Creation Fest: The Tour

I LOVE TWITTER! I heard about the Creation Festival Tour coming to a nearby church but the ticket prices were too high with the convenience fees added by the ticket company. Then came Twitter. Thousand Foot Krutch (one of the bands playing at the show) gave out a code for tickets for half the normal price. With this being reasonable for my wallet I went along with dad and Annabel.

The Creation Festival is a huge Christian music festival that happens every year in the Northwest and Northeast. Thinking about all of the places between these two venues in the U.S. , Creation Festival decided to create a tour last year featuring top artists to go around cities in the United States, but they missed Southern California. This year they got a few California dates with Jars of Clay, Thousand Foot Krutch, FM Static, This Beautiful Republic, B. Reith, and Audio A Unplugged.

The opening act of the night was FM Static which it seemed that as everyone was coming in that they were just sitting there. FM Static may not as well known as the others (except B.Reith who is still pretty new) for it is a side project of Trevor Mcnevan who is the lead singer of Thousand Foot Krutch. TFK is a hard rock while FM Static is more of pop-punk type of style.

When the lights went out for the next band to come up, some mysterious recorded music began playing over the speakers, which I recognized as the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Theme Song by Danny Elfman. As the song ended This Beautiful Republic emerged from the fog and played "Surrender Saved My Life". I was hoping that they might play their "Crazy" cover again like at FishFest but they didn't. at the end of the set the band invited anyone who wanted to come up in front of the stage to do so. I went up and stayed there for the rest of the show. I was actually the closest person to the main singer of every band, which is waaaaaay better seating that I payed for considering that my seat was all the way in the back rows.

Next up was B. Reith who has a hip-hop/pop genre in his music. His song include funny references on how people say his name wrong and others who say he looks like Ashton Kutcher. He was a pretty cool guy who tried to connect to the audience.
Things then slowed down for a little bit as Audio A Unplugged came up. As some of you may know, Audio Adrenaline was a great 90's Christian rock band that retired a few years ago due to vocal problems by the singer Mark Stuart. Now 2 of the members, Mark and Will, are travelling around to churches sharing Audio Adrenaline's testimony as well as playing some classic Audio A songs like "Big House". In addition to Mark and Will, they got some of their friends to help them out by playing some instruments and vocals. Mark's vocals did show strain a lot while he tried to sing but it sounded way better than on their last concert on DVD. Mark also assured us that Will was not a homeless guy who came off the street to play, for Will had worn out clothes and a big wild beard that would give David Crowder a run for his money. Their set was not really unplugged and nobody every used an acoustic guitar but the music still gave a coffee house-type feel to it.

Thousand Foot Krutch followed with Trevor in changed clothes as they played songs from their new CD as well as some of their old songs like "Rawkfist". Mcnevan also went around the stage at times of the set and waved a flag with the TFK logo on it and dancing like crazy. They preform a great live show that is compares with Skillet and Family Force 5.

The final band was Jars of Clay who I had seen at FishFest also, but this time it was a much better show. There were more stage effects, longer set, and they seemed to be more into it. There was even an encore of "Two Hands" and "All My Tears".

At the end of the show the merchandise booths had each artist except for Audio A who had already left. I got autographs of B. Reith, TFK, and This Beautiful Republic and also a photo with each one. It was a great experience and you should try to see this tour sometime. Also with each ticket you get an iTunes card that gives a free sampler of 20 free songs of Christian Artists (not necessarily the ones at the show). For $10 a ticket this concert was a great deal for me!