Purple Door 2009: Day One

A little over a week ago I went to the Purple Door arts and music festival with my girlfriend and my friends Natalie and Jesse. There were a lot of great bands there this year. We arrived Friday evening on August 14th. We watched House of Heroes first and then walked around the grounds looking at all the booths they had set up.

(House of Heroes)

There was a booth for Compassion, The Love Alliance, Fakelife Clothing, and Relevant Magazine just to name a few. So Purple Door isn't just about music and art, it's also about activism. It's about getting God's people to get out there and make a difference because that's what true Christianity is about. Unfortunately for many Christianity has become reduced to t-shirts, bumper stickers, and music that doesn't do much more than rip off popular culture. It has become a lifestyle for many rather than a life change.

Anyway, I'm ranting. Back to the experience we had. And sorry for such a link-heavy post, but there's a lot of good stuff out there to see, so click on them, after you're done reading this blog of course. Just kidding, click on them now before you forget to. After looking at all the booths and merch, we went back to the main stage to see pastor speaker, and artist Eric Samuel Timm. He had a great message and painted this awesome picture:




It says "Share Your Love" if you can't see it, or you can click on any picture to see it full size. After Eric was finished a band called Reilly came out and performed some praise and worship music. I went through my rap and hip-hop phase a few years ago but I'm not really into that kind of music that much anymore, but I will say that I was impressed by an artist called Lecrae. He had some great lyrics and had some cool things to say up on stage. Finally to end the night, Family Force 5 performed. We stayed for a couple songs but my girlfriend and I both agreed that they were really obnoxious. They weren't that bad when I saw them at Purple Door in 2007. But they were just annoying this year, I'm sorry if I've offended any fans. Maybe I'm just getting old, I just turned 31 this past Saturday.

We met up with Jesse and Natalie at the hotel room that we got a good deal on. We paid the same for a suite that we would have paid for a regular room at the Wyndham hotel. It wasn't a huge room though, but we didn't spend a whole lot of time in the hotel. They had a pretty good continental breakfast in the morning though. After breakfast we went back to Purple Door for day two. I'll talk about day two another day, but below is a list and links for all the bands that played on Friday night.

House of Heroes

Nevertheless

Reilly

Lecrae

Family Force 5

Shawn McDonald

Rescue is Possible

Hyland

The Pledge

Receiving the Ghost

Pillar

The reason they were able to have so many acts in one night is because they have three different stages. They have a Main stage for the bigger acts, a Gallery stage for the up and coming acts, and a Hard Music stage for all the hardcore music.