Pictures and Other Memorabilia

I believe every band has their own funny memories. We have several too! Such as the time when we agreed to play at a local mall. While we were playing, a little old lady screamed "Horrible, horrible!" at Jerry as he played. Or the time we performed at one outdoor gig, and it began to rain. We had nothing to protect our speakers from the rain, but a man there had a super-long tarp that we dutifully stretched across the entire stage to cover up both sets of speakers. When the wind got high enough, the tarp that was protecting our speakers became a sail, and promptly pulled the stacks over...

Below are a few of my most vivid memories about playing in the band... enjoy!

• Opening Band!

  As a budding set of musicians, one of the problems we had to overcome was getting people to play for. It's more difficult than it sounds! People have to like your music so much they'll hang around to listen. Or maybe there would have to be another draw - like free food. So Jerry was on the board at his church, and they decided to book Gabriel, a band many older Christians may recognize. The agreement was they (Gabriel) would allow us (Advent) to open for them in consideration of the booking. They agreed. Oops!

  As I stated, we were a budding set of musicians. We had no clue that opening bands weren't supposed to play for two hours. But we did. And we played. And played! It was well into the night before we allowed Gabriel on stage to play. Sorry guys... :)

• Opening Band - Greg X. Volz

  Little different than the last story... Steve Sparks (see KSWP radio interview above, for a different event) booked us for a gig where we would be opening for Greg X. Volz (former Petra front man) in Tyler, Texas. On arrival at the civic center auditorium, we started unloading our sound system and getting set up. This event was going to be fairly large, several area youth pastors were bringing their groups.

  Eventually Greg Volz arrived, wearing the very latest in golfing attire. Strolling across the stage, he greeted all of us, sized up the auditorium and the length and width of the (large) stage we were standing on, and eyed the equipment we were setting up. "Is this the sound system?" he asked. Youth pastors all nodded, Yes, this is it. "Well, it won't be a loud concert" he said mildly.

  Youth pastors all looked shocked. They huddled and made phone calls. Within a few hours, more speakers, amps and cables began arriving from area music shops. By the time they finished setting everything up, there was a respectable sound system on the stage.

• Brand-new lighting!

  At some point through Jerry's efforts, we were blessed financially - a huge windfall! Enough that we could finally purchase some brand-new 300-watt par 56 can lights, in addition to other needed items. Oooh, they were shiny! They looked great on the stands we purchased for them!

  The day we purchased these bad boys was a day when we had a concert booked at South Grand Prairie High School in the small theater. Great! So we set everything up, plugged the band into one power outlet and the lights into another one.

  Curtains are closed. We get ready to start the first song. The fog is blowing from the fog machine, getting the stage area really good and fogged up. Starting notes are rumbling. Excitement building! Curtains open, and all 16 of our our new lights are on full. They look fantastic through the fog. We sting the first notes of the opening song hard.

  BLAM! the power went out. It was then we discovered just how much juice lights can suck down. We also discovered that power plugs on the same wall are generally on the same circuit! So much for our shiny new lights...

• 'What if they put on a festival, and nobody came?'

  Gracefest '98

  We were invited to play in a festival with many other groups in Mobile, Alabama. "There will be many screaming fans as well as several A & R personnel at the festival", the invitation proclaimed. A festival? Are you kidding me? We were excited.

  So, we made the agreements, got the assurances, and headed to Alabama. I admit I (Kelley) felt a little bit wary about assurances of a crowd to play to - after all, quite a few others had invited us to come play, we appeared only to discover the promotion began on the day of the event! Hmmm... The sponsor had told us they would provide a sound systerm, lighting and a drum set every drummer would use for the event, so we decided against taking our own equipment. Yay! No wear and tear on the van and trailer...

  So Jerry (drummer) and I (Kelley) drove together across Texas, through Mississippi and on to Mobile. Got everyone checked in to the motel, met up with the other bands at a local church for supper. Good Southern fare. Motivational speaker (the pastor?). Everyone heads to the motel for the night.

  The Festival!
  Next day, we drive to the place where the event was to take place following the sponsor's directions - a huge park ringed by trees, perfect for a large gathering of people. Driving through the woods to get to the concert location, Jerry made the fateful statement, "What if they gave a festival, and nobody came?" We laughed. Ha, ha, of course people would be there! It was a music festival...

  Jerry drove through a curve of the dirt road until we came upon a tiny stage at one end of a huge clearing that was surrounded by forest. A few cars parked nearby. Sound equipment that we could immediately see would be far too small to begin to provide adequate sound for the anticipated crowds, much less the area in front of the stage. Oh, my.

  Next foreboding event - the person doing all the setting up was the promoter, and he was upset. The sound equipment he was supposed to have hadn't arrived yet. It appeared the person who owned it was in the hospital. Or something. He threatened someone at the other end of a cell phone call with bodily injury if he didn't get the equipment he needed - like, now!

  Equipment arrives. Yay!! Upon plugging in the first amp, the amp smokes and is history. Another has a non-working channel. Not good. High-powered equipment that doesn't work is just so much slag. Speakers either don't work at all or have blown drivers. We pitch in to help get things working - since we drove all this way, we want to salvage something out of this mess.

  Our combined efforts get some of the equipment working. Another band shows up, they have a brand-new pair of Fender speakers they are very proud of. We plead with them to let us add their speakers to the existing setup. "OK, but we will be leaving before the festival is over." Great! Got some real speakers. For a while, anyway. We end up with one of the sponsors' working speakers, the other band's brand-new speakers and a single monitor.

  Festival begins.
  A single drink booth is set up to slake the crowd's burning thirst. We watch anxiously for the people to arrive... Still watching...

  The event drags on into the evening. A small crowd of youth eventually arrives, they come and go as the bands change places. Toward the end of the evening I get my first real treat... 7 Day Jesus, who are headlining the event. Helping them to get set up, I explain that they have one monitor - that's it. "Are these the drums?" the drummer asks. Yup. He says nothing more but sits and tunes them as if they are a fine set of DWs. He's ready The other players are ready too.

  What a set of professionals! No complaints. Took what they were given, and used their God-given talents to make it sing! Awesome!

  Finally, the evening is winding down. We're exhausted. We didn't intend to stay all day, but someone who knows something about sound has to stay around... The band that owned the speakers ended up staying all day and night too. We pick up the little bits of equipment we have with us, and head to the sponsor's tent to receive our promised reimbursement. "We're ready to go", I tell him. "We need to get our trip expenses." Something is wrong, but I'm slow to pick up on just what it is. The man hangs his head very low, and very slowly reaches his hand into his pocket to get the expense money. He hands cash to me. "Thanks!", I tell him. "See you guys later."

  We speculated later that, unbeknownst to us, the sponsor had probably made commitments to pay for everything they promised wiithout having any financial backing. And we were probably the only group that got reimbursed according to the agreement!

• "Faith" vs "rain" vs "stupidity"

  We were booked to play for an Irving Tx. church for an outdoor gig at a public amphitheater. We love outdoor gigs! Common ground, less intimidating for non-Christians, party atmosphere. We arrive at the spot and hauled the heavy amp racks, speakers and other sound paraphanalia we used for concerts down the steep hill to the amphitheater stage.

  As we are setting up, suddenly we realized the clouds were gathering up as well. By the time we finished setting up, the clouds had become quite black. As a few rain drops began to fall, we tentatively suggested to the pastor that we should just call it a day - people generally don't come to outdoor events if it appears that rain is imminent.
  He was a stalwart man of faith. "You guys can do whatever you want to do" he exclaimed "but this rain is of the devil and I'm standing on faith that it's not going to rain!"

  "Yeah, look!" a church member pointed upward, "There's a clearing in the clouds headed this way!" Well, golly, what kind of Christians would we be if it was lightning and starting to rain and we packed up and left just because of that? Weren't we men of faith too?

  Vicki (Jerry's wife) brought news that finally startled us into using common sense - "The radio says there's a tornado headed this way!" The heck with the pastor and his faith - God gave us brains too. We started packing. Barry's future wife Aimee jumped in to help. She got shocked when she unplugged a wet band power wire - from which she got the nickname 'Sparky' that she still carries to this day. We were pelted with hail as we lugged the heavy amp racks back up the hill, slipping and sliding in the now muddy grass. Whew!

  However, the pastor's insinuation that we didn't have faith and that the rain was sent by Satan to disrupt the church's outdoor event disturbed me greatly and caused me to go Scripture searching. (I found in the Bible everywhere rain is mentioned except one - Genesis flood - it is a blessing. Probably not sent by Satan. :) )

• Awesome God!

  We received a booking to play at a church in the Oak Lawn area of Dallas - Crossover Ministries. We understood we would be playing music to a Vietnamese crowd - right off the boat. Not one person understood a single word of English. So Vietnamese student volunteers from Dallas Baptist University were on hand for translation duty. The pastor of the church was from South Africa and he had invited a fellow South African evangelist to come and preach the Word. They both had really cool-sounding British accents. You know you like 'em!

  And so we began. I would sing, the band would play and then when I spoke between songs a student would jump on stage and interpret what I had just said. I'm guessing the music came across OK. Then we left the stage and sat in the pews behind the guests as the evangelist spoke.

  He told the people in very simple terms about what sin was, how it affected their eternity, and exactly what God had done about it. The pastor came forward and invited the people to receive what God had done for them. I was pretty far over to one side of the church, but from the corner of my eye I saw a man stand upright, as if in response to the invitation. As I looked fully in his direction, I watched as four other men reached up and hooked their hands on the man's shoulders, slamming him back into a seated position in his place on the pew.

  The evangelist jumped into action. Grabbing the microphone, he bellowed in his British accent "Don't let your friends hold you back!", which was quickly translated.

  The man who had been pushed down now stood defiantly upright. I watched as he marched down the aisle to receive Christ. What's more, 5 or 6 other people followed after him.

  After we were loaded up and ready to go, the evangelist and pastor thanked us. As we discussed the evening, it was then we found out the men who had held the single respondant down were members of an Asian gang. The pastor informed us the man was literally taking his life into his hands by responding to Christ that night.

• Hottest New Year's Eve Concert Ever!

  As remembered by me, Kelley Thompson:

  December 31, 1999 - Elzie Odom Recreational Center, Green Oaks Blvd., Arlington, TX.

  I am jumping around like a fool for Jesus in front of a good-sized crowd of youth. During a song, as I was looking at and trying to engage the crowd of people in front of me, I saw they were all giving attention to something on my left. I glanced over to see what they werre looking at, and beheld flames coming from one of the speakers! Song stopped as I saw Barry jump off the stage...

  ---

  As remembered by Barry Hosford:

  Just about the time we rang in the new year — with great anticipation of a new millennium and a heightened awareness of a possible Apocalypse — we were in the middle of our gig with a pretty good sized crowd in the main gym. I started smelling smoke and as we were performing a song, I looked over at the speaker stack to my left and noticed there were flames coming out of the port on the full range speaker.

  Being the hero and valiant manly man I was, I tried to beat out the flames with my bare hand, not realizing until it was too late that the felt and plastic molding had already melted, stuck to my hand like glue and gave me some burns! Ultimately, the song was interrupted and someone came with a fire extinguisher and put out the little fire. Once the smoke cleared (pun intended), we went back to finish our gig, and, being the hero and valiant manly man I was, I played on with a burned hand!

  We were equally thankful that our whole system didn't burn up and that the world didn't implode when the clock struck 00:00 on 1/1/00.

  ---

  Jerry Reynolds also remembers:
  After Barry tried to put out the fire with his hand, our sound man David Osborne had to come to the stage (while we were playing) and load the main speaker onto a dolly and wheel it out the door! All the while the speaker was belching smoke! The audience actually thought it was part of the show!

• One-Line Memories

  Trailer - Our trailer (Archway Cookies painted on the sides) full of our expensive equipment was parked across the street from my (Kelley Thompson) house. That morning was frosty and cold, and a young girl who lived a few houses down was in such a hurry to get to school that, instead of clearing her entire windshield off, she only opened a peephole to see where she was going. Unfortunately, she didn't see the (huge) parked trailer and ran into the back of it - WHAM! She was unhurt, and our van escaped most of the damage, but the contents of the trailer didn't fare so well. When I opened the rear door, the first thing I saw was our expensive 24-channel sound board, in it's case, now shaped like a horse shoe...

  Replacement Trailer - Woke up one morning after a very late night concert, went outside to the front yard to get the trailer ready for the trip to the storage facility. It took several moments to register, but there. was. no. trailer. Hoping against hope, I called a few other band members to see if maybe they had come to get the trailer. Finally, the reality set in that someone had STOLEN our entire trailer, with all our equipment we had worked so hard to acquire over time! The trailer was eventually recovered by the Grand Prairie police, then to add insult to injury WE had to pay cash to get OUR trailer out of the police impound lot.

  Professional Problems - A national "touring" band we opened for once came to Footloose (Metroplex Chapel, in Irving, Tx.) to play. During their set, they lost "partial power"; that is, power to their instruments and other equipment on the stage but NOT power to the speaker amps and their DAT machine, which was busily playing the backup vocals they had pre-recorded. Like wolves attacking prey, the crowd began booing and chants of "Milli Vanilli" started, although the scandal around those other performers actually had nothing to do with what happened to this group.

  Play, but don't you DARE play the music you play! We were requested to play at a church in south Dallas/Duncanville. The youth pastor came to pray with us before the concert and then warned us NOT to play any of that rock music. "You can go out there and rock out, and the kids'll probably love it, but if you do you'll never play here again!" He was right - we never did.