The Newsboys will be in concert with with Kutless and Stellar Kart in Kalamazoo, MI.

• WHEN: February 18, 2007 – 6:00 PM
• WHERE: Wings Stadium – Kalamazoo, MI
• TICKETS: Tickets on sale NOW! for $26.00

WHERE TO GET TICKETS: Christian Happenings at (800) 965-9324 or www.itickets.com

• Steven Curtis Chapman
• Jeremy Camp
• Hawk Nelson
• Sanctus Real

Tickets are only $10 at the door. No pre-ticket purchase is required. Hopefully that doesn’t result in a mad house or overcrowding for the concert. Tour dates are there to the side if you’re interested in picking up the tour in your local city. These are the dates that are currently posted on the website.

As always, I’m always interested in getting concert pics and reviews from ANYONE for ANY CHRISTIAN CONCERT. Just e-mail me at jason@b5media.com.

I want to thank everyone for coming out to see us this past Fall on the Broken and Beautiful tour. Thanks to you, the tour was a big hit! Therefore, we are pleased to announce that we are extending the tour this Spring for an additional 30+ cities. Look for the Spring tour schedule to be posted soon.

The other thing I was impressed about in his newsletter is he reported on the success of his World Vision sponsorships drive during his tour. He lists all the cities and the number of sponsorships for each city. Not sure if it was his intention or not, but that would sure put some peer pressure on you try to get as many sponsorships as possible in your city so you didn’t show-up as a slacker in his report.

What would be neat is if they came back to the city that gained the highest number of sponsorships and provided a free, private concert for all those that sponsored the World Vision efforts.

As a matter of fact, I have been to 3 concerts within the last year……and I will be flying over 1000 miles to go to the 4th one at the end of this month.   My husband has gone to 2 of the 3 with me and my youngest son (23 years old) went to the third one.  My dad lives less than 100 miles from the concert site so my son and I are going to fly up to see family for the weekend and will take in the concert as a bonus!  We LOVE Mark, he is so down to earth. 

I have been to many concerts (dating back to the 70′s)…from the first when I was in high school (our choir classes went to see Blood, Sweat & Tears @ Seton Hall University), to the Beach Boys, Johnny Cash (twice—-2nd time we were allowed to go backstage….I have a photo taken with him, my husband and 3 oldest kids), Alabama, the Oak Ridge Boys, the Monkees (after Mike Nesmith, went to a Padres game in 1986 knowing that they would perform afterward) and at Disney World on New Years Eve (12/31/92) heard a revival type concert at Disney World with Mitch Ryder, Gary Puckett and others…

Then in 2004, I got hooked on Contemporary Christian Artists thanks to the local radio station of that genre.   Since you mentioned hearing Letters from War, I will start there….The first time I heard LFW one of my sons was serving in Iraq and I cried every time I heard the song.   When I heard that the radio station was the sponsor for a concert (only way you could go was to win tickets) I was on a quest to go to his concert.   I won tickets and we could have listened to him tell stories all night without being disappointed (even if he never played the piano, keyboard or guitar and YES, even if he didn’t sing a song).  Mark is GREAT…..If you can’t get to a concert yet, get his (CD/DVD set) Night of Stories & Songs and watch the DVD!!! You will get a pretty good idea of what a concert would be like!   The extra stories, etc. on the DVD are well worth watching, too!  If you don’t want to see Mark every chance you get after seeing the dvd, well……I don’t know what to say! 

The big Christian music concert was at the Indiana State Fair last night and I was there, along with five other friends (maybe more but I didn’t see them or know they were there). We had a huge let down when we arrived:

1. There’s a line that came out of nowhere at 6:45pm to get into the grandstands. It was after 7:00pm before we got into the venue.
2. With the rain Indy experienced earlier in the day, they decided not to setup seats on the track area immediately in front of the stage, and that’s where are tickets were. They gave us the option of STANDING IN muddy, stinky sand or we could exchange our tickets for grandstand seats.

My wife and friends weren’t interested in standing in the sand for three hours, so we all decided to exchange our tickets. I should have kept mine, I could have grabbed some much better photos (flickr set here).

After getting into the concert late, we missed the majority of Jars of Clay’s set, but what they did perform was great. The music mixed seemed a little off though, it was hard to hear the lyrics, which is very important to me at a concert. One thing Dan Haseltine did that was a little irritating was that he kept holding the mic out towards the audience for them to sing. You’ve seen it happen, you know what I’m talking about. That’s cool, but he did it WAY too much. I didn’t come to the concert to hear the audience. Jars of Clay rocked out with Flood, Love Song for a Saviour, and their remixes of Nothing But the Blood and It Is Well from Redemption Songs. I was pumped to hear “It Is Well”, but they did it completely different than the Beatles-esque version on the album. As stated by David Lindquist from the IndyStar (who wrote a great article on the event), it was very much “That Thing You Do” beat to it. Great! My favorite song of the Jars of Clay set was the one they teased us from their new album, called “All My Tears”. The new album is called “Good Monsters” and will release on September 5th, 2006.
Next up was Third Day. I went to see them last year (or was it two years ago) for their Livewire Tour. Mac Powell and Third Day totally rocks out a concert, and never sacrifices sharing the Word and the Gospel with the audience. Mac Powell’s voice was right on target as usual. I honestly think Third Day was my favorite group of the three. Read about their experience at the fair on their blog.
Michael W. Smith brought much more of the spirit of worship to the concert. It was a nice change of pace actually, but somewhat of a letdown at the same time. I was happy that he didn’t sing “Friends” though. That may have incited a riot right there in the stands. Michael shared a couple of songs from his new album, “Stand” coming out in September. He introduced one song by saying 1% of church should happen with the four walls, 99% should happen outside the church the other 6 days a week. Here’s a similar quote from his website:

Being involved so much in my church has given me insight into what the church is really about. We need to think of what happens on Sunday as only 10% of what it means to be the church. The rest of the week should be 90% of what it means to be the church, the real body of Christ.

For anyone that prefers more of the old school contemporary Christian music and likes a good orchestral performance, Sandi Patty will be in concert with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra to kick off the 150th birthday party concert for the Indiana State Fair.

Best yet? The concert is completely free, although you’ll still need to pick-up tickets so they can maintain some idea of the crowd to expect. You can print off a voucher here for free tickets.

Analysis: I will never see any concert at any amusement park, ever, or at any festival with mulitple bands, as that’s what I blame for the microscopic set list.

You’ve really got to read the entire spiel, as he details out the costs he experienced like a Mastercard commercial. I responded in the comments with my thoughts below:

I don’t believe this reader got “ripped off by the Newsboys”. If he only enjoyed the Newsboys with the purchase price ($44) of the actual ticket, then he enjoyed the concert at a little under $5/song. His Springsteen concert was just under $4/song.

The benefit of going to a concert at an amusement park or festival is the opportunity to see many bands and hear many songs for one low price, which he was able to do.

Has he never been to an amusement park before? Everyone knows that food/drink prices are outrageous, but nobody forced him to eat. He could have smuggled in a sandwich and other snacks right along with his book.

What do you think? I personally think going to festivals like this is a great way to get more bang for your buck. You just need to understand what you’re going to see, which it doesn’t sound like this guy did.

Hi Jason…my husband and I drove 150 miles to see Mark Schultz at the Elkhart County 4-H fair. It was awesome! We had good seats on the track and were very thankful because the grandstand filled up really quick and the entire place was packed when the concert began!

I already loved his music but seeing him in person made it even better. He was so warm and funny and friendly…I felt like he was speaking to me personally. He sang all the favorites and then led the entire crowd in several praise and worship songs. It really felt like a worship service. My husband was so moved by his salute to all the veterans in the audience because he (my husband) is a Viet Nam veteran. Then Mark sang “Letters from War”. There were a lot of tears throughout the evening. His final song was “Remember Me” and we will remember Mark. He gave an wonderful concert and we can’t wait until he’s in Indiana again!

Feel free to edit me if you decide to post my review…I’m a novice at this. It was a definitely worth the long drive to hear Mark and his band. My husband said it really struck him that the gospel message was being heard all over that huge fairground! When the entire group sang without accompaniment…it sounded like a little taste of what heaven will be like!

Happy Birthday too… I hope it was a great one. Love in Christ…Karen Smith

Thank you Karen, no need to edit your review. You did a great job. Thanks for the birthday wishes too. You won’t have to wait too long for Mark to be back in Indiana. He’ll be in concert again with Big Daddy Weave on the “Broken and Beautiful Tour” and performing in Lafayette, IN on November 5th.

Mark’s also looking for some help in recruiting some Street Reps for the “Broken and Beautiful Tour” if he’s coming to your city. Be sure and check out the link above for all the locations and get more information on helping Mark spread the news in your area.