(just) The Bass Player

Jaws

I’m doing a terrible job of keeping up with tour pictures and things. Sorry friends. Today’s post happened over a week ago in Universal City, CA. We accidentally snuck onto a tram tour at Universal Studios. We didn’t know we were sneaking. We thought it was free, but some other guys from the tour tried it later and got the boot. Whoops…my bad. But, that’s part of being in a rock n roll band, right? Sneaking into things…even if it is an accident?

It was a fun tour. It ran us through Jaws, Jurassic Park, Back To The Future, King Kong, Fast and the Furious, and a bunch of other stuff.

Jurassic Park

Clock Tower from Back to the Future!

Ship from King Kong

Dancing cars from Fast & Furious

The best part of the day was right before the concert. We had the great privilege of meeting one of our favorite childhood stars, Candace Cameron! Otherwise known as DJ Tanner from Full House. It was extremely awesome, and she’s super cool. We also got to meet her sister and husband who among other things, own a faith-based toy company called Alphabet Alley. It’s a great resource for toys with solid spiritual values. Check it out.

Sanctus Real with Candace Cameron and the Flemings!

Our favorite DJ is defeinitely DJ Tanner

Where's my sandwich?

What the heck am I thinking about in this photo? 10 points for the best caption…

Anyway, I’m going to run off from Universal City, CA here and try to write about Lake Tahoe. Catch you up north!

I love being on the road during fall.

Sanctus Real does not love flat tires on the bus.

We do love playing concerts, especially when people come to them.

Pete and World Vision Dan love pointing at their past roommate's names. Hi Andy and Josh.

We’re 3 days into the Come To The Well tour with Casting Crowns, The Afters, and Linsday McCaul, and so far it’s really great. The atmosphere is uplifting and Christ-centered, probably more than any other tour we’ve ever been on. And the three shows we’ve played in El Paso, Phoenix, and Corona, CA have gone really, really well. A huge thank you to everyone who’s come out to them. You make it much easier to be away from home.

What’s the deal? I pack undergarments for 2 weeks, it’s only been 1, and yet I’ve run through all my socks. Where am I going wrong? Is it some deep-seeded need for extra clean feet or just poor arithmetic? Either way, I can’t be starting a tour as awesome as Come To The Well without socks. That’s no way to make new friends.

Anyway, enough talk of socks. Here’s some photos of us riding 4-wheelers.

A huge thank you to Al Denson for offering us a great and relaxing day at his ranch.

We’re beyond excited to be apart of this fall tour with Casting Crowns, The Afters, and Lindsay McCaul. It’s going to be such a good adventure, and we’re looking forward to a lot of truly good things to come from it. Keep us in your prayers as we get rolling. I’ll do my best to share the stories on here as they come.

For now, we’ll be seeing you in El Paso, Texas!

dan

En Fuego Festival - Verbena, Alabama.

So our set time was at 6:30pm. Just in time for the sun to set directly in our eyes. Chris convinced me to wear my sunglasses. I always feel a little strange doing this. I don’t know why. Maybe I feel like I’m hiding something. Or maybe there is a better connection between band and audience when we can see each other in the eyes. Or maybe I’m just too cool for school. Who knows.

Anyway, he convinced me to wear them, and it’s going alright until about 20 minutes in when the sun sets below the horizon. I no longer need them. Not only do I not need them, they’re annoying. It’s too dark. It’s too dark, and surely everyone in the crowd wonders why this idiot is wearing sunglasses when it’s dark. He thinks he’s so cool. At about this time I see Chris take his sunglasses off and put them on his amp. I see Pete throw his Sanctus Real sunglasses into the crowd. Matt and Mark knew better than to wear them in the first place. The problem for me is that I have pitiful vision. My sunglasses are prescription, and my normal glasses are on the bus. What is poor Danny to do? Wear sunglasses in the dark and feel funny about it, or take them off, play blind, and feel funny about that. It’s a lose/lose situation. Oh, and my microphone keeps shocking me every time I sing. Unrelated, but Lose/Lose/Lose. All I do is lose.

Since there is no winning for me, I decide to try something new and play the rest of the show with my eyes naked. No glasses. A little dangerous but could be fun, right? It kinda is. Everybody disappears. My bandmates become squabbly blobs and the audience becomes a wash of bright colors. I glare across the stage at Chris to razz him for what he’s done to me. At least, I think it was Chris. It could’ve been an ostrich, a Jonas Brother, or a basketball hoop for all I knew. Although I doubt anyone brought any of those things up on stage while this was going on. It was probably Chris. Anyway, he felt bad about it, but I thought it was funny, like a great accidental prank.

So good one Chris.  Now I’m going to change all the settings on your amps and guitar pedals.

dg

What's up En Fuego!

After our day in Alexandria, I’ve decided that we don’t make it down to Louisiana near enough. Every time we’re there, it’s awesome. They take such good care of us. Their sense of humor is as quirky and great as their cajun accent. They feed us some of the greatest food. Jambalaya, crawfish, things like that. This time it was gumbo with cajun seasoned crackers and homemade fried chicken. They also took us to Spoons, their local frozen yogurt spot, which although not exactly cajun, was still delicious and again, the folks were friendly.

Pulling in, this sign was the first thing we came across, which is always a good feeling.

Matt sharing about our song, The Redeemer

The concert was as good as the rest of the day. It helped that we had all afternoon to work out the kinks in soundcheck. One of these days I’ll write a post about soundchecks and how awful they are. They’re the worst. I mean, hate is a strong word, but we hate them. I think every band does. This day in Alexandria though, everything was good. Our amps sounded good. Our monitor mixes were good. We felt like a better band because everything was working right, which in turn enabled us to give more.

Anyway, the day was great. Thanks Alexandria. Two thumbs up

Last week we played just down the road from Toledo in Bowling Green, OH. It was the grand opening of BGSU’s new basketball arena. What an outstanding night!

Over 400o people were in attendance.

Tenth Avenue North played.

We added a couple members to our band including a string quartet.

I looked cool in my hat and jean jacket ;)

Chris and Jeff look cool all the time

Matt sang songs

Mark drummed drums

Mikey rocked the Hammond Organ. We’ve never had someone do that with us before. It was awesome!

I looked angry and pointed at Mark, but I wasn’t really angry at all.

At the end, BG gave us all hats to wear

And one of the coolest things anyone has done for Sanctus Real, the promoter, Scott Bressler, had a brick made to mark the event. Next time you’re in BG, you’ll have to look under the right wing of the Falcon statute and see it.

Thank you to everyone who came to the show and made it such a special night. Can’t wait to do it again. And Thank you Brett Thomas for letting me post your awesome photos.