ללא חלל

There are a lot of people who dread weekends like this. Going to church, twice, then having to see family who they don't even like. Many don't want anything to do with Jesus, let alone their own family. There's only one way I can put this. It sucks. It sucks a whole freaking lot. Hating interaction with those who love you, even though sometimes they may seem like they don't. I'm glad I am not one of those people, because I don't know what I would do with my family, blood or not. My immediate family is something that I couldn't be happy without. All of my aunts and uncles and cousins each have a special place in my heart for different reasons, and without them there, there would only be a void, and that void would suck away all the happiness I experienced with them. And I know that's true because it has happened once before.
For those of you who don't know, I had an Uncle Steve, and he was a wonderful man. He grew up happy, joyful, and he walked with the Lord. He was a maestro on the guitar, and his voice reminds me a lot of my own, but with less of a Montanan accent. He had many excellent dogs as well, and the only one I can remember was Charlie, a big ol' German Shepard with nothing but love to give. I remember running a path around the pool so I could jump in and he would catch me when I was no more than four. One of my parents' fondest memories of him is one night when they sat around a lake and he sang and played Harvest Moon by Neil Young, and they still say that too this day it's some of the best music they've ever heard. Though he certainly had his flaws, and one flaw in particular became his downfall.
He was an addict. He became addicted to alcohol early in his adulthood, and went through rehab five or six times. Just when we thought he was free, he was chained back up, right where we didn't want him to be. He lost his wonderful wife and two amazing young daughters when he lost control of himself. She didn't want to be around him when he was in that state, and she didn't want their children to remember him as a drunkard. There were many times that we had no idea where he was, and my grandfather always had people keeping tabs on him, just so we knew he was safe. There was one month where he was AWOL, no where to be found, but this had happened before, so we were less than terrified.
We don't really know how it happened, but we found him, down to nothing but bone and muscle, in the woods of northern Michigan. The only way we could identify him was by his wallet, which had his ID in it.
Just rewriting what I know is bringing tears to my eyes, because I miss him. And I don't know what I'm going to do when I start losing the rest of my family as well. But I'm going to have the best moments I can with them now, so I don't have to regret not having them later. All this goes to my extended family as well, and by my extended family, I mean my close friends. And I have a LOT of close friends. Kane county Spotlight is an entire family of its own, and then I can break that down in to smaller families that I'm a part of. I love you all. But there's one place in my heart that I've always had, that even though at one point, I should have had a void there, but I didn't, and that is for Jesus.
Jesus has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember being upon this earth. And every time Good Friday comes around, and I watch the gut-wrenching crucifixion of Jesus Christ, I really don't feel very sad. Yes, of course it's depressing to watch the Son of God get obliterated by the ones he came to save, but I don't think I've ever cried watching these things, and I think I know why.
I know Jesus died to save our sins, but that's pointless without the resurrection. I know that when Jesus dies, he comes back in three days time. I know that Jesus lives. I don't just know that in my mind, I feel it in my heart. I feel his love telling me, "Dude, it's all good. I'll be back. I promise. If I can deal with this, you can deal with what you're going through." I remind myself that every day. No matter what is going on around me, that I can't have suffered more than the Son of God did.
I know that Easter dinner is most likely over for many of you, so I just ask that (if you believe) you thank our savior for the punishment he faced, so that we don't have to, but also to thank him for rising, so that we know that we can rise over whatever feels like death to us.

Have a happy Easter friends.

An Experience of a Lifetime: Imagine Dragons, Nico Vega, and The Naked and Famous LIVE

This post is incredibly overdue, but the whole experience has been hard to formulate in to words until I actually look back on it in retrospect. It was a night of confusion really; it was my very first concert. When we got there, Maggie and I had no idea what we were doing or where we were going, because neither of us were very familiar with the whole "concert experience". We had VIP passes, so we got to enter in through backstage. The only problem with that, is that we were lost almost immediately. We tried about four different ways to go, and we finally found our way in to the arena. We were there really early. In the whole arena, only about thirty seats were filled. The front was packed almost immediately upon entering. Everyone wanted to be as close to the stage as humanly possible, and they did just that. So did we.
In the beginning of the concert we were about thirty-five feet from the stage to the right (if you can vaguely envision that). We waited there for a good hour, just chilling out, waiting for the show to start. To be perfectly honest, I felt quite claustrophobic in the small amount of people that were there, and I feared that later on, we would be moshing. But then eventually we started to talk to the people around us. There were a couple of short, pretty girls there. I remember noticing the older one specifically because of her fantastically pink hair and thinking that their mother looked like my Aunt Julie who lives in Australia. The older one with the pink hair was (if I remember correctly) Zoe, and her sister was Hannah. She started off our first conversation by exclaiming, "Man, I hope there's moshing here tonight.", and I just laughed and responded, "I have a feeling there's going to be moshing here tonight, so don't worry." And the four of us just kind of hit it off from there. We talked schools, boys, celebrities, girls, our mutual interest in bands, etcetera. They were quite fun to be around. I made short jokes, Maggie made Jon jokes, all three of them made boy jokes; we just had a blast.
After what seemed like an eternity, the opening act, Nico Vega, finally marched on and started to play. I've loved Nico Vega for a while now, and I felt like a total hipster, because for once in my life I knew an indie band that all these music junkies didn't. I was very happy to find that they rocked live as well as on recording, and it made me even happier to hear the people around me saying things like, "Why haven't I heard of these guys before? They're good!" or "I'm looking them up later." Nico Vega ends, and there is an overly long thirty minute wait for The Naked and Famous to appear as the second act of the night. Was it worth the wait? Sadly, no.

As The Naked and Famous took the stage, I immediately pointed out that they looked like they were trying to be super hipster, and I was SO right. The guitarist had that Macklemore style, short on the sides, long on top, hairdo, but just a tad longer; the pianist and female vocalist had a more slicked back version of the former. They also dressed as hip and new as possible. Their whole vibe just bugged me; I felt like they thought they were better than us. The music they played was alright. It did not make me want to run and but their album. I liked how much bass they used though. Those of you who know me well enough have probably heard me say that my soul is made of bass, so this pleased my soul. But other than that, The Naked and Famous felt more like that awkward church band that tries to be super cool and mix things up but always ends up falling flat.

Then, on the eighth day, God created Imagine Dragons.

That's obviously not how it really worked, but the the sound of ultimate indie rock glory filled my ears  and kept me entranced once the two (or so) hour performance began. They began with an opening riff while a huge jumbotron-like sphere displaying a moon rose, and since then, it's been a blur. I don't even remember all the songs they played, I only remember Radioactive, Monster, Tiptoe, and Top of the World, even though there were so many more than that. All of their songs sounded BETTER live than on recording, and my biggest fear when seeing a band live is if they suck live. That is not the case with Imagine Dragons. Each member played their part skillfully and the only stuff that was backtracked was some of the multilayered synth stuff because there was only one keyboard dude who also played a ton of other instruments. One thing I'm happy to remember distinctly was when Imagine Dragons played one of the greatest rock songs ever written, Tom Sawyer by Rush.

Imagine Dragons
Played a Rush song
And they did it really freaking well.
I CAN'T EVEN

Imagine Dragon's drummer, Daniel Platzman, was sick behind that set. He obviously doesn't have the Neil Peart drum cage, but he made due with what he had, and he made due well. The lead guitarist Wayne Sermon and bassist Ben McKee both had their own solos, and brothas can JAM. Sermon had some of the tastiest licks I've heard from any guitar. He's going to go places. See, I can't even formulate professional sentences anymore because my fire for Imagine Dragons has been rekindled.

I'll end here, but I have to thank a few people first. I have to thank Shure first off, and their artist relations guy, C. I can't name him by name, but I hope he gets to read this and know how grateful I am that he could make this happen. I have to thank my best friend Maggie, for accompanying me to one of the most spectacular nights of my life and for being there when others weren't. I have to thank Imagine Dragons, even though they will most likely never read this, for being my favorite band and for killing it. I lastly have to thank my mother, who went through all the trouble of talking to Shure and making sure that I represented them well, and for all the hard work she has ever done for me and will do. Words will never be enough to explain how much I appreciate you mom, but I'll do my best to show it more in the future.

So bottom line, Imagine Dragons rules.


FUN FACT: Did you know that Dan Reynolds of Imagine Dragons is married to Aja Volkman of Nico Vega and they have a kid? Probably not. I didn't know until I researched the bands a bit.