A very warm hello to all of you and a happy Fourth of July weekend! It's that time again - how fast June always flies by is a mystery to me, but you can always plan on July creeping up on you. I hope you all are enjoying your summer as much as we have been. Last week we had a crazy run of shows that took us from Creation East in PA to Texas and all the way back home to Ohio for a hometown show complete with fireworks and a vintage auto show. I can honestly say it was one of the most exhausting and rewarding run of shows we've had in a while....
Thanks to all of you that came out to Dallas and Houston in the heat! If any of you guys down there care to call your radio stations this week to request 'Whatever You're Doing' now is the week to do it! AT&T users use your roll over minutes from June - since it flew by so fast. It's just suggestion ;) Our friends at KLTY and KSBJ would love to hear from you.
In other news - it's fit to mention that we as a band have had to say goodbye to a good friend of ours. Some of you have had the pleasure of meeting the Whiplash while all of you that have been to a Sanctus show have unknowingly enjoyed his services. The whiplash was our sound engineer/ road manager/ WWF spokesman for the past 5 years, and it's with a sad heart that we have mutually parted ways. I will let you know that the whiplash is doing well and you may even see him out on the road mixing it up for one of CCM's top female vocalists. I'll let you guess who! So, it's not been easy finding someone to fill his shoes, but we're in the process of trying out a 'new guy.' We put him to work last week running boom. We'll see how that pans out.
We hope to see some of you this holiday out in California for another member of Sanctus Real's first real hometown show. Peter Prevost and family will host us for a Fourth Of July not to be soon forgotten on Friday. If you're in Bakersfield or the vicinity we will see you there.
So we're on a plane right now flying out to Denver, Colorado. Tonight we start a five day run called "The Lifelight Tour" featuring not only us but a band called Vota, and some others whom I don't know yet. To some of you that Vota name may be familiar, I think we mentioned them a blog or two ago because they are one of the great bands that we're taking out with us this Fall on the "We Need Each Other Tour Event". Others of you may be familiar with the band even if you don't recognize their name because they are actually Casting Pearls. Apparently a little too much confusion with some band called Casting Crowns has led them to a name change, but none the less they're super cool and we're excited to be out with them for a little Fall psyche up time. This is also going to be a return to our roots in sorts for us Sanctus boys. You see Vota has recently purchased themselves a tour bus that we're all riding on this week and we'll be on it in the Fall as well. The funny thing about the bus is that it's Pillar's old bus and it's the first bus we ever got to travel in. About five years ago we did a tour called See Spot Rock that featured The O.C. Supertones, Reliant K, Pillar, John Reuben, and some new band nobody had ever heard of called Sanctus Real. Half way through the tour Pillar had bought this new bus and offered to let us rent bunks from them so we could finish the tour in a bus as opposed to driving ourselves in our van. We jumped on it and were very excited to feel so "big time" riding around in a beautiful Prevost. We'll since those days we've been blessed to get to do many more tours in buses but I'm thankful to say I still get excited about snoozing in a bunk listening to sound of that diesel engine. I just hope five years of Pillar hasn't been too rough on that ol' Prevost. On a slightly less nostalgic note; festival season is upon us! Off the top of my head I know we'll be at Atlanta Fest, Creation East & West, as well as Lifelight Festival. We're also playing many festival type shows for different radio stations around the country. It is sure to be a fun, sweaty Summer so we hope to see you all out there cheering on all your favorite artists. A couple highlight shows I'll point out though will indeed be Holland, Ohio (just outside of our hometown of Toledo) on June 29th. We played this show last year, it's a community event for the city of Holland featuring all sorts of family fun and fireworks at the end. We got to be the headlining band for them last year and played in front of 10,000 people so we're excited to do it again! Also on the 4th of July we'll be playing a show that will be quite special for our newest member, Mr. Pete Prevost, as it's in his hometown of Bakersfield, California. Apparently that show is also some kind of community event that will be very, very well attended. Lastly, you should all know that without the help a bagel with cream cheese from Tim Horton's and a grande iced coffee with hazelnut and room for cream from Starbuck's, none of this would be possible. Thanks for reading, Mr. Rogers would be proud of you. Mark
Currently
listening
:
Over and Underneath
By
Tenth Avenue North
Release date: 2008-05-20
We've been having a little bit of trouble with the web store accepting credit cards. That's all in the past now (hopefully) and you can go check it out HERE
Currently
listening
:
Narrow Stairs
By
Death Cab for Cutie
Release date: 2008-05-13
Three members of Sanctus Real made it back safely from England Sunday night. What happened to the other two? Well, Dan and Pete are enjoying a week in the beautiful United Kingdom. It wasn't easy getting there or back, so I hope they make it to Michigan in time for our show this Friday in Kalamazoo.
Last Friday those of us in Toledo and Nashville had our connecting flights to Philadelphia cancelled on our way to England. We spent over eight hours sitting in Airports and finally made our connection to England by only thirty minutes!
We arrived late and missed our soundcheck, but made it in time to play Saturday night with Delirious. It was a huge honor to support Delirious in their home country. The show went great and we were very well recieved. Everyone was very hospitable and gracious to us.
After the show on Saturday night, Matt called home and found out that his newborn baby Claire had been taken to the Hospital back in Ohio. This was hard news for him because he was 5,000 miles away and wouldn't be home for another full day. The following morning he recieved news on (in the middle of another airport delay!) that after a series of tests, she will be ok. She had contracted a virus and developed an ear infection, but is being effectively treated. Please keep Matt's family in your prayers.
It was a whirlwind of a weekend, but God has kept us all safe. Thank you to our new friends in England for being so so kind to us....hopefully we'll see you again very soon.
Hey everyone, check out our new webstore! It's great, you can buy cd's, t-shirts, and a couple extra things you need to have. You can either go to sanctusreal.com and click on the link to "store." Or you can go here: Sanctus Real Webstore
I found this photo from the Third Day tour of what appears to be a very sad Chris Rohman paying a lot of money to fill up our van with diesel. Sad day!
anyways...we have been having a good April. We are doing these Aquire the Fire events this month and they are only on weekends so we have been home during the week a lot which is really nice. I got a "perfect tea maker" from teavana in Nashville so I've been making a lot of Tea. Tea is really good, I highly recommend it.
Tonight Dan and I got Maggie Moo's Ice Cream. It was amazing!
We in Sanctus Real have a motto to live and die by...
"The band that carries my 160lb bass cabinet up 4 flights of stairs for a music video together, stays together."
We apparently don’t have the same motto when it comes to carrying the gear down those flights of stairs though...at least I don’t.
sorry the video is sideways, I can’t figure out how to flip it around.
Don’t ask the other guys about the motto by the way b/c we take it very seriously and will refuse to talk about it in public.
So we spent all of yesterday wearing suit jackets, vests, ties, and guitars in a windowless (partially wall-less and ceilingless), heatless, electricityless, running waterless, elevatorless downtown Tulsa 4 -story renovation project yesterday...just a block or two from where Hanson lives by the way. Some day the building will be full of expensive Loft-style condos, but for us it was filled with rubble and animal excrement. Don’t get me wrong though, we had a really great time. Once we finally lugged all our gear up to the top floor, we took naps b/c we’re out of shape and exhausted. When we awoke however, our clothes were dressy, our hair was stylish, and the cameras were ready. We filmed all day for the upcoming music video of "Whatever You’re Doing (Something Heavenly)" and we really think it’s going to turn out great...I don’t want to give too much away. It will probably be finished sometime in May...we’ll be sure to let you know. You can check sanctusreal.com for a few photos of the day.
Anyway, it was a blast and despite the need for drumcase skiing lessons, the day went off without a hitch.
Alright here’s the latest... This past week (or so) found us traveling between the following states in the following order;
South Dakota - root beer, ham, big stage Minnesota - good friends showed up, fire alarm, small stage Iowa - pretty tired to remember, but the traveling wilburys showed up Mississippi - days off, bowling with DRadio, diesel hits about $4 a gallon :( Louisiana - CRAWFISH, good weather, oh - and good shows Georgia - great people, lots of third day fans
There were a few states sandwiched there in-between, but you get the point. These were all places we had wonderful shows at supporting Third Day on their ’Spring’ tour. It has been an awesome time playing every night with them and the other acts. If there is any group of guys in our genre that has accumulated massive amounts of loyal fans it’s definitely Mac Powell and the guys of Third Day. We think it has something to do with his gotee. Pete at the moment is our best candidate for trying this tactic. What do you think?
Well, we all got to be home for Easter. What a great day to celebrate our risen saviour! We hope you all were able to enjoy some time with friends and family as well. We are only half way through this little tour and hope to catch a lot of you out there still. Be sure to check the tour dates.
We also put up a bonus acoustic version of a song off the new record called ’Black Coal.’ You can also check that out over at Rhapsody.com
rockin
