EO youth day is a great gig! It’s actually like one great big tv show... loads of interviews... sound checks... camera checks... make up... meet and greets... hanging around... press conference... oh yeah and we play music too!!

The venue was the Gelredome Stadium in Arnhem, and a very impressive production awaited us. We had a great monitor check the night before the gig and just felt very comfortable on stage today... i think it was one of the best performances for a while actually. We didn’t realise that there was fire on stage during the last song and had a slightly scary/funny moment when Martin nearly singed his fringe!

The picture is of the press conference today... evans is really settling in brilliantly on stage and off and as the new boy is getting a lot of questions about taking over from Stew.

Trev and Matt visited the the famous bridge from the second world war this morning while Ian and us boys talked dates for next year.
This has been a great weekend in Holland

Dank u vrienden

This was a weekend of getting back to my Scottish roots not having been in Edinburgh for 30 years. We booked into a B & B near the Airport in preparation for Frenzy, it was hot and sunny, not the Scotland I remembered of my youth. Edinburgh was absolutely fantastic, better than I had remembered a beautiful, historic and centre of culture, something for everyone of all ages. From this visit it has shot up into the very top of my top ten cities in the world, tie first with Bern in Switzerland.

Walking down Princes Street with the sun beating down on my neck weaving in and out of numerous kilted buskers, shoppers and tourists; to the south of the road is the park and stunning views of the historic area looking up to the Castle where they were already setting up the stadium in preparation for the Festival events and Tattoo; a must visit. Lots to do and too much to see so we will have to revisit soon...

Time to head to the Highlands Centre and Frenzy, a great line up and on arrival things were well under way, the atmosphere was wonderful, a youth group playing a version of hand ball, queues lining the field for grub, crowds of lads having a kick about, some sleeping, some eating a late lunch, families enjoying a laugh together and music thumping into the blue clear sky. Inside it was a bit more business like with stands packed with offers on CD’s, books and magazines. The hall was huge; a vast metal hanger type building with curtain drapes to soften the sounds (not the best for acoustics but hey) where else can you fit in a crowd of nearly 10,000.

D: boys enter stage right in their grey suits with the crowd still buzzing from a great time of worship led by Chris Tomlin, we had managed to move near to the front where the sound was best. Their set was packed with energy, passion, power and conviction with many of the songs off Kingdom of Comfort shouting out the message of Gods grace, love and mercy but also with an edge and a sense of urgency to bring justice, to speak up for those without a voice and bring healing to a broken world. ‘Stare the Monster Down’ (a personal favorite) along with ‘Kingdom of Comfort’ and ‘Give it what you’ve got’, these were not nice sing a longs, (Praise the Lord!) disturbing and haunting sounds that engaged us in the the real world of pain and poverty left me squirming in discomfort. Then in contrast ‘How sweet the name’, ‘All Gods children’ and ‘My Soul Sings’ likely to become a huge church Anthem, helped me lift my eyes and heart in this life full of paradox to see His majesty and supremacy.

Thanks boys and Frenzy a great day! Thanks Scotland and in particular Edinburgh for being beautiful!

A final bit of advice.... ‘Give it what you’ve got’ because ‘Love will find a way’!

Al

The alarm went off at 3:30 am, 3:45 stu g is outside in the road tired VW that should have been retired a decade ago but it still runs so we still run with it.

LHR T5 the colossal hanger of a building, someone threw out a stat that it is big enough to have 10 football pitches on each of the 6 levels [don't write in, those stats are probably way off.] Any way it was too early for football.

The a short flight to Vienna and then a long wait for the luggage, everything had arrived apart from the 6 guitars, it could be a very interesting gig, Slovakia could of witnessed the rebirth of D:, fortunately for the crowd and for us the guitars arrived on the next flight and mr heaps saved the day when he arrived with them 5 minutes before sound check ended.

After the early start we headed back to the hotel, it was time to rest or run, Stu g rested, I ran. I found a long thin park full of young punks, young punks on mobile phones, I mused to myself at the irony of that picture as I ran in the shade of the trees. Then the highlight of my run, an old man taking his ferret for a walk, no, I am not being rude about his dog, he was actually walking his ferret, now that is punk.

Back to the hotel where stug was listening to a mars hill pod cast of our dear friend Steve Chalke was talking about Stop the Traffic, give it a listen. www.marshill.org

Food and then the concert, side note: never order steak tartare in a foreign country an hour before stage time, I will leave it there, just take my word for it. Concert, we are in our dressing room, a catholic classroom, when we hear a noise, is that rain? Someone asks... Yes it was, but 8 thousand Slovaks were prepared and armed with umbrellas and ready for a great night, and that it was.