The project for A Shared Life: Summer in Chicago 2024 took place between Audiofeed X at the beginning of July and our road trip vacation in September to a few national parks, states I had never visited, as well as Canadian provinces that were new to both Elphie and me. That road trip was followed up by my attendance at Furnace Fest 2024: End of an Era.
This footage includes a few fireworks shows, a few baseball games, some storms, some driving, as well as annual summer events such as the Chicago Air and Water Show and Lollapalooza. Well, my footage is a drive by of Lollapalooza. We made a quick weekend fly out to North Carolina and had a visit from the Vermin Supreme campaign as they were in town for the Democratic National Convention.
There is also a fair amount of live concert footage including the return of Brick Assassin. I captured that show in its entirety!
The intro to the project is the same as I have been doing. I took a few still photos and then created a title page using Motion.
On Tuesday July 9th, 2024, I went to the Beat Kitchen to see Brave Days. I missed the first band and decided to just capture footage from the Brave Days set. Earlier in the day, I somewhat helped connect them to J.P.U.S.A. for a place to sleep. I had some conversation with the band previously about this show but didn't realize it was that night until I was at work and trying to coordinate with them for a place to sleep.
On Wednesday July 10th, 2024 I went to Wilson Abbey to see a show by The Crossing. It would be their second to last show ever. It was apparently scheduled for Tony Krogh to be able to play for his family who had come to visit for the first time in many years. I captured the song "Roman Rule" from the set. I wish I could see the final show but we will be gone on our way to our vacation by then.
On the way home, I ended up driving as the Navy Pier fireworks were going off. Had I thought about it, I may have parked at Montrose Harbor and watched before making the drive home. I ended up capturing some of the firework show using my Crosstour CR-900 as I drove by.
On Friday July 12th, 2024, I went to watch the Pittsburgh Pirates play again the Chicago White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field. It turned out to be a firework night! The Pirates won the game 4-1. The post game fireworks lasted about 10 minutes and there was a Jimmy Buffet theme. I had also captured a clip of some hula dancers during one of the inning breaks. As I left the stadium, I captured a shot of downtown Chicago as the old Comiskey Park home plate.
07.13.2024 - 07.22.2024 On Saturday July 13th, 2024, we attended the Ollie Mob BBQ. It was held at Kyle's house this year and it was a good time gathering with friends who could make it! They had Reggies cater it this year so we had some good pulled pork and mac-n-cheese among other tasty foods. I skipped the Pirates win over the White Sox for this, ha! On Sunday July 14th, 2024 I went to the Pirates game against the White Sox again and the Pirates won 9-4. They completed a sweep going into the All-Star Break and things were looking promising for the season at this point. That wouldn't last much longer. In fact, it didn't even last until the Pirates came back to Chicago on Labor Day.
I didn't get footage of this but I drove to the EVGo chargers nearby to get a fast charge and just after I plugged in to charge, a tornado warning sounded. The other person charging unplugged and took off. I figured that there wasn't much I could do at that point should a tornado happen to be in that general area so I remained plugged in. It got pretty windy and heavy rain and I didn't think any footage I captured would show much. It was nighttime so it was quite dark, however, there was a lot of lightning flashing as well...just no bolts to capture. The next night on Monday July 15th, 2024, however, I did go outside to see what I could capture as we were once again having tornado warnings. I didn't stay out in it too long as the affected area seemed like it could be pretty close to us. Since it was dark again, it was hard to see what might be out there. I'm not sure if it was the moisture from the storms but as I made my commute on Tuesday morning July 16th, 2024, there was interesting cloud cover over the city. There were also some downed limbs in the neighborhood but nothing to impede my commute.
On Friday July 19th, 2024, Elphie and I went to see Twisters in the AMC Cicero theater. We parked next to a sports car which had a Modelo beer can in the cup holder. Thankfully, no tornadoes hit while we were watching the movie!
I drove to Warren on Saturday July 20th, 2024. I needed to get the car inspected in Pennsylvania which I had scheduled for Monday and would use a sick day. I made the trip without much of anything noteworthy happening. I drank another Mountain Dew Infinite Swirl and brought one for my mom to taste as well. On Sunday July 21st, 2024, I went to church and lunch with my family at Mama Jane's which has replaced Perkins. After lunch, while watching the Pirates game on television, some fawns came through the backyard right next to the window then relaxed under a tree. They were there for quite a while before apparently being summoned by their mother. My mom and I went and got ice cream at River's Edge in the evening.
I woke up early on Monday morning July 22nd, to drive to Erie, PA to Hallman Chevrolet dealership for my inspection, tire rotation, and for the Auto Butler appointment and also to have a dent removed from a rock hitting the car in the spring. I got the inspection and the tire rotation. They stated that they could not remove the dent due to apparently not being equipped to do so and they didn't do the Auto Butler either. I drove back to Chicago and got in town relatively early. I didn't have much noteworthy on the commute either except that I arrived at a EVGo charging station that ended up being out of order. I made the decision to try to drive to the next one and looked into some emergency plans in case I didn't have enough to quite make it. I ended up pushing on and making it to the next station in South Bend with some miles to spare! This ended up being a longer charge for that reason but it was ok. I was still having difficulties with the Electrify America app not properly giving my account the discount it was meant to give. This eventually got reimbursed and I ultimately had to cancel my Electrify America account and make a new one which resulted in a refund of the money they hold for charging. I think, in a way, that worked out to my benefit really.
07.24.2024
On Wednesday July 24th, 2024, Leper played a show in Berwyn, Illinois at a place called The Outtaspace. We had been there once before. They played with a couple other local area bands. It was cool to see Bill there! I captured "Black Lacy Veil (Voal Negru De Dantela)" from Leper's set and it was the first time they had played that in a while and the first time for me to capture it in quite a while as well.
07.28.2024 - 08.05.2024 On Sunday July 28th, 2024, Elphie got a puzzle piece tattoo on her butt by The Enigma. He was at Sideshow Gelato and Elphie was able to schedule a time to get it done while he was there. We got some gelato afterwards then went to visit Kate at Outskirts Vintage before getting pho at Dong Ky. While leaving we encountered terrible traffic on Lake Shore so once I was able to take an exit, we took a scene Ashland Avenue drive.
I captured my drive-bys of Lollapalooza from Lake Shore Drive on both Thursday August 1st and Friday August 2nd, 2024. On Monday August 5th, 2024, we had a "Winchester" at Denny's in Oakbrook Terrace. We coordinated the best that we could a pick up for The Castros and took them to their very first "Winchester"! We took Roosevelt all the way out in hopes to alleviate some highway anxieties.
08.07.2024 On Wednesday August 7th, 2024, I went to Subterranean to see The Juliana Theory on their tour for the 25th Anniversary of "Understand This Is A Dream." They played through that entire album, shared some stories then played a short set of other hits as an encore. I captured "Duane Joseph" as it felt appropriate especially with the tagline of the tour announcement. I expected it to be a sold out packed room but the crowd seemed a bit lighter than my anticipation. https://youtu.be/Hgss47yhMSk
08.08.2024
On Thursday August 8th, 2024, I captured some footage of the practice flights for the Chicago Air and Water Show while going to get my lunch. As I left work, there was some sort of protest or demonstration happening outside of Truman College. It seemed that it had something to due with bicycles.
08.09.2024 On Friday August 9th, 2024, The Castros put together a show in the J.P.U.S.A. Garden Room. They had Alma Russ play with them as she was passing through the area on tour and some J.P.U.S.A. members in their band called Men And Angels. I captured "Cuckoo" by Men And Angels, "Deep River Blues" by Alma Russ and "Fly Away" by The Castros. https://youtu.be/aipeJ6kpbIs
On Saturday August 10th, 2024, I got up early for a Saturday to try to catch some of the Chicago Air And Water Show. I decided to get off the train at Roosevelt then walk to the lake and head north along the lake shore. I hoped to be able to see something as I walked but the staging area was obstructed by the city buildings. I eventually got to the Ohio Street Beach area where I set up to watch the show south of the staging area. I was able to be shaded along the support wall of Lake Shore Drive. I captured quite a bit of footage of the aircraft doing their aerial tricks and fly bys. I got home then pretty much promptly left for Navy Pier for The Great American Lobsterfest. Elphie came with me this year and while we did have a bit of a wait, we got our meals and enjoyed them both! After the lobster, Elphie got a churro sundae. We then waited for the Navy Pier Fireworks, finding an empty bench to sit on as we waited. It was a good, quick show. We slowly made our way to the car then eventually out of Navy Pier to go home.
08.13.2024 Afterwork, I parked then hung out by Wrigley Field to try to hear some of the sets by Rancid and Smashing Pumpkins. I didn't care about sticking around for Green Day. I got there as Rancid ended and listened to the whole set by the Smashing Pumpkins before I left. I captured some footage.
08.15.2024
On Thursday August 15th, 2024, Little Jessi hooked me up with a guest list spot for her show at Reggies. The Mad Caddies were headlining, The Iron Roses were direct support, and Little Jessi and Something To Do opened the show. She had just flown back from some Europe dates a day or so before. I had asked if she was going to be there to play, just out of curiosity, and she offered to try to get me on the guest list. That was way cool of her! I captured "Richard Spencer Punched In The Head" by Something To Do during their set. I captured "Screaming for A Change" from The Iron Roses. Apparently the Mad Caddies were stuck in Canada at the Halifax, Nova Scotia airport for a couple of days and barely made it to the show! They had to borrow the gear of The Iron Roses.
08.16.2024 - 08.25.2024 On Friday August 16th, 2024, I left work a bit early to catch a flight to Charlotte, NC with Elphie to celebrate her sister's 50th birthday! We encountered a storm arriving in North Carolina and routed a bit around it. I captured some lightning outside of the plane as we were approaching. The birthday party was on Saturday August 17th, 2024 and there was some good Carolina BBQ to be had along with R.O.'s Slaw. Elphie helped with the balloon purchase of which there were many! It was something of a pool party and we enjoyed the pool for a bit until a storm came in. On Sunday August 18th, Elphie reserved a room at the Golden Corral to celebrate her sister and her mom's birthdays and probably some other birthdays in there as well. It was a good gathering of folks and good food. We flew back to Chicago on Monday August 19th, 2024. Before we left, I made sure to eat some more BBQ with R.O.'s Slaw! We ended up having a very delayed flight due to continued storms around Charlotte. The plane was diverted to Greenville, SC which wasn't all that far away. It had to be diverted to refuel. A lot of people rescheduled and we ended up having a pretty empty flight to Chicago. As we flew, we passed over Cincinnati and all our friends there so I decided to capture a clip of that. The delay made things a bit weird because we had some of the Vermin Supreme crew needing a place to stay during the Democratic National Convention. When we finally got back to Chicago and to the house, they were there waiting on us. We got them situated and then I went to bed so I could get back to work!
On Wednesday August 21st, 2024, I captured some footage of the road blocks for the DNC on my way to work. That evening, we attended a Vermin Supreme Presidential Rally at Sideshow Gelato. They made a flavor of gelato in Vermin's honor. The rally was interesting to say the least but it was a good time. On Friday August 23rd, 2024, we attended the last of the summer BBQ's at the Holy Trinity Community house. We provided some venison burger which everyone seemed to enjoy. It was a good time hanging out there. On our drive home from getting groceries on Saturday August 24th, 2024, I captured a large piece of debris on the highway with my CrossTour CR-900. It explained the traffic slowing down!
08.27.2024 On Tuesday August 27th, 2024, the street where I work was taken over by the "Chicago P.D." television show. It made it difficult coming and going from our building. I had to get an escort returning from lunch. I captured a few clips of a murder scene outside the building. That evening, Brick Assassin was playing a reunion show at Liar's Club. It was an all punk lineup and a lot of fun. I decided to bring my Canon Rebel T6s and hoped I could get set up in such a way I'd not get knocked into too much and have the microphone base break again (this happened last time Brick Assassin played, ha! Some guy walked through me instead of passed me and as a result broke the base of the microphone. I ended up having to use Gorilla Glue and so far it's held up ok!). Other bands who played were Kaleko Urdangak from Basque Country somewhere in the Spain area of Europe and locals Bad Sons and Danger Feet. I captured the whole set of everyone but Danger Feet. I wasn't quite ready when they started and was still trying to figure out where to set up. I probably missed about 2-3 minutes of their set.
08.28.2024 - 09.10.2024 As I left Liar's Club after midnight on Wednesday August 28th, 2024, I captured lightning using the CrossTour CR-900. During my commute to work on Thursday August 29th, 2024, I captured the cloud cover over the city again using the CrossTour CR-900. On the commute on Friday August 30th, 2024, I captured the set up for the beach volleyball tournament on Oak Street Beach.
I decided to go to watch the Pittsburgh Pirates play the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field on Monday September 2nd, 2024 through Wednesday September 4th, 2024. The weather was nice for all three games and I was able to secure fairly low priced tickets. The Pirates won 5-3 on Monday September 2nd, 2024 during a Labor Day Margaritaville/Jimmy Buffet themed game. This ended up being the second time this year as the White Sox had one as well. How did both Chicago teams had Margaritaville/Jimmy Buffet nights against the Pirates? Weird. As I drove home I captured the American flag displayed on the downtown buildings for Labor Day. On Tuesday September 3rd, 2024, the Pirates won again! This time they got a shutout 5-0. I got home to collect the mail and found a big spider. My streak of Pittsburgh teams winning while I was in attendance in 2024 ran out on Wednesday September 4th, 2024. Not only did the Pirates lose, they couldn't even get a hit and lost bad! The score was 12-0. My streak ended at 6 events (one for the Penguins, and five for the Pirates - three against the Cubs and two against the White Sox).
On Saturday September 7th, 2024, Elphie and I tried some Baja Blast gelato while at the Taco Bell in Highland, Indiana as part of our grocery trip. I thought it tasted like a sherbet and I thought it was pretty good. 09.11.2024 On Wednesday September 11th, 2024, Elphie and I went to see +LIVE+ with Stone Temple Pilots and Soul Asylum at the Huntington Bank Pavilion on Northerly Island in Chicago. Due to the early start, I had Elphie meet me near Reggies where we could catch a couple of busses and get to the venue without paying high parking prices. She bought us some tacos from Tio Luis. We got the seats for $25 using the Live Nation/Ticketmaster deal. The last time we had been in that venue, there was a seated bleacher area but the rest was just standing room. We had a decent spot I think. I captured "Selling The Drama" by +LIVE+, "Big Empty" by Stone Temple Pilots, and "Runaway Train" by Soul Asylum. All were hits for the bands and "Big Empty was used in The Crow soundtrack.
This was the last thing we did prior to leaving on our vacation to end the summer so it is the end of this project.
Furnace Fest 2024: The End Of An Era was held at Sloss Furnaces in Birmingham Alabama during the first weekend of October. It had been the third weekend of September each of the previous years of this era but with it falling into October, that worked out well for me! Elphie and I had a road trip vacation planned for September and we returned with a few days in between before I had to leave for Furnace Fest. I had purchased my ticket at Furnace Fest 2023 due to the announcement that 2024 would be "the end of the era." I figured I didn't want to miss the last one. I suppose time will tell on if it was indeed the last one...or if and when a new era will begin.
I worked out a spot in an AirBnB with Chris Smith and we were fortunate that the host didn't decide to cancel on us. Some folks weren't so lucky, even having cancelations happen as they were in commute to Birmingham. There would be 12 of us in the AirBnB...I would be in a bunk bed sharing the room with three other dudes.
When The Blamed set up a pre-show, I decided to book a Thursday morning flight so that I could be in Birmingham early enough to catch the show. I hoped if there were any delays, it would not be such that I couldn't get there in time. Instead, Southwest bumped the flight earlier by a few hours! Same occurred with my return red-eye flight on Monday...it bumped up about an hour earlier.
Despite having just finished a road trip vacation of two weeks, I didn't feel too much exhaustion going into Furnace Fest...other than being tired due to waking at 5am for the early flight. I am glad that I went and it was another great experience! If it is indeed the last one, it went out on a high note! It was cool meeting a few new people, including a celebrity, ha! as well as getting see a few bands I never had the chance to see while they were more active such as Dogwood, Slick Shoes, and No Innocent Victim. Audiofeed set up a booth to get the word out to the Furnace Fest folks and it also allowed for a place to rest a bit here and there. I think that was especially helpful for me as I didn't feel as worn down when everything ended as I did in prior years.
With the camera restrictions set in place at Furnace Fest, I was using my iPhone 14 once again to capture all the footage. At times it was hard to get a clear shot of the stage. Sometimes I was quite far away. This isn't the best footage out there by any means but it is what I captured for my own nostalgic purposes anticipating my elder and senile years to come.
I wasn't entirely sure how I wanted to build the promo/intro project. I thought about doing a similar thing to what I did with Audiofeed this year...which is basically what I ended up doing with the footage from both festivals in 2023. When I sat down to create this, I thought about what I did with the 2021 promo. I'm not particularly happy with that one, but the idea I wanted to revisit showed the previous era of Furnace Fest from 2000-2003 with footage I found on YouTube and pulled for my own purposes. At the time, I recorded it off the screen and the audio was pretty low. I decided to pull some of that same footage again to use. This footage is of Norma Jean performing "Memphis Will Be Laid To Waste" and Andrew WK performing "Party Hard." Both clips are from the Shed and as I probably wrote when sharing that project, both clips were influential in my wanting to attend Furnace Fest. Even though Andrew WK never did make his return, I decided using that footage again was worth while. I thought that they probably highlighted some of the best of the festival experiences of 2000-2003. As I did in 2021, I included a clip from the Beloved set I captured in the Shed. I added a clip from Pennywise playing the "Bro Hymn" on the main stage in 2023 and finally clips from this year of Norma Jean playing "Memphis Will Be Laid To Waste" again with Josh Scogin, Scottie Henry, and Chris "Derr" Day joining the band and a clip from Underoath performing "Writing On The Wall" to close out Furnace Fest. I added several of the promotional graphics put out by Furnace Fest over the last year and then did some manipulation of some of the footage using some favorite effects - Aged Film and Bad TV. The project is less than two minutes but I feel it works well as an End Of An Era promo.
I woke up at 5:00am on Thursday October 3rd, 2024 so I could have time to shower, finish the last little bit of packing, and make the transit commute on the CTA to Midway Airport for my 8:00am Southwest flight to Birmingham, Alabama for Furnace Fest and some of the pre-festival festivities. I got through the TSA screening and to my gate before sunrise! I ended up capturing a little bit of that while waiting to board the flight. There were quite a few folks on the flight coming from Chicago (and elsewhere due to connections coming through Chicago). We arrived at Birmingham Shuttlesworth Airport around 9:45am and I went to a restroom to change into shorts. Apparently while doing that, there was a group photo taken of all the Furnies and Slossages who had been on that Chicago flight! I went and rested a bit on one of the rocking chairs and tried to determine what my next steps would be. Marco Castro had set up a Pop Up show at Bandido Coffee with Kevin Schlereth and dubbed it a Furnace Fest and Audiofeed meet-up. This was scheduled to start at 2pm so I had several hours before that still. I reached out to Otto Jensen who was also flying to Birmingham to see if he had touched down yet. He had not...I was hoping to perhaps coordinate a ride into the city with someone I knew. Perhaps I should have gone outside rather than sit on the rocking chair and worked something out with folks from the Chicago flight. Oh well...
I reached out to Marco to try to see what he was doing and how he might be getting around the city. It turned out he was in a hotel and had until at least 1pm before he had to leave. He mentioned that he wanted to take a nap so at this point I booked an Uber to his hotel and utilized the room to also take a nap. The Uber driver was cool and the app somehow managed to double my tip for him, ha! During the drive, I captured a quick clip of the Sloss Furnaces. At the hotel, I met Rob Froese of Friend Club Records and his partner Megan. They were in the lobby planning to go get some food and Marco talked to them about Audiofeed and his Pop up event at the nearby Bandido Coffee. We ended up signing their yearbooks and Megan gave us crabs...not like that! It was a squishy rubber crab toy. We parted ways and Marco and I both enjoyed a quick hour or so nap in his hotel room. I woke up feeling fairly refreshed but had to pee...at this point I didn't see much reason to try to fall asleep again and just waited on Marco to wake. I was able to capture a shot of the Vulcan statue from Marco's room! Once he was ready to go, we headed down to the lobby. Being the hype man that he is, Marco talked to the hotel staff about his Pop up show as well as about Furnace Fest and had convinced one of them to come out to Furnace Fest! Apparently it would be her first real concert!
We walked around the corner to Bandido Coffee. I noted that there was a pizza restaurant in the same building and considered getting some food there. At Bandido Coffee, we ran into the band Painted Light who was in town and playing one of the pre-shows for Furnace Fest. It turned out that they had been potentially booked to play the most recent Audiofeed but had to back out due to scheduling issues. We had some good conversation with those guys before they had to leave for load in at their show. I ordered a decent dark roast cup of coffee and then Otto sent me a message that he and Laura were nearby getting some BBQ. I ended up meeting up with them at Jim 'N Nick's BBQ and also got some BBQ for lunch. We caught up for a bit then we all went back to Bandido Coffee. Marco decided to begin the "show" part of the Pop up and he played a couple of tunes. I captured his introduction as well as his rendition of "What Does The Fox Say?"
After Kevin wrapped up his set, most everyone went on their separate ways. I was considering finding my way to Workplay to get my wristband and Kevin decided he also wanted to make his way over there. I hitched a ride with Kevin and Marco also came along. I got my wristband and while hanging around, I saw Zach Bridier. While we were talking, I considered if LCY Media where The Blamed had their pre-show set up was in walking distance. Zach was also going to that show and as we talked I figured I'd put my stuff in his vehicle. Then I saw Chris Smith and the crew he traveled with so I figured since I would be staying with them, I would put my stuff with them as well. We drove over to LCY Media and a few of us decided to get dinner at Birmingham's Wings and Waffles. I got some honey BBQ wings and glazed waffles. I asked a local about this "white" BBQ sauce and how it tasted like ranch dressing to me. I was corrected that it was NOT ranch dressing, ha! It was a bit of a long wait but we got our food. It turned out that a BBQ was set up at LCY Media as well.
Everyone who went to this show got a V.I.P. lanyard and poster. I got in a merch line so I could get some patches from The Blamed as well as the 3" vinyl. I was also tipped off by Zach about the Death Machine 7' being sold at the Living Sacrifice table and got a patch from them as well. I am glad that he did because it sold out before Living Sacrifice even played!
Spoken In Tongues opened the night. It is a project of Billy Power. I captured the song "A Wasted Day In Mexco." (I mis-labeled it as just Wasted Day...I probably should have looked at the recordings prior to my typing this now and I could have gotten it right. Apologies). I thought they put on a pretty good show.
The Blamed played next and I captured a newer song called "I Don't Want 2" which Bryan Gray wrote as he recovered from a serious medical emergency he endured a few years back. Bryan had to play while sitting but it didn't slow him down any and the set was great!
Living Sacrifice closed out the night. It was Arthur Green's 50th birthday and he was surprised with a cake just before the set began. I captured "Reject" at the end of the set when Jason Truby and his son took stage to do some guest work (Jason on guitar and his son on percussion). It was a fun set and sounded great as well.
We left pretty quickly after the show ended as most of us had little sleep. I quickly said goodbye to Sid. Unfortunately, we didn't really have much time to connect but I got a souvenir to him from our Australia and New Zealand trip last year (we hadn't had a chance to see him before this!). We arrived at the AirBnB after a little bit of GPS confusion and settled in for the night.
We all woke up at the AirBnB and prepared for the day with showers and/or breakfast. Since we already had wristbands, we were able to by-pass some of the line as we entered Furnace Fest! Chris had V.I.P. parking so we were conveniently located for merch drops. Upon arrival, I met up with those running the Audiofeed booth for a few moments before securing the Unoriginal Vinyl/Tooth And Nail releases exclusive to Furnace Fest. I looked through some of the test presses that they brought out as well and then checked out the Equal Vision Records booth for a minute. I didn't really pick anything else up at the time though I would later get some samplers from the Charon Collective and the new press of Emery's The Weak's End. After dropping off the merch at Chris' vehicle, we noticed a side entrance and utilized that.
I went to a booth that had "Fro-Zen Smoothies" and ordered a Cherry Creamsicle." This ended up being my morning breakfast upon arrival each day and it was quite good.
The first band I decided to check out was called Double Tap. I believe they were a Birmingham local and they put on a good show. They played on the Monster Energy Pond Stage.
As I left, I captured some scenic footage of the pond.
In the Arsenal Strength Shed Stage, I watched Bury Your Dead, capturing Magnolia and Bury Your Fucking Dead (Losin' it) at the end of their set. The vocalist announced it as his last time playing with the band. There was a pretty good pile on...which ended up often being the shots I would capture during the sets in the Shed in particular.
I walked over to the Heart Support Main Stage next to see some of the set by Dying Wish. Marco has kept hyping them up and I didn't have conflict so I figured it was worth it to check them out. I captured the song "Torn From Your Silhouette." As I left that area, I saw good ole' Sean Huncherick in his Amy Grant shirt! We talked briefly before I moved along back to the Shed.
Back at the Shed I watched the set by Bleeding Through. They set up a Shed long circle pit and I captured a few seconds of that as well as a song clip.
I went back over to the pond to hear the first few songs by Slow Joy. In the footage I captured, it seems I caught the guy who took my order at Birmingham's Wings and Waffles the night before.
Back in the Shed, I watched He Is Legend perform their "I Am Hollywood" album play through. I was intent on capturing "Dinner With A Gypsy" and it worked out!
I remained in the Shed to watch the start of Emery's set. They were meant to do an album playthrough of "The Weak's End" but they started the set with a few songs from other albums. I ended up capturing the opening song which was "Thrash."
I decided I wanted to get a full set each day of Furnace Fest again this year and for Friday I settled on Silent Planet. They ended up playing a few minutes short and having to cut some songs due to ongoing technical issues on the Main Stage. It was still a great set and I thought it sounded good overall as well.
I ended up taking a break from the bands for quite a while...probably longer than I had intended actually. I got a "jumbo" quesadilla from Romega Taqueria for dinner and while it was good, I learned of another booth selling street tacos at $3 each. Also, I'm not sure I'd call that quesadilla "jumbo." During this break, I got the samplers from the Charon Collective and the Emery vinyl then met Chris to do a merch drop before getting three of those street tacos from Mi Pueblo. In line, I encountered Leanor (Jeff The Girl) from Five Iron Frenzy. I told her of how we had recently visited Scum of the Earth in Denver while seeing our friends the Filizola's. It was cool to talk to her for a minute. I went back to the Audiofeed booth where I had eaten the quesadilla earlier to eat the tacos. I headed over to the Shed to see Coalesce. As I entered and the space was packed, someone got hurt and the band shut it down. It turned out to be the end of the Bane set. They apparently were able to clear out the injured person and Coalesce was able to get set up to play.
The Coalesce set didn't have the best sound going for it but I watched it until the end, capturing a clip somewhere in the middle. I had thoughts of capturing a song at the end but they didn't give a warning that it was the end of the set.
As I left the shed, I decided to get a quick shot of the Sloss water tower. I went to the main stage and watched the rest of the August Burns Red set. I captured "Composure" which closed out the night. It was a pretty big crowd at the main stage and I hung back near the fence for the V.I.P. folks.
I exited from the side gate and we were able to leave pretty quickly out of the parking lot and to the AirBnB. Quite a few of us stayed up way to late chit chatting.
After the late night on Friday, Chris and I both got up pretty early on Saturday. Chris wanted to help out with the Straight Edge Root Beer Social and I wanted to be sure to be on the Furnace Fest grounds in case there was something to score from merch. The root beer social was fun and there was some good root beer to be had too. On my way into Furnace Fest, a friendly girl named Margaret (I think) struck up a conversation and it turned out she was from Asheville. She said she had been spared of damage for the most part but knew a lot of folks who had gotten it pretty bad. During the conversation, I told her a bit about Audiofeed as well. Once again, upon arrival, I hung around a while at the Audiofeed booth. I ended up getting a shirt from No Innocent Victim which was the only merch purchase I made. I got another Cherry Creamsicle smoothie for breakfast as well!
I stepped out of the Shed for a few minutes to utilize the port-o-potty and then watch the first few songs from Greyhaven on the Monster Energy Pond Stage. I ended up capturing their first song called "In A Room Where Everything Dies."
I went back to the Shed to see Evergreen Terrace and the Shed was packed! This was the case in 2021 as well and I couldn't see anything so I didn't get any footage. I did my best to at least capture some footage this year and I got "Dear Live Journal."
I left the Shed so I could see some of My Epic playing on the Heart Support Main Stage. I ended up capturing one of my new favorite songs called "Wildflowers."
After the My Epic set, I got a Bad Luck Burger Club burger then went to the Audiofeed booth to hang out for a while. There was meant to be a group photo which did happen a couple different times as folks kept coming that had missed it. Reese Roper ended up stopping by as well and I told him how I wish Five Iron Frenzy hadn't dropped the year that they were lined up to play. Hopefully they will play one day in the future! We also possibly had some of the Officer Negative guys visit the booth as well.
I headed back to the Shed to catch some of the Shai Hulud set. I'm not sure what song I captured but I think in hindsight after catching some of the lyrics during the editing process, it might have been "Two and Twenty Misfortunes."
No Innocent Victim was one of the sets I had in mind to capture in its entirety once they were announced as booked for Furnace Fest and they played on Saturday. Schedule wise, it worked out fairly well. I was able to make my way toward the front but by the wall. I ended up setting up by the A.D.A. section and having a fairly good spot to capture video. I noticed Loyal Thurman from Unified Underground on side stage singing along throughout the set! Josh from Dogwood did a guest vocal on "Reunion" and there was a huge pile on during "My Beliefs." I was glad I was able to capture this entire set and have a decently clear view through most of it.
Slick Shoes was playing on the Pond during the later part of the No Innocent Victim set. I got over there to see the last couple of songs and end up capturing "Darko." I never had the chance to see them play before so I am glad I caught a little bit of that. I guess there was a bit of a scheduling conflict in that I did miss most of their set in favor of No Innocent Victim.
Back in the Shed, I watched the first half of the Stretch Arm Strong set and captured their first song which was "Worst Case Scenario." There were balloons with blinking lights inside. People were just hitting them around at first then began to pop them and throwing the lights. i think at least one person got hit near the eye. Hopefully there wasn't any severe damage done to anyone hit with the lights.
I left the Shed, utilized the port-o-potty again and then ordered a hot dog from Stephen's Hotdog wagon located by the pond. Five Iron Frenzy was playing and doing their "old school set." After I finished the hot dog, I captured "Fistful of Sand." I stayed to watch the rest of the set. I think that I probably missed one or two songs.
I went back in the Shed to watch Poison The Well. I captured the song "Nerdy." Early in their set, while the Shed was packed, there was a minor confrontation with a drunk guy that I am glad didn't escalate more. He was obnoxious and I was eventually able to get some distance from him and his crew.
I ended the night sitting at the Audiofeed booth hanging with friends there. Chris and some of the AirBnB crew were heading to an aftershow with Demon Hunter so I was waiting for the others who were not going to that show in our AirBnB crew to come through during their exit but apparently I missed them. I did manage to get in touch with some of them and get to a spot to meet them and then get a ride back. The Magee's offered a ride otherwise so I think it would have been all taken care of. It turned out Jeff, another one from the AirBnB was also still on site and took a "sketchy Uber" to the AirBnB. We could have coordinated a ride for him as well had we known. Oh well. I went to bed fairly early and hoped there would be someone getting on site at Sloss so I could get in the line for the Blindside merch as they were dropping a couple exclusive vinyls.
I woke up on Sunday October 6th, 2024 and everyone else in the room still were sleeping. I took a shower and when I finished up, they were mostly awake. Chris had wanted to do a breakfast hang at a Waffle House. I decided I would ride along but perhaps walk over to Sloss from the Waffle House if needed. It turned out Jeff also wanted to get in the Blindside line so that was the plan, we'd walk from the Waffle House to Furnace Fest. Chris at this point decided to just drive to Sloss and eat something at the car. We got in the Blindside line and happened to be a few people behind a celebrity - Brock Dittus (if you are on the 90's Christian Music Recovery Group on Facebook then you know who I am talking about)! It became a running joke to capture Brock sightings so I did capture a clip of him in the line as well as a train crossing the entrance to Sloss. We waited in that line for about two hours. I was told that besides having the new pressings of "A Thought Crushed My Mind" and "About A Burning Fire" that they also had some pressings of "With Shivering Hearts We Wait" so I hoped to get a copy of that as well. The wait was long, no doubt, but the time passed with fun conversations and friends dropping in from time to time.
While waiting in the line I captured the best footage I could get of '68 performing on the Heart Support Main Stage. I captured "Death Is A Lottery." They finished up their set doing a The Chariot cover but I was just getting done making my Blindside merch purchase. I was abruptly told no that they did not have "With Shivering Hearts We Wait" and that I was limited to one copy per album. I also picked up a book from the Dogwood table before taking the merch to Chris' car.
Upon re-entering, I got another Cherry Creamsicle smoothie and hung out a bit at the Audiofeed booth again. I coordinated a ride to the airport with the Magee's and figured I'd help with the Audiofeed booth teardown as well since would be there waiting to leave. I also captured some footage of the food trucks I had visited so far including Bad Luck Burger Club and Romega Taqueria.
I made my way over to the Monster Energy Pond Stage to catch some of the Codeseven set. I was capturing the first song called "Laissez-Faire" and noticed smoke coming from the generator truck. Eventually the production team also noticed it and took off running toward the truck then the sound cut out. It stopped smoking for a moment then began again for a bit longer. While I waited to see if they might get started again, I noticed a guy who looked like Beavis so naturally I captured a clip of him.
I decided to head into the Arsenal Strength Shed Stage for The Showdown. I couldn't resist getting snakebit, afterall! There were water balloons being launched with a slingshot and being tossed from the stage during the set. I captured "Dagon Undone (The Reckoning)." Sean Huncherick also was captured stage diving and crowd surfing.
When Dogwood was announced for Furnace Fest, I knew I wanted to capture their entire set. They are another band I missed when they were active and I wasn't about it miss it during Furnace Fest. I did have the unfortunate luck of a large man standing pretty much directly in front of me but I did the best I could on capturing the set and enjoying anyway. They were playing on the pond stage so I ended up capturing one full set at each stage this year.
Dogwood Setlist: 1. Preschool Days 2. Suffer 3. Rest Assured
As I left the Dogwood set, I ran into Lee from Audiofeed and Cornerstone. We caught up for a few minutes before I went to get some dinner. He had been watching Drug Church and they finished up as we were talking.
After getting a slice of pizza from the Pazzo truck, I went back to the Shed to see H2O. I captured "Still Here."
I went back to the pond stage to see some of The Juliana Theory play. I ended up capturing "Into The Dark" before heading to the main stage. They started playing all songs from Understand This Is A Dream but switched it up after the fourth song.
At the main stage, Extol was playing with Bruce from Living Sacrifice filling in on vocals. They tossed out red wristbands that had "Extol" printed on them and made a joke about how one can toss them in the trashcan. This and a few other things showed their awareness of the silly occurrence from last year when they were unable to make the trip due to slow processing of the government in regards to visas. I captured "A Gift Beyond Human Reach."
As Norma Jean began to play on the main stage, I got some tacos from Mi Pueblo again. They had the best prices and really good food! I ended up capturing "Memphis Will Be Laid To Waste" along with many other people. Josh Scogin, Scottie Henry, and Chris "Derr" Day of the original era of Norma Jean came out to do the song which added to its greatness!
Blindside was one of the bands that I missed in 2022 when I chose not to go to Furnace Fest that I had regrets about missing. This year they were meant to play the entirety of the "About A Burning Fire" but skipped a couple songs in favor of their hits from Silence (which they played in its entirety in 2022). I ended up capturing "About A Burning Fire" at the end of their set.
Underoath closed out Furnace Fest playing from "They're Only Chasing Safety" but I captured "When The Sun Sleeps" from their encore. I also included the very end of "Writing On The Walls" because of the massive pile-on. It seemed fitting to include it.
I left quickly after the Underoath set ended so I could get my bag and merch purchases from Chris' car so he and his crew could get back to the AirBnB and sleep before their long drive. I found part of the gates were gone to the side of the main stage area and went through that to get to Chris's car. I also used that to get back in and head to the Audiofeed booth where the Magee's would be so I could get the ride to the airport. I captured some footage of the mass exodus from Furnace Fest as well as the Audiofeed flyer that was hanging near the booth advertising our festival for next year. I helped where I could with tearing down the booth. I caught up with Lee for a few moments as he left the grounds and also a few other friends. Eventually, once everything was taken down and packed away, the Magee's took me to the airport where I attempted to sleep a little bit before having to go through the TSA checkpoint.
After trying to sleep a little bit...I maybe got 30-45 minutes, I woke up having to pee and the lights were on and folks were working the customer service desks. I went to the restroom and got myself together so I could go through the TSA checkpoint. My crotch region set off the scanning system again for some reason so I had to deal with the pat down but otherwise I got through relatively smoothly. Another person apparently set it off in the same region of her body. I noticed a few of the same folks I flew down from Chicago were also going through TSA so I assumed that they would be on the flight with me again. A few of them were sitting near where I was trying to sleep as well. I also noticed the infamous Brock Dittus. I ended up walking behind him toward the gates. I stopped to use the restroom and then proceeded to the gate for the Chicago flight. Two of the guys from the AirBnB were there! I suppose had I known they also were taking the red-eye flight, perhaps I would have also gone back to the AirBnB and tried to sleep a few minutes in a bed. Oh well. Sitting right behind them was Brock Dittus. Apparently he would be flying to Chicago as well. I snapped a quick covert pic of him and posted it in the 90s Christian Music Recovery Group page as sightings of Brock had become a running joke during Furnace Fest. He looked up after I made the post and acknowledged me with a nod, ha! A little bit later he came over and we "met" officially which included a quick selfie. It was a funny moment. He apparently had at least one connecting flight on to Portland, OR while I was heading home to Chicago then to work.
We all boarded the flight with the warnings that there were not enough checked bags and the overhead bins would be filling up. Thankfully, I got a seat where I could fit my backpack under the seat in front of me. Unfortunately, I had some goofy teenage boys sat next to me in the row. Oh well...I tried to sleep a bit more on the flight but I don't think I got too much. Upon landing in Chicago, I made my way to the CTA transit and off to home for a quick shower and drove on to work. As I drove, I captured the Buckingham Fountain with a rainbow while waiting for the light to change. I was pretty tired through the day but I made it through and when I got home, after eating dinner, I passed out watching Monday Night Football.
It was a fun trip and I really enjoyed Furnace Fest once again. In some ways, I am sad to see it go. It was a bit pricey though...especially comparatively to Audiofeed so I am not sad to see that money go, ha! We will see what happens with the future but I am glad to have had the opportunity to experience Furnace Fest...not just the one time it was meant to happen but three of the four times! It gave me an opportunity to see a lot of bands I wouldn't have otherwise probably ever gotten to see (or see again in some cases). Thank you, Furnace Fest!
Additional soundtrack is "Thrush" by Maylene And The Sons Of Disaster. I decided to stick with this theme as they are local to the festival. It may be the regret I have of not attending in 2022 since Maylene played that year only.
Footage filmed using an iPhone 14. This project was edited and the titles and other animations were created using Final Cut Pro X on a Mac Mini. Filmed and edited by Joel A. Swanson.
Audiofeed had its 10th event this year from July 4th through 7th, 2024. It was advertised as Audiofeed X. We have had the privilege of attending every single one since it began in 2023. It felt strange in 2020 and 2021 when there was no Audiofeed due to COVID-19 and its related shutdowns and restrictions in hopes to lessen its effect on all of our health. There has been changes over the 10 years and some folks and organizations have moved on to do other things but we have still enjoyed our time attending. This year, Elphie and I decided we wanted to fill a void that had been left when the Grave Robbers Ministry pulled out last year. There were some who really wanted a place to hang out...specifically the goth subculture. On the trip home, we discussed this a bit and I put out the idea of using a canopy that our friends, The Humans, had which we used during the Cornerstone years. Speaking of which, when you add the years I attended Cornerstone (2004-2012 which was its last year) as well as Creation (1999-2000) and Purple Door (2001 & 2003) I have been at a summer festival almost every year for the last 25 years.
Anyway, back to the canopy, after last year, I considered the idea of borrowing that canopy and setting up an area to hang out. I had received permission to use that canopy and had talks with the folks running Audiofeed about setting it up and the purpose. I ended up buying one that would be lighter weight and seemed to be easier to set up. We don't have towing capacity with our vehicle and the size and weight of the other canopy seemed likely to present challenges. I was thankfully able to figure out loading all that we needed this year without too much struggle and I think it all worked out as a good thing to have at Audiofeed. We will be bringing it back next year and likely as long as we can and the festival continues. I spray painted a sign and printed out the letters to spell "Bare Bones" to hang on our tent so people knew who we were. i used the back side of a canvas I used to make a sign back at Cornerstone for our camp. We named it "Bare Bones" because we were not going to have any special programming or amenities in our tent. It was simply a place to hang out, get some shade, talk to folks. I probably went a bit "overboard" by having some signs ha! along with bones scattered around our site. Jonathan Magee helped come up with the name when we put out the information on social media about the tent and our intentions with it. Thanks Jonathan!
I once again spent a lot of my time capturing footage while at Audiofeed. That is what this page is for anyway, sharing video footage and projects! I had a few "must see" bands including at least one per day that I wanted to capture the entire set. I also offered what I captured to the Audiofeed media team to use for anything that they might want to do. I dropped some of that footage the while at the fest on Friday but the rest I made available through Google drive after going through it at home and editing. I also attempted daily reels that were hopefully manageable in length time wise for social media sharing. I decided I would share those reels myself as well (whether Audiofeed uses them or not). On this page as well as in the video playlist, I put the reels at the end of each day while my usual video project that captures each day plus clips of the artists I saw and captured are at the beginning of each day. In some cases, I used different footage for the daily reels and daily video summaries than I captured and posted for the stand alone video clips of each artist.
We brought some venison steaks and burgers to eat this year then utilized the food vendors for the rest of the time we were there. We were bummed that Guy Allen's booth wasn't there this year and found that he had run into issues with the Health Department.
Once again, we utilized a hotel. This year it was the Rodeway Inn which was just off the highway. Michael Psalmi got a block of rooms there and at another hotel. I'm not sure if he gets any perks by doing this but we decided to go with it. We figured we'd be among others who were at Audiofeed and we did occasionally see a few people as we were coming or going. We didn't have any late night hangs with anyone at the hotel though.
Overall, I think we enjoyed Audiofeed X and look forward to the next one. The team leading the festival had made tickets for next year available during this year's festival with a discount. The discount offer was extended into the week after Audiofeed ended...but the regular price is still really a good deal for what you get. Go to audiofeedfestival.com to get your tickets!
At the top you find the promo reel for Audiofeed X. I utilized the magazine printed by Tuned Up to make this promo reel. I also utilized all the previous lineup flyers which one can find currently on the Audiofeed website. I had them scale in through all nine previous events ending with Audiofeed X and then brought in the original logo. I made the thumbnail on Youtube be the logo which utilized the 'X' but that particular file I actually never used in the promo reel itself. I added some credit information about how Elphie and I filmed and captured the experience one will see through these videos and also gave a shout out to Lee who sent me a clip and I decided to use it as well. I also included the technical specs of the equipment used. Then the Tuned Up magazine comes into play. I decided to film myself flipping through the pages stopping after a full page Audiofeed ad with a full page Tuned Up ad on the other side. This is where I created a freeze frame then covered the article using the band promo flyers that the Audiofeed media team had created. I utilized a banner style Audiofeed logo which utilized the 'X' to cover the title of the article and then I included some quick clips of the bands next to their promos. I did this for each artist I captured during Audiofeed this year. I actually had to make a few of my own "bootleg" promo flyers for a few of the artists, ha! I did my best to make it look as close to the flyers that the media team had made as I could. I think I did ok. I configured a page turn transition for each of the artists so it appears that the magazine keeps going through each until I reached the end with the Rich Mullins tribute. At this point, the song I was using as a soundtrack, "Cuckoo" by David Eugene Edwards, was near its end. I added a few quick clips of our interactions with people of Audiofeed as well as a clip of the Bare Bones before ending it off with my TigerRAWk credit file. I am pretty happy overall with how it turned out. It could have been better I'm sure but I am currently satisfied with it.
I mostly used the same promo video in the project for Audiofeed X 2024 Day 1 (07.04.22024). Instead of keeping the people we interacted with, I used that Audiofeed 'X' logo.
Below is the full playlist of the videos included in this project.
https://youtu.be/dEqkSiJ4ipM We left for Audiofeed after I got home from work in the evening of Wednesday July 3rd, 2024. Once again, I had to make my way though some traffic difficulties as a NASCAR track was being built around the parks downtown in Chicago which included Lake Shore Drive. I utilize Lake Shore Drive most of the time during my commute so the lane closures meant some traffic backups. I looked into some other routes but the traffic indicators on those routes didn't look any better. Once I got home, I loaded the rest of what we needed into the car. I had packed quite a bit the night before so there wasn't a lot of extra packing that needed done. On Sunday, I had spray painted our Bare Bones sign and printed others. I had loaded those up the night before as well. I also collected some of the bone I used to make bone broth. I sprayed them down with a hose and then bagged them up to use as decor for our site. The last things we needed to load up were our bags and luggage with clothes and our coolers with food.
Our hope was to be able to leave about 7pm. Just as we were getting ready to go and loading in the last few items, the neighbors daughter pulled into the driveway to visit and blocked us in. We told her we were needing to go and she asked for 10 minutes...that ended up being much longer of course. What annoys me most about this is that she could pull in just a little further and not blocked the driveway but often she does not extend that courtesy. I think it ended up being about 7:45pm when we left. We picked up some Whopper Jr's to eat as we drove. I also tried the Mountain Dew Infinite Swirl which was pineapple and berry. It reminded me of one of the previous Baja variants. I had been able to get the car fully charged before leaving work and indications were that we should be able to get to Urbana without needing any additional charges. We decided to go ahead and stop in Bradley, IL at a Meijer because we needed to pick up some gravel for the sandbags for the canopy and I wanted to get some apples as well. This was more or less about the midway point of the trip. Since we'd be there, I figured I'd go ahead and get a quick charge. Unfortunately the Electrify America network was giving me trouble and I couldn't get the charge to initialize through the app. I tried calling customer support and was on hold for quite a while but decided to try taping the digital card and was able to at least get the charge started. This also prevented me from getting the discounted rate I signed up for at $7.00/month charge so I decided I would be contacting them again to see what to do about this. All that hassle probably added another half hour extra that could have been avoided. (Update: I did get a refund on each charge to reflect the discounted rate I was entitled to.) As we left Bradley, IL, I captured some fireworks with the Crosstour CR-900.
I decided to add in the video files I created showing the spray painting of the Bare Bones sign as well as the printed version using the "Bone" font (as suggested by Jonathan Magee. I had actually considered it before but thank you Jonathan for pushing the idea as well!). I also decided to include the footage from the night before in this area. That footage showed the meats after I had seasoned it and other aspects of loading up. I used a wavy style transition that was labeled as a flashback. I couldn't find an exact sound I was going for in the audio effects so I picked one called "time passing" to use with the flashback transition effect.
We got to the Rodeway Inn at about 10:45pm and checked in. I contacted Kevin about whether we should try setting up our canopy there at night or wait until morning. He said he was on the Audiofeed grounds. I tried to recruit Skot Shaw but he was going to bed apparently. We unloaded what we needed to at the hotel then headed to the Champaign County Fairgrounds to look into where we could set up the canopy and talked a bit with Kevin. At first, it didn't look like we'd be getting it set up but a few folks were up and about and offered to help so we got it set up! We got to use the spot I had hoped for originally but was told it would be meant for the coffee vendor. They had backed out so we were permitted to use their spot...even though the map had us located elsewhere, ha! Our "Bare Bones" tent was raised...the sidewalls were put on and the spray paint sign was also temporarily attached. We finished up around 2am. We made a quick trip to the bank and then headed back to the Rodeway Inn to sleep and hoped to get on site for Audiofeed X around noon.
07.04.2024
https://youtu.be/bYIUSRKRO_M Audiofeed X began on Thursdsay July 4th, 2024. We woke up to find it had rained so we were happy with the decision to set up Bare Bones late after our arrival the night before. We got ready to go, having breakfast and coffee and got on site at Audiofeed a little bit after noon.
I dropped in the Audiofeed promo video here as a title. It is mostly the same as the stand alone promo video file except the ending which highlighted some people of Audiofeed, I replaced that with the Audiofeed X logo. "Cuckoo" by David Eugene Edwards remains the soundtrack.
I also included a clip flipping through the Tuned Up printed magazine which I actually shot after the festival at home.
Once there, I secured the tent a bit better using the spikes and then it rained so we took a break and took advantage of the cover of the tent. some friends stopped by and also stayed dry for a bit. Throughout the day, folks came by as we slowly got things together as far as decorations. We got a few chairs from the grandstands as well. I hung a bit with Luke and Zach at their booth. I set up the grill to make dinner and realized I had forgotten a knife to cut the onion to put on our venison burger. I borrowed the knife from The Road Dog and momma Linda. When I returned, the coals hadn't caught so I had to add more lighter fluid and try to start it again. It worked this time, however, some of the Audiofeed media team wanted to meet up so I ran over for that.
https://youtu.be/yaUV-QPHCy4 When I returned, I put the burgers on the grill to cook. When they had finished, Bryan Hampton was getting ready to start the Chalklines set at the Subculture Stage. I promised to capture that on video for him...though it will not be publicly shared at his request out of respect for those who may be adversely affected by the stories he shares in this project. This clip is what I made to "document" the set and use as something of a place-holder for the Youtube playlist...I sort of utilized a similar strategy last year capturing and sharing "Name It And Disclaim It" with Bryan's permission so this year, this is what I came up with on a whim. It was a good set...some of the material was shared last year as well but he has added a bit more content. Overall, I really enjoyed the presentation. Afterwards, I was able to return to the Bare Bones and eat my burger! I also tried the Mountain Dew Star Spangled Splash. It was a "red berry" flavor. It has a fruitiness to it. I suppose it was red berries.
https://youtu.be/XuG9sAJuOSI I returned to the Subculture Stage to watch The Other White Meat. I captured a song called "For The Kill." I used some other footage for my daily summary video which showed the crowd surfing. t was a fun set with some moshing, circle pits, and even some crowd surfing. The stage area at Subculture remains quite small but they did add more space to their overall operation on that part of the grounds. Hopefully they can eventually manage to increase the spectator area a little bit. While I was at Subculture, the Bradshaws made their arrival to Audiofeed and promptly set up at Bare Bones with Elphie. I got to see them when I returned a bit later.
https://youtu.be/NM77YbWh5k4 I made my way to the Bloodline Stage to see The Ghost Servant. I captured a newer poem, I believe, from what Justin said. i also used a different clip I captured for the daily summary video and use by the Audiofeed media team if they wish. I went over to sit for a few minutes at Bare Bones between acts.
https://youtu.be/JZ9i1ZpnZng I returned to Bloodline to capture a song from the Junia set. It was my first time seeing them, even though they are based in Chicago and I have seen a number of other projects that the members also do. I captured a song called "Age Parade."
https://youtu.be/fni9c4qrKGU While I was at Burningtown to capture some footage from The Castros, Elphie captured a view from Bare Bones in the direction of Burningtown. I had planned to capture the entire set from The Castros but I stepped away from my camera to speak with Andrew Prickett for a bit and the set began...and a couple folks (who I will leave nameless) were having a conversation directly in front of my camera, ha! I scrapped that video and captured the song "Yellow Green House." I sent footage of "Pumpkin Pie" to the Audiofeed media team as well for if they want to use it for any reason.
https://youtu.be/G_sTzJWxcQs I returned to Bloodline to watch Jagalchi after hearing great things. It was a very good set and interesting. It was mostly instrumental with some dubbed in speaking parts. I captured a little over 10 minutes which may have been a song or perhaps was only part of a song...I wasn't sure at the point I cut it off. It was good regardless and if I did cut early, I apologize.
https://youtu.be/_krTbnqUjc0 I returned one last time for the night at the Subculture Stage to watch The Uh Ohs set. It was a solo performance by Anastasia complete with a costume and a moment of celebration with a "cheers!" I captured a Welsh hymn that Anastasia performed partially in Welsh.
https://youtu.be/5V1sf4aN9cc I returned to Bloodline to capture the beginnings of the set of Rosie Thomas. She had requested that the Audiofeed media team capture a song she would be opening the set with because she was bringing up her kids. The song was called "The Glory Of Love." I captured the footage from the back of the tent, as usual, and I assume some other members of the media team captured better content that I did. Nonetheless, I did show up to capture that part of the set. I sent my clip to Rosie through Facebook Messenger (I wasn't sure how else to go about it) in case she wants to use it.
https://youtu.be/z8W5Nf006VA I hoped to return to see more of The Uh Ohs set but it had ended. I decided to make my way over to Burningtown to see some of the set of Mitch McVicker. I assumed he might be part of the Rich Mullins tribute at the end of Audiofeed but that turned out to be a bad assumption, ha! so I am glad I caught his set on this night. I captured a song in which he looped a bunch noises then played a song over it. The noises included a rubber chicken and a toilet seat lid. He did this a few different times and it was pretty fun to watch.
After the music ended, while I was outside of the Bare Bones Tent, one of the Hanley's walked by playing a pipe or flute as folks left the Rosie Thomas set. We hung around for a bit with friends at the Bare Bones, finally leaving Audiofeed for the night at around 2:30am. As we approached the Rodeway Inn, we encountered deer in the nearby field.
https://youtu.be/aEeq7wXoNOA We woke on Friday July 2nd, 2024 for the second day of Audiofeed X. We got ready, ate some breakfast, then headed to the grounds to start the day. We arrived and found that Bare Bones had already been utilized! After prepping with sunscreen and bug spray, I loaded up my water backpack to utilize throughout the day then we relaxed in the tent for a bit before I headed out to check out Cicada at Bloodline.
https://youtu.be/gXJ6L0lIpNA Cicada appeared to be quite young and played some good aggressive heavy music. I captured a song toward the end of their set. I thought it would have been more fun had they been dressed like cicadas ha! It turned out, they were the only cicadas at the fest.
https://youtu.be/5bL2LV7jVaU As I was leaving the Bloodline Stage, I stopped to talk a bit with Bryan Hampton about his Chalklines set and the video footage I had captured of it. I arranged with him on getting the footage to him for his purposes. While talking, he mentioned that Isaiah Bridgewater was about to play on the Front Porch. I stated heading over to check that out and while waiting in the shade, Elphie came along with her iPhone as she captured footage. She had done a festival walk through which included story time at the Park, a quick clip of the Inkwell event in Tuned Up, a stop by the Subculture, and passing through the outdoor vending under the grandstands. She captured a conversation I was having with Jim Eisenmenger as he highly suggested checking out Terminus Victor (a great recommendation!). Elphie walked into Bloodline as I set up the camera, capturing a bit of the Terminus Victor sound check. She captured me adjusting the focus of the camera and a guy trying to play his Shofar. She then stopped into the Road Dog and on her way out, encountered Jerry Moshgramps. I captured a song from Isaiah Bridgewater as he played his saxophone. Elphie headed back over to Bare Bones.
A quick note in regards to the editing process. I kept having trouble getting Isaiah's name straight. I knew it began with "I" and was an Old Testament name. I went with "Isaac" at first. I thought I had corrected it in my Instagram post but apparently I did not...I had only corrected it on Facebook. I mislabeled this video (as well as the embedded graphic) so I fixed it upon hearing from Isaiah through is dad's account. I then misspelled it as Isiah before getting it right the third time. My apologies Isaiah! Also, I have run into some sort of issue with the video file of the footage Elphie shot that goes into the project here. I tried to make another file and it seemed to work but then a couple days later, it wasn't functional again. I am not sure the solution here.
https://youtu.be/tDGxzeZSGK4 At Jim's suggestion, I did watch Terminus Victor and I really enjoyed them I captured a song about midway through their set and stayed for the whole thing. I intended to get their music but no one was at their merch when I walked by and when I came through a bit later, it was gone. I suppose I will get it through a Bandcamp Friday in a few weeks.
https://youtu.be/JmnWZjBV7jg The guy was back by the Bare Bones trying to play his Shofar for the xDoulosx crew who had arrived and Elphie captured that as well. While sitting at Bare Bones I was curious about the music I heard playing at Burningtown. It turned out to be The Maggie Valley Band. Maggie Valley is near where Elphie grew up. I decided to head over and capture a song from their set. It turned out to be the last song.
https://youtu.be/sSHyk7kuDHE I had started the grill to cook our venison steaks and corn then went over to capture some footage of Kevin Schlereth's set at Burningtown. He was on the ground among the crowd as is the typical style for a Kevin Schlereth show. I captured the song "Sting" which he introduced speaking about the passing of Cindy Lane and referencing a memorial that was held in her honor in the morning. At the very beginning of the clip, Kevin encouraged folks to take advantage of the 25% off ticket deal for Audiofeed next year and announced that tickets were already on sale.
I returned to the Bare Bones to start cooking the meat to find that the back wall had detached due to a big gust of wind. I tried several times to fix it but to no avail. We would eventually just open up the back end. Perhaps next year I will adjust the set up a bit to try to work better with the wind conditions.
https://youtu.be/m_ef_YzZMzM While dinner was cooking, I walked over to Tuned Up to catch some of Egypt Speaks set and capture some footage. I captured a poem about how she isn't political and I really enjoyed that poem so I am glad I captured it. I caught the rest of the set before returning to Bare Bones to attempt to batten down the hatches again to no avail. I checked on the process of cooking the meat for dinner as well.
https://youtu.be/CE-oP6b7nuY I headed back over to Bloodline to see some of the SPACESHIPS set. On my way, there was Dittman K. Rat hanging outside. I don't really know what the story is about Dittman K. Rat but they have been around the festival for a bit now. I captured the song Measure by SPACESHIPS and unfortunately Nat had a moment where he forgot the line. It was a great song so I am glad I captured it despite that little hiccup. I headed back to Bare Bones after their set so I could eat my dinner. I cooked the venison steaks with onions on the grill. I had pre-seasoned the meat but figured I'd add the onion as well. I think it turned out pretty good. I may have overcooked it a bit with the running around I was doing. I also got to try the Mountain Dew Freedom Fusion which was lemonade and peach. I could taste the lemonade but I didn't really notice the peach.
https://youtu.be/xpJCXQ59qqQ I immediately left after eating to see some of Diaspora A.D. on the Tuned Up Stage. I missed the beginning of the set but I captured a tune called Ring Them Bells which was a Jamaican inspired tune with reggae blended into the metal. The entire project is metal infused "negro spirituals" and Jay Goodwin spoke about Rosetta Tharpe, the African American woman who actually invented rocknroll by adding distortion to Gospel music. I didn't get to see a lot of the set but this song and the rest I got to see were a lot of fun. I ended up leaving early so I could capture footage and see The City of Yanni Depp on the Front Porch. The file for the Diaspora A. D. clip kept giving me trouble after processing. The compressed clip seems to be ok but the full size one was being problematic. When I took a cut off at the end (about 5-10 seconds) it seems to be working ok now.
https://youtu.be/iNXklshInF4 The City of Yanni Depp was a tribute to The Chariot. A variety of people participated in it but I think it was primarily the idea of Nic Gundy. I captured a bit of footage from this but the "official" clip I am sharing here was of the song "Speak." It was a raucous and chaotic good time.
After that was over, Diaspora A.D. just finished up as well so I headed over to Bare Bones for a bit during the "dinner break." Elphie decided she wanted to get an Audiofeed t-shirt so we went into the Novelty Collective to get the shirt and check out what the folks were selling. I ended up stopping at Kimmy Noonen's table and chatted for a bit. She and I were both at Mount Vernon Nazarene University at the same time and also happened to go on a spring break trip to New York City led by Joe Noonen, a professor who had a pretty big impact on my life and ended up being her father-in-law. It was a good conversation and she had some pretty cool art too.
https://youtu.be/6eZZ6NSBX-8 As we left the Novelty Collective, we headed to Bloodline for the xDoulosx set. I captured a song with a fun breakdown and the set as a whole was great. I am glad that they were able to come back this year!
https://youtu.be/RFdAjkdwGG0 I went over to Burningtown next to see some of the Harry Gore ( #harrygore ) set. I ended up capturing a song called "Playing With Matches." The first clip I began to capture was the "Deadman Blues" which I captured last year. I really enjoyed the song "Playing With Matches" and what I was able to catch of Harry's set this year. Elphie captured a shot of me filming Harry, ha! She also got more footage of folks utilizing the Bare Bones.
https://youtu.be/86xl3QjTDy0 I then made my way over to Subculture to watch The Bricks. They were one of the few bands representing punk music so I didn't want to miss that! I captured a song called "Just Like You" and the singer flopped off the stage like a fish. It was a fun set. I picked up a patch and will likely download their music on a Bandcamp Friday.
I went back to Bloodline to catch the last bit of Rig Time. They were interesting...a duo of drums and guitar. They had a passion for All Ages shows and made it very clear. They were a very loud band for just being the two of them and I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Elphie captured a new friendship (or more?) budding in the Bare Bones. I stopped for a few minutes before heading over to Burningtown to catch the one song played by Brother Red Squirrel, which was called "Black Lake, " and his tales of playing tunes in the stairwell of JPUSA. There was more music in the set but with Maron Gaffron instead of the Brother Red Squirrel tunes. He did offer to play at folks campsites for free! Elphie captured a shot as she left the Bare Bones of the Leper and Insomniac Folklore crew passing by on their way over to Subculture.
https://youtu.be/YLlUNzOZhko I went over to Bloodline and captured some footage from the IRAE set. They had played some years ago at Audiofeed so it was cool that they were back. I enjoyed their set. They seem to be sort of carrying that For Today mantel which makes sense with the close affiliation.
https://youtu.be/L9MTZVIl9sg I headed down to the Subculture Stage in hopes to catch some of Leper's set before having to run around a bit. They were late starting which made me unsure if I could see anything. Thankfully I was able to stick around to see one song which opened the set called "Saved By The Blood." There was also an introduction by Dale Vaughn, the stage manager and Skot prayed to open the set as well. There were also some odd guitar noises coming through the system from somewhere. Insomniac Folklore was backing Leper on bass and additional acoustic guitar and possibly some vocals. There is bonus footage though because Elphie captured the final song which featuring Insomniac Folklore and The Castros. The song was Tha Thu Naomh (You Are Holy). I also had trouble with this clip that Elphie shot. the compressed video seems to work out ok (which is the one you see through YouTube) but the full size one has presented some difficulty. I went back and created it again and so far it seems to work but who knows?
https://youtu.be/M83q3S8aEXk Setlist: 1. Northstar 2. Bloody Angels 3. Black Light 4. In The Air 5. Of Wilderness 6. Open Letter 7. Wildflowers 8. Heavy Heart 9. Hail 10. Lower Still I went back over to the My Epic set at Bloodline. This was a set I had planned to capture in its entirety. My Epic just released a new album called Loriella and played a few from that along with some favorites from the past catalog. There wasn't too much banter or speaking from stage as there may have been in past shows but the music was great and I was very happy I caught the whole set.
https://youtu.be/9gd5XePQpVg After My Epic was done, I passed by Subculture to see if Leper happened to still be playing. It was clear everything was over on that stage so I continued to Tuned Up to see Impending Doom finish up their set. I captured a song and watched the remainder of the set.
At this point I headed over to the Bare Bones. I was not feeling so great. It almost felt like flu type symptoms with body and head aches and chills. I was hoping I wasn't getting sick. Lee and his infamous mullet had arrived at Audiofeed. He informed me he was trying new equipment to see how it worked out that he hoped to use as Furnace Fest. Elphie was hungry so we left for a bit heading over to the Road Dog to eat leftovers from the Hog Roast. While there, I spoke to the members of ADJY for a moment and told them they reminded me a bit of All the Day Holiday which thankfully they took as complimentary! We hung out there for a bit, ate, then as we headed back to the Bare Bones, we decided it was time to head back to the hotel. Elphie captured a clip of the late night worship in the Park area while I gathered what we needed to take back and pulled shut the walls that had been blown by the wind. I also unplugged the lights we hung in the tent. As we left, Lee came back around and was intrigued to see our electric vehicle...so much so he wanted to see and "hear" it start and watch us drive away. He was car camping near where we parked so it worked out ok for him to walk with us then see the car as he made his way to his own vehicle.
https://youtu.be/oHf7uFSBpfQ While working on the footage and clips I had captured of the artists for this day, I was nearly finished with the edits when I realized I had forgotten to change the date on the embedded text. I think I had two videos left to do when realizing this. I went back through and fixed them all.
On Saturday July 6th, 2024, I woke up still feeling sore and not particularly good. I wasn't sure how the day would go but I went ahead and got up anyway. I took a shower and headed over to the festival grounds.
https://youtu.be/Kb26P5OMsNs I went early so I could see Nate Allen do his talk called "Hell Yes Or No: The Value Of Values Based Decision Making." I captured a small part where Nate talked about the new album he put out as Good Saint Nathanael called I Write The Songs I Need along with the performance of the song "Someday I'm Moving On" which closed out his session. I enjoy hearing Nate give his thoughts during these talks.
https://youtu.be/oU5kCOqJwM8 I stuck around for the panel discussion that was coming up next after grabbing a cup of coffee in the Novelty Collective area. The panel discussion was titled "Behold! I Do A New Thing: God And The Avant Garde." Loyd Harp hosted it and the panelist were Loyd's wife Christina, Jay Goodwin, and Nate Allen. I captured Loyd's introduction to the session as well as the answer each gave to the first question. It obvisouly got much deeper after that but this is what I captured. I really enjoyed the session and hearing the different perspectives. Both seminars were held in the Tuned Up Lounge.
At this point, I made a purchase from Loyd of an album by The Deadlines which had been released prior to their time at Tooth And Nail Records then I headed back to the hotel to pick up Elphie. I also decided to eat breakfast because I was beginning to feel hungry and also a bit better overall. After a few minutes spent at the hotel, we headed back over to Audiofeed. Elphie captured footage of our arrival again and stopped at the vendor selling candles to buy one for the Bare Bones that had citronella in it to ward off some bugs. I sort of took it easy on this day. I think carrying the camera equipment as well as the water backpack may have been the cause of my ailment. The extra weight I hadn't prepared for may have been why I felt achy. It is just my theory. It is the only thing I had done different from prior years except for the fact I have lived yet another year.
https://youtu.be/CPgAfvVEuE0 The first artist I captured upon returning to the grounds was Laura Anne Reitzel as she played at Burningtown. I believe I caught her playing solo one other time before at Audiofeed but it was good to hear her again. I captured the song "Slow Medicines."
While back at Bare Bones, we got a visit from Ravn Furfjord. I noticed a couple of guys roll through on motorcycles earlier while watching Laura Anne Reitzel and it turned out to be Ravn and his friend.
https://youtu.be/bG7EXrcMXO0 I went back over to Burningtown after chatting with Ravn and captured Glenn Kaiser playing a one string cigar box guitar he had built and called a "Diddly Bo." He played the song "Trouble Of The World." Though I am glad I caught this performance, I sort of wish I had stayed around to see the song he played with Jay Goodwin on drums and perhaps captured that as well. I could hear the song at Bare Bones but didn't see it was Jay playing though.
https://youtu.be/tGv6634p6IA I was attempting again to figure out our wall situation at Bare Bones while Elphie captured some clips of folks hanging out including "The Boss" Stewart Brown! Elphie and I both went over to The Park for The Noisy Do-Gooders set. I captured the song P.B. and J.'s and Elphie also happened to capture a bit of the song herself so I decided to use her footage and do an overlay of both clips.
https://youtu.be/MBmWUeDXwKc Next up was the highly anticipated "Florida Man" set. They set up behind the port-a-potties and Bloodline stage for these shenanigans. It was basically a mix of the bands Pocket Shot and Saint Of Pine Hills. I captured what was meant to be the opening tune of "Higher" by Creed but there was a power failure. In my short clip, I spliced in some footage captured by Lee that he had sent me which I thought sort of worked well with my clip (even though he had captured another song than I did). When the bands began playing their originals, I listened from a distance while getting a quesadilla from the La Paloma truck. Elphie captured a shot of me walking to Bare Bones with Lee then some of me eating while folks were hanging out in the Bare Bones. After I ate, I captured some footage of Elbie Allen zooming about on her bike and The Castros talking with Dittman K. Rat near Front Porch where they had apparently just played a set.
https://youtu.be/9ErCbuNUnjY After a short wander, I realized the next band I wanted to watch was Dens so I returned to Bloodline and captured some footage. I ended up capturing a song about their dads called "Men." I enjoyed their set as well.
https://youtu.be/sJ5T74u8WjQ I headed over to Burningtown next to see some of the set by Turtledoves. I captured their song "Clearing." I have enjoyed these two since they were in The Soil And The Sun (as well as The Psalters before that) and hoped for a reunion of one of those projects as well. Turtledoves is great through too.
https://youtu.be/Csby41UtnVM I headed back to Bloodline to watch some of the Meadows set, capturing a song. It was the first time I had seen them even though they have played Audiofeed before and I am glad I was able to see a bit from their set.
https://youtu.be/TNJt_7FpwAw I returned to Burningtown to see catch a bit of The Choir. I was able to stick around for a few songs. The Choir is another band I hadn't ever actually watched despite the fact that they have played almost all of the Audiofeed Festivals and many of the Cornerstone Festivals I attended. I am glad to have finally watched them play. I captured the song "Birds, Bewildered" that they said hadn't ever been played live before.
https://youtu.be/zTT6UdwjS5A I headed back to Bloodline one last time to see Symphony In Peril. This was one of the bands I really wanted to make sure I saw this year. I was a bit disappointed by the smaller crowd that they pulled in. It was cool to see Bryan Yost playing with them. We had gone to Mount Vernon Nazarene University together and he even booked Symphony In Peril to play on the campus in a little barn that had been the Student Union. When we talked a bit about that earlier in the week, he said that was only the second show ever by Symphony In Peril! I also got a chance to talk with Andy Richards for a bit. I told him I was planning to capture the entire set and I hope what I captured works out for him and others who wanted to see the set. Shawn Jonas did a bit of preaching throughout and true to what Symphony In Peril seemed to always be about, it was a Spirit Filled hardcore set! At the end, Shawn baptized someone with his water bottle.
About halfway through the Symphony In Peril set, when my Canon Rebel T6s automatically stops the recording after 30 minutes, there is a slight gap because I wasn't paying attention to try to cover it up using my iPhone during the moment between the automatic stopping and hitting the button to restart the video. My apologies. This occurs in the song "The Exchange" which is a ZAO song that may or may not ever be performed again.
After the Insomniac Folklore set ended, we hung out a bit at Bare Bones before we headed back to the hotel again. I am thankful that throughout the day I kept feeling better and whatever had been affecting me at the end of the day before seemed to be mostly out of my system.
https://youtu.be/uGlKp9kH2VM I captured a clip toward the end of Joshua Crozier's set. I'm not sure what the song is called but it has something to do with a family member, his grandpa i think, and how they had both suffered a similar injury which he survived while the grandpa did not. I think he accidentally started playing the first verse again but played it off as though he were tricking the audience. It was a kind of funny way of acknowledging the error, ha!
https://youtu.be/eIIZysVCWbY I had wandered over to where the Bloodline Stage was and was talking with someone about something when Joe McElroy came up and urged us to check out Joel David Weir who was about to play. I had intended on catching him last year but missed for some reason so I went ahead into the Bloodline to hear Joel David Weir. I am glad that I did. I captured a song called "I Am A Boy." I captured a quick clip of another song as well which I used in the daily video summary. This was a really good set.
While here, I officially met Jeff Summers who also has captured a lot of great footage over the years at Audiofeed and Cornerstone. It was nice to officially meet him. He had a bit more elaborate set up than I do including a microphone rig he puts in the center of the room. He mentioned the weight of caring his gear and using a wagon. We talked a bit before I decided to move on to another set. Anyway, you should check out his videos too => Jeff Summers YouTube.
While I'm at it, check out whatever Andrew Pickett has as well!
The Allen's came to hang out in the Bare Bones tent and Elphie captured some footage including getting autographs from the kids and a game of Connect Four.
https://youtu.be/MacyYVzc7IA I stopped over at Burningtown and captured a song called "While You Wait" by Make Sure. I actually sat down while there for this set. It was a good tune and a relaxed vibe. I didn't see too much but what I did see was good.
https://youtu.be/i5BjcRY-118 Back over at Bloodline, Wind Words was getting ready to play. I had heard good things and their set up was interesting with a cello player, however, it did take a long time to get started. I captured a song that didn't utilize the cello but there was a guest vocal. There were some hints of mewithoutYou in their style.
While relaxing at Bare Bones, I got interviewed for Tuned Up by Morgan. She came by later with Leper to do another interview as it was a bit quieter at Bare Bones than other areas with the stages running. They ended up hanging around a while and chatting too!
https://youtu.be/g5WNyKrmP4c After the interview, I went over to Burningtown to catch some of Freddie Losambe's set. I captured a funny moment where he may jokes about church and his relatives who come late and other silly stuff. The song was fairly short but I found the entire thing to be pretty funny.
Elphie went over to the Urbana Theological Seminary tent where there was a chocolate fondu fountain. I thought she was going to hit up The Park for the Audiofeed birthday cake as well but she didn't.
https://youtu.be/LxEH64QW9z4 Back at Burningtown, Orion Walsh was playing. I happened to capture a cover of "Ring Of Fire" complete was kazoo and a banana shaker. I was able to see Orion play last year as well and I enjoyed that set too so I was glad I could catch him again this year.
At this point, there was a true dinner break. I walked over to see if there was anything planned at the Front Porch during the 5pm slot and found nothing. I decided to get a BBQ Mac and Cheese from the T and G BBQ truck. It was quite good. While I waited on it, I saw DaMac walk by and realized I missed his set down at Subculture. I was bummed about that. I ate my dinner over at Bare Bones and hung out with Andrew Weichart for a bit. We talked a little earlier and he felt I had blown him off the day before. I think it was probably while I wasn't feeling so great so I apologized. We had some good discussion for a bit and I am glad we did. After eating, Axel Larsen came along with some water balloons. I decided to let him get me with one. It was a bit awkward due to its color and shape ha! He was squirting me with it and it eventually popped.
https://youtu.be/4043FxYT72c I returned to Burningtown for the Good Saint Nathanael set. He planned to play through his new album and he started the set with a couple songs from the older album. I ended up capturing a song called "I Think You've Got Potential" and also a clip of "Everything's Perfect. Everything's Fine" which I used in the daily summary and reel projects. I enjoyed the set as a whole including the new music.
While this was going on, over at Bare Bones a guy named Joel brought a bunch of ice cream and started an ice cream social. Elphie moved the table to outside the tent area and sort of tried to distance herself from it ha! It was not a planned thing as we intended to keep our tent pretty free of organized events or anything like that. Apparently those who partook of the ice cream did well to clean up after themselves as well so that was nice.
https://youtu.be/taUFMGsCsNE After stopping by Bare Bones to see how that whole ice cream thing went, I moved along to Bloodline to see Joe Baughman + the Righteous Few. I missed their set last year but I remember seeing clips from others of this group in choir robes and so I was curious to see what they were like. I captured a couple clips and they were both pretty fun. I ended up using the short clip I had captured for the daily summary and reel projects.
https://youtu.be/YKBr1xx1n3E As I approached Burningtown to see some of Rusty Vining's set. I encountered Stewart Brown who wanted to share a message for more folks to come out to Audiofeed. If you know what's good for ya, you should listen to Stewart as he is the boss! You don't want to get fired! I ended up capturing a song that Rusty said was "A Blessing Song." I'm not sure if that was the title but it is what I ended up titling it. It was song somewhat to the tune of "Amazing Grace" I thought.
I tried to get down to Subculture to see Brave Days but they had just finished up. I stepped into Tuned Up to see if the Brothers McClurg were playing Rich Mullins tunes for their set as part of the Night For Rich Mullins but they were not.
https://youtu.be/0LlrX1Y1gFQ I returned to Bloodline to catch some of the ADJY set. I really enjoyed them last year...getting the All the Day Holiday vibes so I was hoping it would work out to see them play again. I captured a song called "One Fourth Of July."
Elphie continued to hang out at Bare Bones with anyone and everyone who stopped by.
At this point there is a slight variation from the actual events to the video projects. I went into Tuned Up and captured part of the Q and A / interview with David Mullins. I thought about having it be its own clip and posting it that way but I decided to include it with the footage I captured of the tribute set a little bit later in the evening. The footage I captured and shared of David Mullins was interesting. He talked of some of his favorite songs that Rich Mullins put out and then shared what he would say to Rich today if he could. He joked about wearing a seatbelt and also discussed a bit of the family having a dark sense of humor. He spoke a bit about their relationship as well as with their father. It enjoyed listening to what he had to say.
https://youtu.be/UcZkbjgVv5M A Night For Rich Mullins Setlist: 1. Heaven Is Waiting 2. Hold Me Jesus 3. New Mexico 4. Creed 5. Hard To Ger 6. First Family 7. Love Of God 8. Elijah 9. Doubly Good To You 10. Growing Young 11. If I Stand 12. Calling out Your Name 13. Falling Of So Many Tears 14. Here In America 15. Sometimes By Step
16. Awesome God 17. Doxology
I ended the festival spending the rest of the evening at Tuned Up for A Night For Rich Mullins. As I wrote earlier, I captured some footage from the Q and A/interview with David Mullins. I put that at the beginning of the video file. I also included when the host explained that the tribute concert would be starting after a brief intermission. When the concert did begin, the host spoke about the Bellsburg project and displayed the first album that they had put together. It is an interesting tribute project recording in Rich Mullins' old home. I had hoped a few more of the performers from the album would have been there. The Brothers McClurg are on the album and were there. Rusty Vining also did a song as well as David Mullins. The others I was not familiar with but the whole night was pretty cool and ended in a pretty epic way.
I was bummed that I had to miss Timbre as she closed out the Burningtown stage but I really did want to capture A Night For Rich Mullins and I am glad that I did.
Quite a few artists also paid tribute to Michael Knott with cover songs in their sets. Unfortunately, none of the songs I captured turned out to be any of the Michael Knott covers.
After the Rich Mullins tribute came to a close, all the other stages were done as well. I went and drove the car up to our Bare Bones tent to start tearing it down. Elphie wasn't ready yet so I abandoned those efforts and joined in with the others helping with tear down by taking down tables, collecting chairs, and eventually working on the Tuned Up stage. Once we were done with all that, I returned to the Bare Bones and got that torn down. Elphie had mostly cleaned out everything from inside and things we didn't need anymore I took to the trash. I gathered the bones the remained and we ended up tossing those into the woods as we drove to Rodeway Inn. Everything pretty much fit easily back in the bag for the canopy except the sandbags. I ended up putting them in a couple of boxes. Before leaving, we checked in with Kevin Schlereth about helping in the morning and seeing if there was anything else we should be doing before we left. He stated he may let us set up in that spot again next year! In the Park, Amy and her new friend Joel (who brought that ice cream) were chatting. He had a watermelon and Elphie licked the entire thing and bit a chunk out of a piece as well. At this point, we headed out to the hotel to sleep a bit.
https://youtu.be/G5m0LIyYBoQ We woke up and loaded up from the hotel. I hadn't quite loaded out as well as I did for our trip from Chicago meaning our back window was mostly blocked. We got back to the fairgrounds and mostly helped by picking up trash around the grounds. I focused on our Bare Bones area first but then went down the line to check the merch area of the grandstands. While cleaning up, I captured footage of carriage racers practicing on the track. I circled the Bloodline stage and then the stage area footprint left by Subculture cleaning up anything I could find there. I finished up by cleaning at The Park and then came inside the Tuned Up area where Elphie was sweeping. After helping to carry a few items to storage and hanging a bit with a few folks, we made our way out to a Panda Express. It was near an Electrify America charger in a Meijer parking lot. I called customer service to figure out the issues and while I didn't quite get a resolution, I was able to charge and later be refunded. We ate with Tina and Cynthia who would be heading north to the Minnesota/North Dakota border. The drive was fairly uneventful. We didn't stop for a charge but did take a restroom break in the general Kankakee area at a Speedway. I picked up some more Mountain Dew, getting the Liberty Chill variant - 50 Flavors in one and therefore earning a free Mountain Dew! We arrived home about 6:30pm. I mostly unloaded the car and we then relaxed the rest of the evening. I included the credits in this part of the video. It once again highlighted the tech specs of the filming and editing process and gave credit to Elphie as well as Lee for the one clip he shared as well as to myself for the work we all put into this. I included in the background Rusty Vining's performance of "Calling Out Your Name" I captured during the Night For Rich Mullins set. It is a really good song and felt appropriate to use. It also saved me the trouble of finding another track to include!
I ended the video with a throwback to the clip with Stewart Brown's plea for more folks to come to Audiofeed.
Please heed his words. He's the boss around here.
We enjoyed our Audiofeed experience and hopefully folks enjoy watching this which we are sharing of our experience. The reels are a new thing I tried this year specifically as something to share to the Audiofeed media team...I may do this again on other projects. The time spent at Audiofeed always seems to feel short but we are glad to have it in our lives.
https://youtu.be/MJX6U6YQIzc I made an additional video after completing the Audiofeed X 2024 project which gives an introduction to the Bare Bones Tent. In it, there is a bit of history on why we decided to do it but the basic idea was that we wanted to provide a space for people to hang out without any agenda. We didn't do this with any affiliation to any organization or ministry. We just noticed a void in 2023 when such a tent didn't exist with the absence of some others and felt we could try to at least fill that void. The additional soundtrack to this video is "Valley Of Dry Bones" by The Last Hope and "Bones In Rags (Shriven Version)" by Leper.
