Wild Weekend..

The theme song throughout my head this past weekend was the old Bill Anderson song "Gonna Have A Wild Weekend". I named this weekend as such because it involved three nights in a row of concerts and late nights and product sales for all of the shows. Getting enough sleep was not part of the plan of these three days.

It's not often that the two musical worlds I travel in--local MN music and gospel--have major events for me back to back. The first two nights were the St. Joan of Arc Church "Cabaret" concerts. This year's theme was "The Road Show: Songs for Wayward Lovers". About 45 musicians and performers who are part of the strongest talent pool in the Twin Cities come and perform in these shows every year. And that's not even all of them. We had some people missing this year, but a few new faces. My job was to help sell product and hold my breath that every artist who wanted to sell CDs had table space to do so. I issued an e-mail invite to all participating this year to be sure they all had the opportunity. So due to that, I was partly "in charge", but that was okay. On Saturday I had a second job, which was, for the 7th year in a row, to cover and write the story on the Saturday show for the SJA website. I at least had a plan for where I was going with it plus a head start having been there Friday as well. Despite getting in way past midnight on both Friday and Saturday, the regular church musicians and I dragged our tired tails to church early the next morning, because that is part of the Cabaret tradition, after all. Here is a link to the reviews.

Sunday was an event I waited five years for: Mark Lowry playing a concert in the Twin Cities. It being that my church was halfway on the way to where Mark was playing, I didn't go home --I went straight to the Mall of America and shopped till I dropped. Halfway to church, I realized I forgot my concert ticket...but since I was volunteering I hoped it was okay. I was due at the church Mark was at a couple of hours before the show to do the CD sales thing there. But I wondered if I was going to make it. After I left the Mall of America, I took a walk to the new IKEA store, since I hadn't been there and had some time to kill. I got to the furnishings floor fine, but then I got totally lost trying to find my way back to the entrance. I circled the floor several times and all I saw were exit signs which went nowhere. I was starting to panic until I decided to try going to the self service area --at last, I eventually spotted the checkouts and the door. Lesson learned: don't go to IKEA unless you have a LOT of time to kill.

Now for the concert: as always, Mark was funny, LordSong and Stan Whitmire supported him beautifully, and we heard how much God loved us. Again and again, though, I will say it: the guy can flat out, without a doubt, SING. His live renditions of "Mary Did You Know" and Martha Munizzi's "Say the Name" (which I never heard him do before) ought to be enough to have convinced anyone there. Yes, he kept saying "don't think we're great, we're all broken freaks", and if you do stick around to meet Mark you will realize how down to earth he is. But, I will continue to praise to the highest heavens his vocal abilities.

It was a joy that my friend Norman came on the road again to sell product. I met my two You Tube friends and we hung out at the end to get pictures and things signed by Mark.

So ended the wild weekend. Tomorrow I sleep. And write, when I'm not sleeping.