i'm an addict :)

today we went to palmy.mum got me a rubix cube key-ring. i'm addicted :) (the picture supplied was before i mixed it up. i don't think i'll ever get it back to normal :P

nate

Sudden Urge

I had a sudden urge to blog.
I am so sick of facebook.
Today was real random. I went to work, which is odd for a Tuesday... but Beka's coming on Thursday (YAY!) and I can't miss that.
Work was good. I actually felt like I was beating the blues.
Then I got home, did nothing, and got even more depressed.
:(
Seriously. I used to never get depressed but now it happens all the time.
I think I'm trying to hard to do everything.
The thing is I am finding it so hard to let go. Of everything. Some things have been getting on top of me lately and it's all happening at once. Once again I'm trying to find my place in the world. Thought I'd found it last year, but then a bombshell dropped and changed everything.
So as a result I keep feeling really emo.
When is it going to end?
To cheer myself up I put up a flash new blog header. Do you like it? It reminds me so much of summer.... the best thing which happened this year (now I've got the winter blues! lol). I added some pretty balloons for effect on paint.
I really think I should write a song about this. At least it'll make for some intresting lyrics.
One good thing today though! This guy from our church got baptised at the pool today! It was so refreshingly beautiful after my little emotional moment. Reminded me of when I took the plunge (bad joke sorry) and got baptised in the sea at Foxton Beach. Gave me strength to keep on. God is awesome how he can bless someone else and bless you at the same time.
I love my church family!
Oh gosh now I'm going to cry all over again.....
Sorry if I've dumped all my feelings on you. It's called "Internet Therapy" and it's when you tell a whole bunch of strangers from the USA, New Zealand, and other places, your struggles just to get it all off your chest (and they hopefully sympathise/offer encouragement.... :D)
Thank you so much for listening.
(or rather reading, but you get my gist)
Something I learnt today - we're called to be a light to the world, but sometimes we ourselves need that light.

Anyway, tommorrow I have concluded I'm going to hop on my bike with some water and maybe a few rasins and bike as far as I want too.
Even if it's raining!
It will be EPIC!
Oh and Beka's coming home too! I am vury excited.
Thank you to anyone who's reading this post. You may not know it, but simply reading just means a lot to me.

Jordan

Today

....was one of those days.

Jordan

Two or three songs I'm keen on...

This is an awesome song. I've been officially obsessed with Capital Lights after this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CIKxLxJO2o
Leeland! They were so good live at Parachute! They just were so worshipfull. Also one of the best bands I've ever seen! This song is my ultimate favourite worship song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ajIFfSaEzE&feature=related
And finally Playjerise! Awesome Aussie band... They play accoustic, and it's so nice and relaxing. Great musicans too! I've been addicted to this song aye...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kjUuVUBDjk

Seriously follow these links. You will not regret it.
Technically speaking we should be putting out some of our own music up here though. Sorrry about that... things have been a little slow on the band front lately. Still we're hoping to start gigging more and have a vauge plan of doing some recording these holidays...
Missing our top photographer though...
Kinda feels like after Parachute we're on a voyage of re-discovery.
But with God on our side we'll make it out in the end.
Hope you're ready for some awesome music in 2010!

Love from Mayday

sudden urge

tonight i had a sudden urge to lie on the roof and listen to my mp4.
so i did... then when i came back the door was locked.. and all the windows were shut... and everyone else was in front of the tv.
lol i banged on the door and walked around the house then banged on the window and they finally got the message !
it was epic...
today william and mitchell came around from 9-6. lol it was fun... we filmed movies, did gz practice, and fun stuff.
oh yea and i'm a helicopter...!
nate

new mp4

yay my mp4 arrived today!
lol i love it it looks like this... except not with a hundi tennis player on the screen :)

nate

change

today at soccer practice two men got in a fight with each other.. it was ridiculous because it had no point. they just wanted to show each other how strong they were by punching each other in the face. they got really aggressive and it ended up finishing the practice. it left me thinking - whats the point ?
why does this world have to constantly live in hate and stupidity? why can't people stop thinking about themselves and think of someone else?
i say its time for a change.
anyone agree/disagree with me?
nate

today

i
flipped
and
landed
on
an
electric
fence.
not
on
purpose
either.
it
was
maybe
even
a
bit
fun
except
it
kinda
hurt.
nate

hey

just got back from bible study. it was ggoood...
i brought an mp4 yesterday.. i decided it was too hard to live without music constantly since my other one broke about a month ago. lol my money's real down but God can take care of that...
life is good... and i'm getting reeallly addicted to rapture ruckus (not that i already was)
yea =)
nate

Stuff we've been up to...

Hum.
I facebook to much.
Bloggings better anyway.
:D
We had a mean as band practice today! We did like about 10 of our songs which was EPIC! We havn't done that many songs for ages... Most of them sounded really good except for Speechless, cos we we're a little unpracticed at it.
Bible study was great tonight too!
Yeah...
Oh and we're also thinking of entering Smokefree Rockquest too. The biggest band comp in Nz.... should be pretty cool if we end up being able to it!

Jordan

fail.

this post is fail.
it is fail because it has no point.
it has no point because it fails.
this post is full of fail.
nate

Nothig much cranking...

Wassup?
We had a sweet band practice the other day, but we're getting a little desperate for a gig at the mo. It's been a month and a bit since our last one (Parachute.)
Church camp was really awesome! If you haven't read about it already, go check out n8's blog two ones down from this. (Or maybe one) Worship leading was pretty nerve-wracking, but once I was doing it, it was just such a release.... real cool time. Also my Grandad's out of hospital too so that's really awesome. Thank God for his quick recovery (he's not complety back to normal yet but he's making a pretty quick recovery under the circumstances).
Umm that's all the news for now...

Jordan

i just got off the drums..

i'd been on for almost two hours lol. i played along to most of my favourite songs, including...

streams of woe at archeron - falling up
wonderland - magnify
brothers in arms - mumsdollar
i'm not alright - sanctus real
four letter lie - false start
meant to live - switchfoot
the older i get -skillet
all things new - rapture ruckus
shout it from the rooftops - willet
blown away - magnify
as we fall - trigger theory
what are you afraid of - trigger theory
zero - hawk nelson
tonight - rapture ruckus
hold on - rapture ruckus
war and peace - willet
vanilla twilight - owl city (best song ever-!)
stand in the rain - superchic
move - thousand foot krutch
moonlit - thousand foot krutch

it was really fun!
nate

what follows was one of the best weekends of my life....

so on friday we went down to foxton for church camp... every year it gets better and better!
we stopped at mcdonalds in palmy for tea and beka was there! it was gooood to see her again lol..
when we got to the camp, we found our rooms and stuff. me, william, johno, mitchell, (my mates) and dan were in the same room in the youth rooms.
lol this was soooo funny... so we fell asleep at like 1:30 in the morning, and me, johno, william and mitchell woke up at 4. lol and we couldn't go back to sleep so we quitely talked.. then we got in trouble with everyone, so at 4:30 in the morning we went into the hall and watched the sun come up and talked till seven...
lol everyone hated us for waking them up but they got over it :)
so i'd brought my snare drum and crash cymbal for the talent night but ended up playing it for worship on saturday. lol it was actually really good!
we had this petition thing and got someone to sign it with a shock pen... it was pretty funny...
it started years ago when there weren't peaches for breakfast so me and william got people to sign a petition to bring the peaches back to breakfast lol... :)
so our youth speaker was a guy called morgan. he thought i was a good drummer!!! he talked about protecting our hearts. it was pretty good.
after lunch we went down to the beach...
i'll just explain something...
for the last three years we've been to have a swim and never got one...

in 2007 a guy was caught in a rip and almost got dragged out to sea but a member of our youth group saved them... and so it was to dangerous to swim...

in 2008 the water was polluted or something and we couldn't swim in it...

in 2009 the lifeguards were practicing out in the sea and it was so choppy it flippped a boat and it wouldn't restart... so by the time we got there we couldn't swim. the lifeguards thankfully all got back safe and there were helicopters and all lol... it was pretty exciting.
and this year we actually got a swim!!!! a good one too. the water wasn't too cold and we rode the waves for over half an hour... it was gooood! :)

we got back and did the traditional gumboot throw.. its kinda wearing a bit off but yea =)

then it was the soccer game! it gets better every year. we wasted the adults 9-8. not really wasted but yea... it was fun...
so after tea we went up to the attic and had a chat with some others, then went into the hall for the talent night.

me, william, johno, and mitchell did this skit. it was funny as... i came in and looked under a blanket at "the ugliest person in the world" (johno) and screamed then had a heart attack and fainted. then mitchell dragged me off and i lost my flip-flop so had to go back onstage and find it. lol it was real funny.

then me and jaws and dan did one of our songs as a band. it was acoustic and we'd only written it this week, so it wasn't too bad :)

so when the talent show was over, it was about 9. we went over to this random tyre with 4 other year 10's. we kinda had a gang thing lol. then william, johno, dan and mitchell left but i stayed for a while with the others and listened to owl city under the stars... it was pretty cool...

so amazingly we went to bed early (1:00) cause it was the big day tomorow... wellington phoenix's last home game at nz, also the semi-finals of the a-league!!! :D me + jaws + dan were going down with the dempsters cause its william's birthday on monday...

so anyway at 7:30 sunday i had a shower. so did william.. it was really nice cause our legs were sore as from the soccer game yesterday lol...

we had this fun thing we did, when one person went down the flying fox and everyone else went at the end in the line. then at the last second everone moved. it's freaky... johno took a video of it from first person on his phone recorder. it was funny.

so at quarter to 1 we left for wellington... we were going to get foxton fizz but we didn't want to be late so :)

it was sooo hot in wellingon! we got our tickets and went to the cake tin...!

man i've missed it.. it was even better, because tickets were SOLD OUT!!!!! there were over 30,000 people in the crowd. and if wellington phoenix won, they'd go into the final of the A-League!!! :O

it was a great game. we wer right beside the corner flag, and it was like the best view...

so newcastle jets scored the first goal... noooo! but then phoenix scored just before half-time. it was crazy!!! the stadium errupted with 32,000 people clapping, jumping, and screaming. it was wild!!!... but awesome...

the next half went goaless... but there was a mexican wave started by the crowd, and it went around the stadium four and a half times! it was mean...

so in the first half of extra time phoenix scored!!! the same craziness... man it was awsome.. it was also how funny the crowd mocked the australians. in a hollywood by an aussie, the crowd chanted, "same old aussies.. always cheating!!!!" man it was funny... and we booed everyone time it wasn't fair or if they were close to getting a goal...

then the wellington phoenix scored again!!!! man it was awesome!!!not long after the last goal the whistle blew! phoenix won 3-1!!! everyone was cheering.... apart from like, five aussie supporters...

man it was a mean game... but we got stuck in a traffic jam on the way out though... :)
so then we went to see our grandad in wellington hospital... he survived and is looking really good thankfully. thanks everyone for your prayers!

lol on the way in the hospital we passed a car with a dog in the boot. jane started teasing it and going, "come and get me!!! little dog!" lol then a man climbed out of the car and said, "wouldya please stop teasing my dog?!" lol it was sooo embarrassing!!! :) ...but funny..

so we stopped in paraparauma for tea and got home at 11:30...

so yea it was a GREAT weekend - even better than i thought it would be :)

nate

Parachute!

not this:this:
four days of pure awesomeness....this one was the best ever.

I know i'm kinda blogging about it a bit late but yeh.

we had a real different perspective this time actually being one of the artists performing in the festival... ok this stage wasn't the one we were playing on and our crowd wasn't that massive....but it was AWESOME nonetheless. It was great to see our mates in metal/hardcore band Fallen World play one set before ours. They put on a pretty good perfomance.....I don't usually like metal but I was impressed!

I'll start at the beginning:

The bus trip up was pretty awesome...we left a bit later than usual though. I so didn't get any sleep the night before!

We got there and set up camp. Michael was just chilling: find it funny he's wearing a girls hat though... we went and found a place to store our gear, then we enjoyed the atmosphere for a few hours... The bands kicked off at about 6. Again later than last year. I hung out at mainstage to see reggae band Three Houses Down (very cool and funky) and a band called the Smart, who were absolutely AWESOME! Their lead singer/guitarist had a see-through axe! Wish I took a pic of THAT...

This is Manafest. Saw his last 4 songs at the Deluxe. He was really good! Just him rapping though.. no backing band. =(

After him it was back to Mainstage. Chris & Kerry convinced me too go see All Left Out, a punk rock band who has a singer with the WEIRDEST accent of all time. Which was the reason why I didn't much like them. But their set was really proffesional. It was one of the best I've seen actually. It made me like them!!!

They had a sweet as howdown with like 40 members onstage. It wasn't quite as good as DCB's last year (cos they had a banjo), but it was pretty cool.

Next up was the moment we'd all been waiting for:

Rapture Ruckus!!!They came on and did the epicest pause! It was in a half sun shape.

Then they kicked into the intro of Tonight! & the moshpit went NUTS! I was standing about 8 rows from the front, with Nate, Chris, Kerry, and Beka. But I got so utterly pushed around that next time I could actually stick my head up and see what was happening, I was stuck right between two death circles! ARGGH! I kept moshing. It was the only way to survive.

Finally I made it to a place where I could jump without being shoved everywhere, just as the song was finishing. It was AWESOME!

Man it was a sweet concert. He did Lose Control, Freight Train, a new one called All We Got, One... I sang along to all of them. In about their 4th song I found out Beka was somehow behind me - don't know how...(everyone else was lost somewhere over the other side of the moshpit)
Then they did I Believe! It was real cool! They had the words on the big screen.

They also did Hold On and All Things New, my 2 favourites! Then they went off.

Good thing there was an encore. He came back on and did No Matter What. Awesome way to finish.

After that was Falling Up. You have no idea how excited I was for this concert... Falling Up have some awesome songs and all their old vids look mean.

I was disappointed though. It was really slow. Musically intresting but really boring live. There were a few good moments in Moonlit, Streams of Woe at Acheron, and Searchlights. The best bit was when some guys were having shoulder ride fights in the moshpit and security jumped the fence and tackled them!!!!

After that disappointing show I went to bed...

Saturday was great. Kicked off with worship @ the morning meeting. Leeland Mooring (from Leeland) came and did an awesome song with Parachute Band. Then we had to go to the Artist Breifing at the Apollo.

Our show was AWESOME! We went so hard out and just enjoyed ourselves. We got about between 70-100 people there, and just let rip. I even did a jump off the drumstage (something I've always wanted to do.) I was so hot afterwards though...

After our show I saw a bit off Rapture Ruckus then caught up with some friends in the Village. Then I went to the Deluxe for 3 awesome shows in a row: Playjerise, Lydia Cole, and Triggor Theory.

Playjerise were great. I just chilled out. They did so many sweet songs! Google them. You won't regret it...

Lydia Cole was pretty awesome too for a singer/songwriter.

Triggor Theory were ok. A bit weird after all that accoustic stuff! They did some good hard-rockers What Are You Afraid Of? and As We Fall, as well as softer stuff like A Soft Farewell. Only problem was the sound was terrible. You could barely even here the drummer scream. =(

still the crowd liked it quite a lot.

After them I went to the Apollo to see a band called Efekt cos they were from a town near ours.

They were alright. I didn't like the bass player though. And the lead singer wasn't that great. Still, I managed to get the best picture of Parachute on my phone of them:
Then it was back to Mainstage to see crunk-rockers Family Force 5! They were wild! Their show was staged really awesomely though! I really enjoyed it...

Between FF5 and Switchfoot there were some cool as birthday celebrations, with fireworks and huge blow up guys.

After them was Switchfoot. They were AMAZING! If you've ever seen them live in concert, you will know what I'm talking about. (If you haven't, make sure you do!) Jon Foreman had the crowd on fire. Everyone was singing at the top off their lungs, and waving glowsticks. We all jumped to tunes such as Meant To Live, The Awakening, Oh Gravity, Stars, and lots of other Switchfoot hits. They did quite a lot of their new stuff which is so GOOD! After they went off everyone yelled ENCORE! and threw their glowsticks at the stage. Wave after wave of brightly coloured sticks flew over my head, lighting up the dark night, and landing on the stage. Then they came back on and played Dare You to Move. It was the best concert I've ever been lucky to experience.

After them I went to see Nathan King. I ran in just as he was playing Bury Me. Man he is a good performer! His backing band is awesome too; the guitar player has one of the coolest axes of all time.

I didn't get any pics of Sunday cos my phone kept dying. The funny thing was it was bucketing down with rain. Most parts flooded in some ways. The morning meeting was great. We all had umbrellas.

We wandered around in the rain for a bit, then went to see Shooting Stars. They weren't that great, but mostly cos Ben was overseas so it was Dave and some guys from My Life Story. It sounded weird with drums. After that I went to the One Life Experience. It was hardcore raining so I got dry kinda (YAY!) but the line took ages. After that I went to see the Smart again then stuck around for Sleeptalkers! They were pretty mean! Their keyboardist is really good! And the lead singer has another one of the sweetest axes known to man! They did 2 new songs, both which had pretty awesome tunes. Spin had an awesome keyboard riff!

Next band I saw was Steve Apirana at Mainstage. He was hilariously funny! Really cool too. Then I went to the Deluxe again to see a band called Willet. They were AWESOME! They did a great live show. Typical rock band formula, but a bit harder. It was great. Their guitarist really knew how to bust out the distorted solo's, man!!!! They did a cool song called Shout it From the Rooftops and a hard-rocker aptly called War & Peace.

Then it was back to Mainstage to see Leeland. They were definetly the best worship band I'd ever seen! They had a real heart for it, and they knew how to put on a great show! They got the entire crowd singing along to Sound Of Melodies, Tears of the Saints, Can't Stop, and Count Me In, as well as newer ones like Via Dolorosa, and Follow You (one of the best songs in the world!!!). They did a really awesome song about letting your light shine for God, played on a background of lit-up Chinese Lanterns. It was so moving and awesome.

I went to see Falling Up again (cos it was their final concert) but was disappointed when they did EXACTLY all the same songs as on Friday.

We walked around the village for ages doing fun stuff like mega group hugs, and dancing round rubbish bins b4 heading back to our tents.

Monday was a bit short. I went to the Morning Meeting, then helped pack the bus. We headed off at about lunch time, saying goodbye to an awesome weekend of good times, rain & sunshine, talks, atmosphere, God-space, and of course, epic music.

I can't wait for 2011!

Jordan

stuff...

Haha at the mo I'm listening to Keith Green!
:D
anyone remember him?
He is quite the legend in Christain music circles - mostly cos he was one of the biggest pioneers.
It's actually pretty good for stuff from the 70's-80's.
I actually should listen to some other stuff though. Me and my mate Chris swapped cd collections. His is MASSIVE! Like 30 cds or so (mine is half that!) I've only listened to about 6 or so. Quite liking most of it though!
I had work experience today. It was pretty great! (Even though I dropped some plates...I'm such a klutz aye)
We also did some band practice- our 2 new songs are sounding REAL good! I love new stuff! We finally got Falling Pieces sorted out today which is great, cos I thought we wouldn't be able to play it at camp...
Gosh I'm looking forward to the weekend... it's gonna be AWESOME!
I better go find some songs though cos I said I'd do worship this Saturday...argggghhh I'm freaked! Not sure if I can do it....but I'm encouraged by Paul "I can do all things who Christ who strengthens me..."
Oh I almost forgot! My Grandad has been admitted into hospital for major surgery to do with his heart.... they want to unblock something I think. It's happening tomorrow. So if you could keep him in your prayers that would be much appreciated to.
Yep that was my day...
What did you do?

Yet another new song! (...and the story behind it!)

Yes I know we must be on some kind of epic roll... Two songs in 1 month has gotta be our personal record. This song's called "Falling Pieces" and I wrote it the day after Parachute. I was inspired by the awesome accoustic artists there, and so obviously it's an accoustic song. I wasn't really planning to write down anything, just playing with snippets of other songs I'd been working on. Then I just sat down and strummed my guitar a few times. Almost instantly the words sprang to my mouth, and I played through the first verse at once "And I've tried to write this song/But the words all came out wrong/ And I think I'm getting it now/ Because it's time to let it all out...."
The rest of it flowed from there. It's really basic, like most of the songs I write (they have to be for me to sing them!), but it really comes from the heart, and I can't wait to play it for all you lovely fans live!
May God be moving among you tonight.

Jordan