The Green Bag

Waiting for the concert to start.

On July 4th, we went to Frankenmuth to watch some church friends, including our senior pastor and his wife, run in the Volksläufe. (There were two runners in the 10k and four in the 20k.) Anna took an interest in running, and has since been training to run in the 5k at the Crim in Flint later this month. Marissa also decided that she was interested, and both of our girls will participate in the quarter-mile "Teddy Bear Trot" at the event.

When Anna first said she wanted to run, I said I'd run with her. I have to admit, I didn't think she was serious, and I haven't been training. We started off our final Family Friday with a trip to the track at Holly High School, where the girls have been running, only this time I was running with Anna. Anna still can't run the full mile, (she walks part of the way) so I had hopes of keeping pace with her.

The first quarter mile lap wasn't too bad. On the backstretch of the second quarter mile, Anna picked up the pace enough to get me into a full stride run. We ran portions of the third quarter mile, and then I walked the second half of it, slowly falling behind Anna's run/walk pace. At the start of the final quarter, I tried to pick up to a run again, and that was all she wrote. Anna had to finish up the mile without me, to put it mildly. The only place I'd really tired was from knees to ankles, but that was pretty ugly and really had me wondering about the overall state of my circulatory system.

Our midday was pretty much taken up with running errands and getting ready for the evening event. Someone at church had been passing out vouchers for five dollar lawn tickets to see Michael W. Smith and Third Day with Jars of Clay at the DTE Energy Music Theater, better known by its original name of Pine Knob.

Having so many of our fellow church members scattered through the lawn seating made passing the time from our very early arrival (so we could get our pick of spots) go pretty quickly, since we could move around and fellowship once we'd staked out our spot. Marissa had a friend sit with her all night, and eventually spend the night, and another friend came over where we were sitting and hung out for a while. We had a couple of my buddies from the sound team and their wives sitting with us, too.

For whatever reason, I've seen more concerts at Pine Knob (The Beach Boys, Christopher Cross, Aerosmith wsg Guns 'n' Roses, Chicago, The Allen Parsons Project wsg Kansas, The Monkees) than at all other venues combined (Journey at Lakeland Ice Arena, The Moody Blues wsg The Fixx at Daytona Beach Ocean Center, Aerosmith at Joe Louis Arena, dcTalk wsg Jennifer Knapp and The W's at The Palace of Auburn Hills) unless you start counting "Worship Concerts" at churches (Phil Keaggy at Grace Community Church in Detroit, Hillsongs at Detroit World Outreach, Sonic Flood at Cross Current Church.)

Last night's concert was quite possibly the best one I've ever seen. Jars of Clay were good, and played a couple of their songs I knew, then ended their set with excellent renditions of the hymns "Nothing But The Blood" and "It is Well".

The main reason we went to see this concert was Third Day, and we were not disappointed. Their 70's-southern-rock-flavored brand of music works great for us, and they took a few minutes for some fun and friendly banter with the Michael W. Smith fans who had never heard Third Day music before. (I hadn't really thought about it myself, but their styles are different enough that it's not really surprising.) As was mentioned at least twice from the stage last night: even during a Christian concert, we're still Detroit Rock City, and their style of music goes over better here than in some parts of the country. They did our favorite song - "Thief" - and lots of other good ones, plus some new ones. We could have gone home happy after seeing their set.

Having had a long and incredible career, Michael W. Smith is one of the best known and respected artists in Contemporary Christian Music. The man simply has an incredible gift for creating music. What most impressed me was that when he introduced new songs from his upcoming album, he took a few moments to teach us the chorus first before really starting into the song. The middle of his set was a group of worship songs - many of which he did not write - and quite often he'd get the crowd singing and then simply play his piano and listen as we carried the song. He wrapped up with a new song that I'm sure well be hearing again at our church after the album releases in November and our music minister and choir director get hold of it.

Having arrived early and parking right outside the entry gate, we had a nice relaxed time getting back to the car with tired kids and then hanging out in the parking lot talking to friends and just relaxing before even trying to start the car and drive out of there. Pine Knob is only about twenty minutes from home, and when we did leave we went out the back way.

It's hard to believe that the summer is already over for me. The kids don't go back to school until after Labor Day (by order of a new state law that goes into effect this year) but I'm back to five day weeks starting on Monday. It seems like I must have missed something, but this is my eighth and final entry, and one entry kinda covered three Fridays. There might be one more, since I won't work September 1st and that's going to be a big weekend for us around here. It's been a great summer. We'll have to do it again next year!