Third Day Weblog

9/11 Orlando, FL

This was "Night of Joy" at Walt Disney World. Truly a night to remember. You can always guarantee spontaneous weather anywhere in the state of Florida. This week was no exception. The crew arrived in Orlando on Wednesday morning for a full week of TD activity. We started at the Disney Yacht club for a Provident showcase, which basically means, the band played for a bunch of radio/booking/promoter types, in a big ballroom. They blazed through 4 new songs to give everybody a taste of the new record, which is being released right around the corner. After this show, we were off to the Magic Kingdom to begin setting up at the foot of Cinderella's Castle. It was my first experience behind the scenes of Disneyworld. It was very interesting to see how the most magical place on Earth works. I would say for every inch of park you see, there is another inch you will never see! We had to wait until every single "guest" had left the park to begin setting up our gear, which means we started at 1:30 am. We had finished set up and souncheck by 6:00 am. After catching up on some sleep, we were able to see the park for a few hours, and then it was time for the show. Remember how I mentioned the unpredictable weather? Well, just as the first band (Family Force 5) was about to take the stage, the once clear sky opened up and poured rain with plenty of thunder and lightning. An hour later, the band themselves came out on stage to tell the crowd of over 8,000 that they were unable to play. So Third Day was up shortly. We scrambled to dry everything off, and get our gear in place and working just in time for TD to start on time. As they played the rain--which seemed to be done--came back, and began thoroughly soaking everything. The band and crowd seemed unfazed. TD blasted through a 70 minute set, and was able to knock it out of the park (pun intended). Thanks to everyone who came to the show and didn't mind getting a little damp. --Nathan

     

Video shoot for ESPN

Its slowly but surely turning into fall. And everyone knows what that means: leaves changing, temperature cooling, school starting.  But most importantly, FOOTBALL RETURNS.  I speak for myself and the band when I say we are excited to see some new gridiron glory.  

So you can imagine how thrilled we were to hear that the band was contacted by ESPN to get some video footage of them playing their new song "Make Your Move." They will air the footage in little snippets during this years football season. The song comes from the new album releasing October 19th called, "Move." A very select few of you (if you were at one of the last couple shows) have heard the song.  

We spent all day yesterday at the Quarry recording studio clearing out the big room and setting up some cool stadium-looking lighting for the set. So we hired a killer camera and lighting crew to film the band performing. They brought in a few great cameras and even a dolly track to get cool moving shots.  After a couple hours, the band was finished, and editing will begin. Like I said earlier, ESPN will be airing it during some college football action, so if the game doesn't necessarily excite you, watch so you can see Third Day!

Here are some photos of the day that Cameron and I shot:

     

8/14 Eureka, MO

Its almost funny to me how much I talk about the weather in this blog. If you haven’t noticed, maybe now you will.  The life of the crew in summer time shares an uncanny symmetrical relationship between weather and mood.  Simply stated: good weather = good day; bad weather = you get the idea.  

Today there was not a cloud in the sky, which turned the lovely Six Flags pavilion stage into something like a pizza oven.  This show marked approximately 8 performances for TD at this venue.  I say approximate because I personally have only done it twice and the band (even the walking encyclopedia Mark Lee) can’t recall how many shows they’ve done there.  Anyway, its a lot. 

All weather aside, the people in the St. Louis area were unhindered.  They showed up by the thousands, and I am told the number of attendees was around 10,000.  It felt amazing to see that many hands in the sky rocking and worshiping with the band. They played a similar set to last night, which included the new songs, “Lift Up Your Face”, “Gone”, and for the second time ever, “Children of God”.  Also, our good buddy Trevor Morgan was there as a mini-opener and collaborator throughout the show.  

This was a solid show to end a solid run.  We were grateful to have a full weekend of shows, and circumstantially they were all great.  Now we have a few weeks off, so I’ll be busy editing some more video.  Keep checking back, I have a good surprise coming to you in the near future. 

    

8/13 Terre Haute, IN

It was nice to be back in the Hoosier State today, if only for a few hours. Today we played at Maryland Community Church.  The stage was a bit tight, and the room only fit around 1,000 people, but we weren’t complaining at all.  We were in fact thanking the Lord above that we were able to be indoors out of summer’s harshness.  There is something to be said about not sweating while standing still.  

This was day two of our three show run, and it was an awesome and intimate show.  The band played more songs tonight than they’ve played all summer.  Mac made a good point when he mentioned that it was the smallest crowd of the summer, but by far one of the loudest. Our good friend Trevor Morgan played a short opening set by himself, then joined in for “I’ve Always Loved You”, and “God of Wonders”.  Also, TD backed him up in the middle of their set on his tune “Jesus Rides the Subway”.  

The band decided that this was the perfect setting to debut a song from the new album.  So after running it in soundcheck a few times, they played the song “Children of God”.  The crowd ate it right up.  Mac taught them a background vocal part, and they sang it well.  It is sure to be a fan favorite in the near future.

I always have a sense of being at home when we arrive in Indiana--mainly because I was born and raised there, but also because there is an underlined sense of midwestern American hospitality and community.  Thank you Indiana for a great night.  I’ll be back soon. 

    

8/12 Muskegon, MI

We survived the long haul for the first show of a three show weekend.  We left Atlanta at 7pm and arrived in Michigan around 10:30am.  It was great to have a bus, despite the lengthy drive, because it is by far the preferred means of transportation for me and the rest of the crew.  We were able to watch 3 of my favorite movies before heading to our arctic bunk area and drifting off to sleep at 70 miles per hour.

This was the fourth year Third Day has performed at Unity Festival which is set in a city park that runs right into Lake Muskegon, which is a small body of water that connects to the great Lake Michigan.  This show has a history of being well attended, and this particular day was no exception.  The weather was hot, and beautiful. We had a smooth day, loading in, line checking and sound checking.  

The show felt like a triumphant return. The band was hitting on all cylinders, the lights were great, the sound was rocking, and the crowd was electric.  Jason Hoard was back on strings, and the band had a few other tricks up their collective sleeve.  They brought out Trevor Morgan, who is one of the members of Glory Revealed--which if you don’t know, is Mac’s worship side project.  He also just finished work on a solo album which Mac produced at the Quarry.  So Trevor joined in for “I’ve Always Loved You” and he even played his own song, “Jesus Rides the Subway”, with all the TD guys as his band.  That is an extremely touching song, and I couldn’t agree more with its message. Another little treat was Dawn Michelle (lead singer of FireFlight) joined the guys for the female section of “Born Again”.  

All in all it was a great start to this run of shows, there was a sense of freshness to it, even if we just had a couple of days off.  Maybe I’m biased because Taylor sent Mac a new guitar, which always makes it feel like Christmas--even in the dog days of summer.

    

8/9 Milwaukee, WI

 

Well, it feels good to be back after a couple of weeks off of the road. I think after the last show, everyone needed a little recharging time.  Everyone got that-- and maybe even a sun tan. 

Today was the Wisconsin state fair in the Milwaukee suburb of West Allis. Some of you race fans might be familiar with the “Milwaukee Mile”, but of course there was no racing going on, just rock and roll. We were thankful that it was not a festival situation, but an “evening with Third Day”.  Meaning we could relax a little and not worry about 25 different bands using the same stage.  Does that sound a little greedy?  Well, after a long festival season, the less chaos the better.  I’ll even go as far as to say that we deserve it.  Anyway, we had a great efficient load-in and line check.  The band came in and did a 20 minute soundcheck just to knock off the cobwebs that might have crept in after a 15 day hiatus.  

Something notable about this show would be that Jason Hoard, our favorite banjo picker was missing from the stage due to prior commitment.  He was missed, but I have to admit the show did not suffer.  Everyone got what they came for, and the guys sweated out a full ninety minute set with a couple songs they haven’t played in a while, “Your Love Oh Lord”, and “You Are So Good To Me”.  The crowd was large and loud.  I think when you hear the concert, you'll agree that Wisconsin brought their singing voices.  It is always encouraging to hear the sound of thousands of voices singing together, even for me!  Thats my way of saying thanks for joining in.

So while the band was able to move around and enjoy the evening, the crew in the wings were enduring the full force of Wisconsin mosquito attack. I’m sure if you live there you can relate.  Its kinda difficult to avoid being dinner for bugs while standing still tuning guitars.  We were all a bit relieved to see the band take a bow and head to the hotel after a successful show.  We’ve got a good three show run the remainder of the week, so, stay tuned for more adventures from the road--and for goodness sake, follow me on Twitter! 

p.s.  thanks for the taking these photos, Cam.

 

  
 

Some Video Goodness

Hey guys.. I hope everyone is enjoying the summer.  I've been messing with some video for the past few months, to get ready for the new website launch, and I just couldn't wait to show you a little of the "stage left perspective".  This first video is from a show in Santa Clara, CA in May.  It was really really cold, so if the camera shakes, you know why.  The second video is from a show we did in New Jersey at Six Flags in June. I hope you dig the little backstage snippets.  

Pictures from you...

Hey everyone.. I've collected tons of photos from all of you TD fans, so I thought I'd show off some of your fine photography.  If you'd like to see your shots up here on thirdday.com send them to me at: [email protected]

Enjoy!

These two photos are from Sheldon Heatherington from the Ft. Walton Beach show last year

 

these are from Sunnie McDennon at the Busch Gardens show

That one of Tai is from Joanne Chan from Spirit West Coast, Monterey, CA.

 

these two are from our friend Martika at the last show: Ignite Festival, in Chicago

Check back soon... and SEND THOSE PICTURES.  Nathan  
      

7/24 Ignite Festival, Chicago

 Well I guess I had it coming to me.  Last weekend was so unbelievably smooth, logistically speaking, that a 24 hour period of misery was due to come my way.  I’ll sum up my travel like this: Departed Atlanta three hours late, plane was diverted to Ft. Wayne, IN, where we arrived at 4 am, then left via TAXI for a six hour drive to Chicago O’Hare.  Needless to say, it has been a struggle to keep my eyes open.  As I type this, I am running on 3 hours of sleep, hopefully I’ll be sleeping shortly on this two hour trip home.  We’ll see.

Anyway! We were under the threat of stormy weather all day, so we were waiting on pins and needles to make sure the show was still going to happen.  The city of Chicago was underwater--as we discovered on our taxi journey into town.  The good news was that Alexian Field is located in the suburb of Schaumburg.  It is a nice little minor league baseball stadium.  So nice in fact that since the ground was wet, they didn’t allow the audience to stand in the outfield for fear or messing up the grass.  The stage was set up in center field and faced home plate, meaning that there was around 300 feet of distance between the stage and the stands.  Because folks weren’t allowed on the field, it made it a difficult performance for most of the bands on the festival.  But the sun came out, and dried up all the rain.... And we were pleased to see the throngs of people rushing toward the stage as we ate dinner in a skybox.  Shortly after dinner while Jeremy Camp was on stage, we were able to prep the stage and get ready to rock.  

We were two men down for this show, our regular Lighting Director John Hansen, and Production Manager/Monitor Engineer Matt Guice both had to miss this one.  In their stead, we had a guy from Indiana named BJ behind the lights and our old friend Chris Biggs on monitors.  

The band had their share of weather difficulties too, in the form of plane delays and cancellations. Its funny Tai mentioned after the show that it always seems to be hard to get from the country’s biggest airport to the second biggest.  Ironic.  

The show itself felt and sounded great.  The band played the usual summer set list, including the two new songs, “Lift Up Your Face”, and “Gone” in the encore.  The festival crowd was very energetic, and responsive.  It felt like an absolute jungle up there, but we all pushed through it and finished strong. 

We have a couple of weeks off, so stay tuned... I think I’m going to have some new goodies to post up here in the near future.  Have a good one... Nathan

     

7/18 Yakima, WA

 The last show of our northwest run happened in town called Yakima, WA.  It is the home of the Central Washington State Fair.  Today we were guests of the Louis Palau crusade which had been going on all weekend.  We were the final group to perform after Hawk Nelson, and a message from Louis himself.  The crowd had to be around eight to ten thousand people, in relatively small outdoor area where the semi permanent stage faced a grassy lawn.  The crowd’s response to the day’s events seemed to be quite positive.  They got to check out a dirt bike stunt routine, several bands, worship music, and of course a word from Louis Palau. When Third Day took the stage, they proved that they were not at all tired from a long day in the sun.  The set list was brief, only 45 minutes. They were still able to play one new song from the new album, which continues to gain momentum each time they play it.

As the band was getting ready to take the stage, something crazy happened.  We looked over the tree line past the stage, and a huge orange cloud of smoke was hovering.  Apparently there was a massive wildfire happening less than a mile from us.  They had to evacuate homes and businesses, yet as always, we were kept safe and sound. 

Directly after the show, we were able to walk to the building next door to watch Sir Elton John in concert, which was by far the highlight of the weekend, (not including TD performances of course).  He played hours of hit songs, and we were close enough to almost give him a high five after every song.  I’ve been an Elton John fan from a very young age, so to me being in the same building was just as magical as hearing him bang away on his grand piano.  

So now it is time for me to “rocketman” back to the ATL.  We’ll see you next weekend Chicago.  Adios-- N.