Easterfest 2012!

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend, and had a chance to remember and celebrate the real reason for the season, the death and glorious resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ!

This year, for the 13th year in a row, we spent the weekend at Easterfest: the marvellous Christian Music festival that’s held in Toowoomba at this time each year.

I’m pretty sure I say it every year, but I think this year was the best so far. Somehow after the craziness that occurred with the freak flooding of Easterfest in 2011, this year’s festival just seemed to pull together in an amazing way that was community-minded and God-filled.

Mayana once again was an absolute legend. This kid is a born rocker, and it doesn't cease to amaze me how well she copes with such a huge weekend. We make a parenting decision each time we go to the festival that it’s one weekend a year, and three days with no routine, crazy hours, and lots of noise is not gonna kill the girl (or us). Amazingly, she really just makes it work. Each day she napped in her pram, and crawled into a various lap each night at around 8-ish, announced she was tired and promptly fell asleep. Some of the music was a bit loud for her, but we soon fixed that with a pair of baby-muffs, and she was ready to rock with the music a few decibels lower. Each day she took a trip to ‘Kids Island’ to have her face painted, but other than that she was content to just hang out with various family members, usually myself, Aunty Joce & Kami… and she has taken away a very special memory of her first dodgem car experience with Opa!

The final night was the only one that Mayana was still awake when we left (although she had had a 2-ish hour nap earlier in the evening). This meant that she was awake for the Family Variety Show, which is a new festival event and was one of my favourites. Mayana was quite impressed with the orange puppet, Zoe, who emceed the event (and who she thought was the one off Sesame Street), and with the Magic of Christopher Wayne. The kid has been doing magic tricks ever since.

We shouldn’t be surprised really, Mayana is after all a seasoned Easterfest veteran. How many kids can say that they’ve been to their fourth Easterfest at the tender age of three? Even Easterfest was impressed with that!!

Half of the fun of Easterfest is catching up with friends, and this year’s was no different. Our family My very dedicated husband saves a spot in a particular place on the hill for each of the evening shows, and we are usually joined by a whole lot of wonderful friends, making the experience that much more wonderful.

This year our lovely friends from Iron & Clay both performed and joined us on our little possie on the hill. It was so great to see and catch up with them!

Other highlights for me this year included the incredible Empty Chair Project, Melbourne Gospel Choir, Mercy Me & Michael W Smith. The Lads came back for the first time in a few years, and I enjoyed them as always. The Sunday night combined church service was very powerful, with Darlene Zschech leading worship, and a very impacting message from Allen Myers.

The Melbourne Gospel Choir always gives me goose-bumps with their amazing harmonies!

There is something pretty special about coming together with thousands of other Christians to worship God for the combined Resurrection Sunday service!

It was a somewhat different experience for me this year, being you know, 4 weeks away from having my baby. I got to hang out with my mum and Aunty Joce, and we all agreed that having a pregnant woman around had its perks… it meant that we sat down a lot more and therefore ended up listening to a lot more music than we usually do, instead of flitting around between venues (I’m not much one for flitting these days).

I was pretty exhausted by the end of the weekend, but I had the most fabulous weekend, and I wouldn’t have missed it for quids.

This year, we were given the opportunity to stay at this gorgeous little retreat property owned by a local Catholic school. We had beds, cooking facilities, showers and toilets, and it was cheaper for us than camping! Needless to say we have already booked this accommodation for next year!

We all had a brilliant weekend, and can’t wait to do it all again in another 12 months or so (we’ve got our tickets already!), this time with two youngsters in tow. 

If you ever get the opportunity, I can’t recommend spending the weekend at Easterfest highly enough!

Easter Adventures

Apologies for being the slackest of bloggers: brace yourself for a catchup!

I hope you had a very happy and meaningful Easter this year, and were able to take some time reflecting on the real Reason for the season – the death and resurrection of our Saviour.

This year, we made our annual pilgrimage to our beloved Easterfest. It was my 12th festival, Pete’s 10th, and Mayana’s 3rd (impressive considering she’s only two years old!).

My little rocker!

Easterfest 2011 here we come!!

The lineup this year was awesome… old favourites like Paul Colman Trio and Newworldson, and huge headline acts like Switchfoot and Naturally Seven! Amazing.

The ever-amazing Paul Colman Trio

Maysi and Opa

My favourite discovery this year was Canadian band Article One. I think they came last year, but I don’t remember them (not sure how I missed them!!). This year they were on Mainstage and man were they amazing! The highlight of the band for me is their incredible violinist. I’ve never seen anything like it. Google or YouTube Article One and I’m sure you’ll see what I mean.

Article One!

My favourite home-grown discovery this year was ‘Cordial Factory’. Hailing from Melbourne they feature amazing harmonies and quirky instruments like ukuleles, banjos and glockenspiels. Scrumptious.

My ‘Boo-ful Bu-fly’

It was the first festival in five years that we had to pack and organise accommodation for. We were lucky enough to do a house-swap with some Toowoomba friends, and had a lovely warm home with comfortable beds to come to every night. And let me tell you, we were especially grateful for them on Saturday night!

You may have read or seen something about the craziness that ended up being Saturday night at Easterfest. Long story short, one minute we (along with 20,000 other people) were enjoying a wonderful Peter Furler (ex Newsboys frontman) concert, looking forward to Newworldson who were coming up next.. on a beautiful, cool night, under the twinkling stars.

Peter Furler had the crowd eating out of his hand!

The next minute, humongous raindrops started to spatter us. Just a few at first, then heavier. Then the stars were gone and the heavens opened. And boy did it rain. It didn’t take long before we realised that any attempts to remain dry were futile. I passed Mayana to my sister’s friends, who were actually managing to stay mostly dry underneath a large tarp. Newworldson started playing, and we abandoned the pathetic ‘shelter’ of the picnic blanket, and embraced the rain. We love Newworldson and nothing was stopping us dancing. Suddenly, there was no part of my body that was dry. And there was inches of water running through my shoes. And I was standing on top of a hill! It was freezing and the rain felt icy. My sister’s friends took Mayana to find my sister who was hopefully somewhere drier. We stuck it out for a few more songs before we started to shiver. It was just too cold, and even though the highly anticipated Switchfoot was set to play next, we knew we had to go.

We hurriedly gathered all our things together… everything was completely soaked and it dawned on us anew how incredibly heavy this rain was. We made our way out of the mainstage, and found ourselves in ankle deep water, at the top of the amphitheatre. As we were carried with the crowd the water got deeper. We made our way down to the main pavilion, where we had to exit. Someone frantically yelled at us that we couldn’t go through… the roof of the huge structure was filling with water and about to collapse – it had been evacuated. We got told to exit through the fence, and had to walk around past another few venues. At this point, I realised that I was no longer with my husband. I was with my mum, aunty, sister and my brother’s friend. I didn’t know where Mayana was. Mum told us to go to the car, while she and my aunty looked and waited for the missing ones.

We walked through the festival grounds, and as we went the water got deeper and deeper until I found it rushing about my knees. I was terrified and freezing. We got out of the park in a slight haze of panic, and walked down the street in shin deep water until we finally made it to the place where our car was parked. We stripped off and put on drier jumpers that we had shoved in our soaking backpacks. It was so cold! I couldn’t stop shaking, though most of that was anxiety. I was so sick with worry, not knowing where my baby was. I knew that our friends would keep her safe, and that they would most likely have gotten her to my sister, but we couldn’t contact anyone, and it was still raining and there were sirens… it was nerve-wracking to say the least.

Eventually my brother appeared, and then my dad. He had left Pete in a safe and dry carpark with all of our things, but hadn’t seen anyone else. Then my mum finally go through to my phone – she had been separated from everyone else and ended up on her own… waiting near the entrance hoping to see the rest of our family as they went past. It was chaotic!

We waited, prayed, tried to get warm. We watched over the balcony, waiting for familiar faces. Eventually we saw a group of people walking towards us, and realised that it was the rest of our group. And there was my sister, holding my girl. Phew! I literally felt waves of relief rush over me, and my heart resumed its normal rhythm. I don’t think I’ve ever hugged my girl so tight. And my awesome sister had kept her absolutely dry and safe. Amazing.

We were all safe. We drove home, got into dry clothes, made hot drinks and compared our experiences. We were all in quite a bit of shock and couldn’t believe what had happened. We checked facebook to try and get an idea of what was happening at the park. The main pavilion had partially torn and collapsed, but the rain had stopped and the water went away quickly – as it usually does with flash flooding. We were all amazed that with over 20,000 people trying to get out of a potentially very serious emergency situation, there was no mass panic or hysteria. Somehow, there were no serious injuries, and the entire crowd came out of the festival safely that night.

We woke up the next morning to the most gorgeous day – you would never have dreamed the chaos of the night before! Facebook informed us that the festival in the park was cancelled due to the flood damage, but the amazing Easterfest team were rescheduling many of the bands to venues throughout the city.

Church service at a local Irish pub!

Despite the massive change in plans, Sunday ended up being amazing. There were many bands playing throughout the city, and a huge main event featuring Naturally Seven, Paul Colman Trio and Newworldson right in the middle of town!! It was awesome.

Our favourite jazz band, The Chris Poulsen Trio, was rescheduled to play at a local cafe.

We were also treated to a wonderful performance by the Melbourne Gospel Choir at a local church that evening.

The organisers most certainly made the very best out of pretty awful situation, and I think they should be applauded.

As always, Easterfest this year was an amazing weekend, and this year – for many more reasons than just the flood, it was a very memorable event.

I can’t WAIT for Easterfest 2012!!!

Easterfest: Sunday

The last day…. so very sad!

We started off this day a little differently than usual… by going out for breakfast. Fourteen of us headed out to the Engine Room Cafe (owned by friends from our church) for breakfast and to celebrate my birthday. It’s our new favourite cafe, and their food and coffee, and everything about them is beyond lovely. If you came to visit us, that’s where we’d take you.

We very much enjoyed the time of fellowship and talking and laughing and memory-making, and it was Aunty Joce & Uncle Pete’s 29th wedding anniversary also, so a bit of a double celebration. Unfortunately my very clever husband brought our camera with him, but forgot that he had left its batteries in the charger at home, so I have no photos of this happy event.

Then back off to the park, for our last day of Easterfest.

Mum and Aunty Joce settled into the Epicentre tent, where they were having a Jazz and Blues showcase that lasted nearly all day. And that’s where they stayed all day. The rest of us flitted between there and the various other stages, trying to soak in as much music and discover as many new favourites as possible.

I think one of my highlights of the day music-wise was Sydney-based band Garage Hymnal. We only went to see them because my sister and I had seen their album in the Superstore (The Easterfest music store), and its cover was intriguing. Yes, we often do judge a book by its cover but luckily it usually works out for us. Garage Hymnal were fantastic and we did end up buying their CD. Amazing passion, beautiful lyrics and very impressive arrangements. You should check them out.

We also stopped by the Bella tent (a special space just for girls – and don’t worry, the boys had one too!) to attend a forum with Melinda Tankard Reist. She is passionate about stopping the sexual exploitation of women and girls, and had a lot of great things to share. Our generation of girls definitely need people like her out there, and that’s for sure.

We also did our official shopping trip at the Superstore. I bought albums by Sanctus Real and Planet of the Stereos, and my hubby bought a Grace Note album. The rest of the family also bought various other albums, all of which mysteriously ended up on each other’s i-pods and i-rivers the next day.

Late afternoon saw us trekking back to mainstage. No big concert tonight, as Sunday night at Mainstage is traditionally home to the Combined Church Service. The unity shown by churches in Toowoomba has always inspired me, and the success of Easterfest is indeed a testament to it.

As always, the church service, which is free and open to all the public, was packed out. Luckily some committed members of our group has taken up all our folding chairs and secured us a spot quite early on.

Sunday night was by far the coolest night of the festival, and we all rugged up and settled in ready for the service to begin.

How cute is Mayana’s warm outfit??! Here she is with Tante Lexi, in her new fluffy coat from Kami, and winter hat made by me, of course!

Mayana was lucky to have both sets of grandparents at Easterfest this year, as Pete’s parents and their best friend joined us at the festival for the first time.  As I said, the church service was packed -  it always is. And as always they did a fantastic job. A team of musos from various churches around the city made up the band, including –for the first time- a rather large combined choir. My mum’s cousin Brendon Walmsley was up their doing guitar and backing vocals also. A message was shared by a local teacher, and the service concluded with a stirring rendition of ‘How Great Thou Art’ – which has become a traditional ending to the service over the last five years or so.

There was no way we were going home early on the last night of Easterfest – we were there for the long haul, regardless of weather Mayana slept or not! She was still wide awake after the service. Pete went to put our chairs back in the car, and Mum, Aunty Joce, Mayana and I went and bought ourselves Devine Donuts (if you ever come across these you HAVE to have one – they really do live up to their name) and settled in to the Chai Circle stage to listen to some easy-listening acoustic bands.

Then we headed back to the Epicentre to catch Simeon – another band I make sure to check out every year.

 
By this time we were all becoming a little overtired and somewhat silly. This is a normal course of events for Sunday night at Easterfest. But we were still determined to stay put until the final show.

Somewhere around here Mayana *FINALLY* crashed. And then she was out of it for good and stayed asleep until nearly 8am the next morning!

Some of us popped over to watch the first few songs of the Planet of the Stereos, then raced back for the traditional Last Hurrah of Easterfest: The Fancy Pants Ball, with our favourite jazz band, Scat. Each year they have a different theme for their suits – they’ve done white suits (painted with house-paint by the way), newspaper suits, wrapping paper suits and police-tape suits. This year, they each were painted a different colour. And not just the suits this time – they were way more committed and even they were painted!

 

As always, it was a fantastic show, and the best way to send out Easterfest 2010 with a bang!

So there you have it people: the weekend that is the highlight of my year. I can’t believe it’s over again for a whole year! I guess that’s the good thing though… there’s always another one to look forward to. And next year, we most likely will not be living in Toowoomba, and will be back to looking for accommodation again. A whole new adventure awaits.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my little reviews and thanks for indulging me in a little trip down last weekend’s memory lane.

Easterfest: Saturday

We started day two with a traditional breakfast-in-the-park. We have a little ANZAC memorial park across the road from us, and the little eating area and BBQ there is bigger than my kitchen. As such, it’s easier to cater for 14+ people over there. So there we went, for pancakes and bacon. Mmmm.  
The first show we headed to once we hit the park was Spacifix. We discovered them last year and did not want to miss their only show of this year’s festival. They’re such good fun!
 
We flitted around for the rest of the afternoon, catching bits and pieces of various bands from around the seven different stages. Soooo much music to enjoy I couldn’t decide where I wanted to be half the time!

Mayana of course enjoyed some more time in Kids Island…

Before we knew it, it was time to head over to Mainstage again. Tonight’s headline acts were: ‘Glen Kaiser Band’, ‘Playjerise’, ‘Sanctus Real’, ‘Stan Walker’ & ‘The Newsboys’.

Mayana really enjoyed listening to all the music, and playing with all the people who wanted a piece of her! 
This is Sanctus Real. I really had only heard of them on my Veggie Rocks CD, where they do a cover of the song ‘I Can Be Your Friend’. However, when they started playing, I did recognise a few of their other songs. I loved them. Really enjoyed their music and their message. I even bought their album.

Stan Walker was possibly the biggest surprise of the whole festival for me. I have to admit, when the announcement was made that the ‘surprise headline act’ was him, I did roll my eyes a little. But man, he was awesome! He led one of the most awesome praise sessions of the weekend. I loved his heart.  He has such an awesome passion, and I really pray that he never lets go of it, and isn’t scared to share it, because he has a very big anointing and amazing gift.

My poor little bean was soooo tired. She didn’t go to sleep quite so easily tonight. But she did enjoy the music and did eventually crash.

And of course, the main event of the night: Newsboys. They’re my husband’s favourite band ever, so he was pretty excited. And I am also definitely a fan. They always do a fabulous show and this year was no exception.

Recently, the Newsboys have acquired a new lead sing: Michael Tait previously of DC Talk. Most people I talked to were a little dubious about how they’d go together, but we were all very impressed. Perfect combo. They did a fun combination of of new and old Newsboys stuff, with a little bit of DC Talk thrown in for good measure. Loved it!
And so did the rest of the MASSIVE crowd!
  I would love to know how many people were there -  I honestly could not get over the size of the crowd. It was so awesome!

Once again we left after the Mainstage show on Saturday. Mum came with us this time. Mayana had awoken once again, but we made a pact that even if she was awake on Sunday we’d be staying till the very end. Because it just wouldn’t be Easterfest otherwise!

Stay tuned….

Easterfest: Friday

I hope you don’t mind too much, but I’m going to do this in three separate posts. We took some awesome photos… lots of them, and if I do too many in one post my computer has heart-failure.

So. Friday.

Most of my family arrived on Thursday night, and the rest got there Friday morning while we were at the Good Friday church service.

After a quick catch-up, and some present-opening (my dad had just got back from China and had gifts for us all), we trecked off to the park.

If you don’t know, Easterfest is an awesome three-day Christian music festival, conveniently held in the town where I live. So I have an incredibly packed house over the Easter weekend, but I LOVE it! This is the tenth Easterfest that my family has been to!

We saw some awesome music on Friday.

First stop was the Watoto Children’s Choir. These little darlings are so energetic and beautiful and awe-inspiring. I love them!

Mayana also very much enjoyed dancing along to their beautiful music (all decked out of course in her baby-ear-muffs to keep those precious ear-drums safe!).

Next we stopped off to see Melissa & Tricia Brock, the two wonderful girls from Superchic[k] speak about their experiences sponsoring children through Compassion. 
Then over to a very special event, and one of my favourites of the whole weekend. It was called the Empty Chair Project, and it consisted of a 19-piece big-band who performed songs with a number of different headlining artists. The other artist’s styles ranged from contemporary to rock to screamo (!!! Yes really!) and rap, and the big band backed them all. The arrangements were AMAZING, and I cannot get over how clever and fantastic it all was. The whole show was topped off by a surprise proposal! The guy who did all the arrangements invited his girlfriend to the stage (she thought she was going to sing) and the big band played a most incredible piece of music which he had composed and then he proposed! It was soooo romantic!  This is Jeremy from New Empire doing his thing with the Big Band:
 
Mayana also got to enjoy some time at ‘Kids Island’ – a fun little area set up with a whole lot of fun activities for the kiddies, including a Veggie Tales theatre, a bubbles tent (aka Mayana Heaven), face-painting, various crafts and other exciting things. Mayana loved drawing on the huge chalk wall, and very much appreciated her balloon flower.

Then before we knew it, it was time for Mainstage! This is the main event of the day, and tonight it was showcasing the following: ‘Planet of the Stereos’, ‘Article One’, ‘Compliments of Gus’, ‘KJ-52’, ‘New Empire’ and ‘Superchic[k]’. It was very fabulous! This is Compliments of Gus. They’re one of my favourite bands EVER. I have loved them since the first time I saw them at Easterfest ten years ago, and I love how their style evolves every year and they just get better and better.

Mayana coped very well thoughout. Having umpteen pairs of more than willing arms helped of course. Here she is with Kami playing with a glo-stick-ball a friend gave her.

This is KJ-52. he’s a rapper/hip-hop type muso. Not a style that I’m generally into, but I was suitably impressed by this guy. He had awesome crowd control, and I loved watching the thousands of people down in the moshpit (from my safe little spot on the hill of the amphitheatre) as they swayed and jumped to his every command.

And this is my angel-baby. Yes she actually slept! She woke up when the music stopped. Ha. What can I say.

After the mainstage show, Peter and I went all ‘sacrificial parents’ on everyone, and took our little bean home – she wasn’t going to go back to sleep, and we knew that she needed it with the rest of our big weekend ahead! It was the first time in ten years that I haven’t stayed for the last show of the night! But I can deal, lol.

Oh yes, Easterfest is AWESOME! Stay tuned…