  I think the Newsong stage set was more impressive for this one, but both groups sings it well.

Guitars.

Time to say good bye for real this time.

So...many...songs!  And yet, the concert was over by 9:30 pm, which felt really early.  New, then really old, then end with new.  Peter came in on "He Reigns" I believe.

They played all my favorites! I'm one happy fan! And yes, that's a better picture of the lanyard we received.  Sweet souvenir!

Because it was so bright outside, I couldn't see my phone's settings very well and it took forever to get this picture!  But we did it!  And yes, Justin is getting tall!

One empty venue so far, but there's a long catwalk to the left of us.  Incredible seats!

Those are the 'boys and me!

Another sweet picture of the Newsboys United, versions 1.0 and 2.0.

Dinner.  Expensive. 'Nuff said.

Saw it but didn't buy it.  Breakfast is one of the oldest Newboys song that people have really attached to.  It talks about "when the toast is burned and all the milk has turned and captain crunch is waving farewell, .....let this song remind you that they don't serve breakfast in Hell.  And yes, someone brings a box of captain crunch cereal and sometimes it's opened and spewed all over the audience.

So close to that catwalk!

Tour buses!  And now with watching Instagram so much, and all the behind the scenes the bands do, we really do know what the inside of these look like.  Typically they are rented, not owned, by the bands.  Even the bigger bands rent them, not buy them.

Since breakfast was a joke at the hotel, we decided to indulge in our favorites at Tim's.  Oreo doughnut and hot chocolate for Justin and coffee with soy milk and raspberry syrup and berries with oatmeal for me.  I only allow myself one true doughnut a year.  It's too painful to do it all the time.  And then we were standing somewhat in line to get some Timbits for the others and this gentlemen who didn't see us got in front of us.  No biggie to me since we weren't right up at the counter.  But he felt bad and paid for our Timbits.  Sweet middle aged man.  It was one of those "pay it forward/be kind to one another" moments, like he was just looking for the opportunity to step up and be kind (in a very good, Christian way, believe me there was no indication he was looking for attention.)

We were wondering if this would still exist here!  I'm sure it's a separate contest than the Canadian one because of all the laws about wining stuff across the borders.  But we should have rolled it up right then because we won a doughnut!  And I have no idea when we'll be on the westside again.  Oh well.