Doug Van Pelt

The Great Cornerstone Experience.2

We arrived at Cornerstone Festival on Sunday night -- to have a day and a night to prepare before things kicked off on Tuesday. While there was probably a generator or two going on Monday, along with some worship at the beach, I don't remember catching any shows until Tuesday's "Tooth & Nail Day" started...

Birmingham, Alabama's Fixed 'Til Tuesday was good. Their frontman had that typical "hunchback frontman" look, bobbing and weaving to the beats as he sang and growled. "This is the most brutal song known to man," he said as he introduced a rather heavy song called "Red Basket Club." They indeed brought the breakdowns. "We gather today in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ," he said. As well as: "C'mon! Get ready for some devil bashin'" (to which he then growled then sang.

My favorite Pit Move for Day 1 was either the Shadow Boxing by the Shaun White lookalike; or the "Hop On A Foot & Windmill/Box," like a two-step/shadowbox combo...

Once Nothing played with a machine gun like metal tightness. They really got the crowd into it, with lots of raised hand clapping. One moment featured the frontman tilting his head back in full groove and drew out an "aaaaaahhsweet!"

Children 18:3 played loose yet tight, or "tightly loose" as Zep liked to say. Frontman David Hostetter was spinning around with his locks of matted hair following and his fellow vocalist and sister flying around the stage on bass, throwing head stocks up and then yanking them down. It was very visual and adds to their shows. The desperate and out of control element I'd experienced at previous C18:3 shows was slightly missing, I thought.



A Hill To Die Upon played a very intense and tight metal, with two guitars and no bass.

It was fun to "club hop" like it's SXSW or something, and visit other tents. With Faith Or Flames playing full-on extreme metal on one stage and As Cities Burn playing some ambient melodic rock to Eleventy Seven's pop punk.



I saw Harry Gore playing on the impromptu stage, with some blues jamming that included some vibrato bar squeezing and even playing with his teeth. I saw him set up in the food court with an open guitar case playing for tips.

Becoming The Archetype had a circle pit on T&N Night that went from the front all the way around the sound board. Wow.

The Devil Wears Prada played an encore on Wednesday night, where they demaned of the crowd "Everyone move!" and the circle went from stage to back around the sound board, with lots of enthusiastic running and rollicking.

The Showdown pulled out their heavy, groove onslaught. It was fun, too, as always.

Showbread was fun, even though they were a bit lax on the visuals (no band uniforms this time).



widows&orphans played a full set on Wednesday, which capitalized on the frontman's improved stage moves, adding drama and energy to their show.

Crimson Moonlight played some new material. Pilgrim's shrieks and the bassist's growls sounded good together. It even had a punk rock-like breakdown in the song. The drummer was super tight and fast.

Michael Pritzl played a lot throughout the fest (from his solo gig on the Gallery Stage to a Violet Burning show on same stage/same day to his Roe vs. Pritzl performance and a couple worship sets -- on the beach and at the Anchor Stage). During his first solo set he was taking requests, which was fun. Our family enjoyed eating dinner as the Violets played "The Sun And The Sky" only to stop with a power outage and then continue on with the song later.

Flatfoot 56's performance on Wednesday night at the Underground Stage was pretty memorable -- with lots of dancing, moshing, skanking, and otherwise lots of crowd movement. There were several flags flying around the pit as well -- some pirate, some legitimate countries.



Page France spent their time prior to their set ironing out last-minute sound questions and then they just launched into their set -- leaving their sad, expectant host for the evening with no introduction, nothing to say, and no t-shirts to throw out. (sniff, sniff)



Gasoline Heart played a spirited set, ending with lots of craziness and people on stage, dancing and singing. There was the seeming destruction of a drumset, too. The next day a friend of mine wrote me a note with four questions he wanted answered. His first question was (pardon his French): "Who the hell is Gasoline Heart?" He didn't know much about them prior to seeing their show and he was duly impressed. If the band had ten albums in its catalog, this guy would be buying them all as soon as his paycheck allowed, of this I am sure.

I went down to the mainstage for much of Thursday night with my daughter to see Skillet and Anberlin. Even though I like Anberlin better, I thought Skillet's performance and sound was the better of the two. Their Linkin Park-ish melodies translated well over the large sound system. Anberlin's set was good, but Stephen Christian's vocals didn't seem to get the prominence in the mix that their overall sound kind of demands. The melodies were still there, but his loud vocals are what give Anberlin's sound its bounce. Even in front of the soundboard it seemed to lack. Ah well, it was still great seeing their images flashed up on the jumbo screen.



Wilderness of Tekoa cancelled for some reason, and they were replaced by another band (whose name I forgot to write down) that had strung big balloons on stage and played a cool mix of simple melodies and laid-back chiming guitars. They are called All the Day Holiday, and they were great.



Sophia played several shows at generator stages and the Anchor Stage. I was able to finally catch one of them at the Great White Light Stage. The singer was sporting a busted face, which had stitches in it from a guest vocal run-in with a drum mic the previous day. The very much interacted with the crowd and went all-out, but I was slightly disappointed in the actual sounds not being as bright, brilliant, tight, and full as their excellently-produced 5-song EP. They showed that they have substance, for sure, but I was hoping for a knockout punch.



Whitecross opened up the 80's metal night on the HM Magazine Stage on Friday. I had approached this idea when I booked the stage with much trepidation. I was told that these older veteran musicians are hard to please, they ask for too much, and it could be a hassle. "You have to get the right combination of them wanting to do it," I was told. Well, the risk paid off, as all four bands brought the rock. Les Carlsen and Oz Fox joined Whitecross on stage for their final song -- "In The Kingdom." It was funny, because Les called me over shortly before it started and desperately asked me what the words are. I had sang this song with the band on the mainstage many many years ago, but all I could remember was the final word or syllables from each chorus line -- something like "strong" and "sing-along." Les made up for any loss of words with enthusiastic moves.



Bride started with the killer groove of "Would You Die For Me?" which made it clear that these guys had something good to offer. Troy riffed into the opening notes of "Stranglehold" during the intro of "Hired Gun." They truly brought the rock and sounded like they never missed a beat as a live band (the rhythm section of Jerry McBroom, Lawrence Bishop and Troy Thompson is hard to beat). The ever controversial Dale Thompson kept quiet about his presidential candidacy and his universalist theology, just mentioning Jesus as "the savior for all mankind -- especially those that believe." It's hard to knock the guy for quoting Scripture, even if it is the "pet verse" of those that share that theology.



X-Sinner was spot on, sounding just like they used to (and a lot like AC-DC) -- even without Greg Bishop on guitar.



Bloodgood sounded great, like a young band trying to get noticed or something. Even though the individual members might've found a moment where they made a small mistake somewhere during the set -- I bet most people that saw the show felt like it was darn near perfect. During the song "Seven" Oz riffed a little "Purple Haze." He also earlier launched into "To Hell With The Devil" during "S.O.S."

Disciple played an evening encore -- with two guitarists instead of Brad Noah, who is recuperating with some back problems.

mewithoutYou put on another great show, carrying the crowd along with them for the entire show -- complete with cloud props and bubbles.



I peeked in and saw a couple of songs from Ozzy-clone Dbeality, which features David Benson on vocals and guest drummer Robert Sweet. Unfortunately, it didn't sound as riveting as an Ozzy show.

Lost Ocean helped close out the "ambient" night on the HM Magazine Stage on Saturday with lots of lilting piano, cool drum patterns and melodic songs.

Hundred Year Storm had promoted their show quite extensively, but they still had to compete with Emery, Norma Jean and Underoath on the mainstage. Yet the audience filled up quite a bit for their show, which featured a nice movie/film/projection on a giant screen and 3 or 4 tv sets.

Sleeping At Last pulled up to the festival right before HYS went on, relieving us of the worry of a no-show. They had incredible problems trying to get rid of some noise in the directbox signal per the stage/monitor mix, which cause their set to start at about 10:40 instead of 10pm. They played a full set anyway (with the permission of the great sound crew -- Aaron and Sammy -- who did a great job all week on this stage). Sleeping At Last is so good. Hopefully the world will keep hearing their songs on tv shows, radio, etc. They mix a lot of samples, keys, piano, acoustic and electric guitars into their dreamy sound.

Posted by Doug Van Pelt at July 5, 2007 10:06 AM