My Very First Newsboys Concert!
Yup, there are quite a few people at this show. It sold out, as did all the California shows. And if I had been paying attention, I might have noticed a few other familiar faces prowling around. Not only were Bob Smiley, Bill Furler, Beanbag, and SONICFLOOd here, but Matt from the Supertones, Kevin Max, T-Bone, and the Real Videos staff/crew were here as well! Florence was also present, but I hadn't met her yet. I didn't even know of her existence because it wasn't until after the show that I finally visited newsboys.com and found the message boards.
How to tell I'm a Newsboys Newbie: I had no NB apparel to wear to the show, so I arrived in a Winnie the Pooh sweatshirt. Yeah...
My apologies to the Bob Smiley and Bill Furler fans out there, for this is the only picture I have of them. I didn't know that Bill was Peter's dad until he told us so. I didn't even know Peter's first name! And I had never heard of Bob Smiley. Sigh... I was SUCH a newbie... Here Bill is trying to give away some t-shirts (sign up to sponsor a child). Later Bob will try to give away that colorful jacket back there. The thing I remember best about Bob's routine was him telling us that if we were looking for the bathrooms, we'd find them outside. "We brought them with us, in the trucks. So go outside, turn right, and you'll find first, second, and third John." Oi.
Okay, let the horrible pictures begin! Here's a blurry one of our favorite drummer. Hi, Dunny! I heard later that he was sick that night, but you'd never know it! He puts on a really good show.
And a nice blurry one of Jeff to go along with. Those of you who were there (or have seen better pictures) might remember that Jeff was wearing a lab coat and a tie, which doesn't really help disassociate himself from the "Dr. Frankenstein" moniker, I don't think. Hee hee. A glow-in-the-dark ring landed on his keyboard during Breakfast. Without missing a chord, he tossed it off the keyboard and kept going.
My only Jody pictures. This does help show that the Air Dome performance was "fully in the round," which means that there is no "front" to the stage. There were mics all over the place so that Jody, Phil, and Peter could go face whoever they wanted to. And of course Duncan could turn a full 360-degrees to face whichever bunch of crazy fans he felt like. I don't recall if Jeff was mobile, but my guess is no.
My only pictures of Phil. This bottom one was almost pure black on the print. I fought with Photoshop for forever to rescue this image from the picture, which you really can't see in the actual print. I apologize for the wacky colors, but it's the best I could do. Don't worry. From this point forward I always took a lot more pics of everyone, including Phil.
My pictures of Peter came out a little better, but they're nothing spectacular. Nice guitar though, eh?
All right! Now this is a better set of photos. Only marginally better, but what can you do? For anyone who doesn't know, this is the Newsboys' famous spinning drum kit. Peter (who used to be the Boys' drummer) climbs aboard the two-person drum kit with Duncan, they tighten their seatbelts, and off they go, rising up on the spinning/tilting platform. It's very fun to see in-person.
As a cool surprise for us lucky ducks, Kevin Max (of dcTalk fame) came out to join Peter for "LoveLibertyDisco" (after the mandatory fake-exit, of course). Wow. T-Bone, Matt from the Supertones, Florence... everyone was there! Where were you?!