Sponsored by Sweet Potatoes
Saturday night, some friends and I went to see an infomercial sponsored by sweet potatoes.
Now there’s some entertainment… :-/
Actually, it was the Winter Jam Tour Spectacular, but the music got lost during part of this “spectacular.” This was the same concert event I went to last year, but this year’s wasn’t quite as good. The music lineup included Sanctus Real (2nd time seeing them), Newsong (2nd time), Steven Curtis Chapman (4th or 5th time), Hawk Nelson (1st) and Jeremy Camp (3rd). The main reason I went was to see Sanctus Real and Hawk Nelson, and the cost was again only $10, which was awesome.
The music was good for the most part. Newsong is a little boring for me, but the rest was good. Hawk Nelson had a good stage present and what really surprised me was Steven Curtis Chapman. He’s been around for a while, and his music is more-or-less adult contemporary, but he put on a great show. I’ve seen him in concert several times before, but not recently. He can rock with the best of ‘em. It was fun seeing the youth on the floor jumping up and down to his music.
The worst part of the night was the “infomercial.” I hate to say that, because it was for a good cause, but it just felt like the speakers were really shoving Holt International, an international adoption agency, down our throats. And once again the speakers treated us like little kids. I realize that there was a large population of middle and high school aged youth, but constantly hearing “Settle down” and “Ears and eyes up here” and “Be quiet” and “Shhh” was a little much.
The thing that bugged me throughout the show was a countdown timer that was on the front of the stage facing the back. Our seats were slightly to the rear of the front of the stage, so we could see this timer. Apparently the show was planned out down to the second since every segment of the show had an alloted amount of time that was counted own by this timer. I’m very much a structured, time-oriented person, and I’m a clock-watcher throughout the week at work, so it really bugged me seeing this the entire show. Hard to describe why this bugged me so much, but was this really necessary? The artists had a set list and the speakers most likely had the same message as every other night of the tour, so why time them?
Wondering where the sweet potatoes come in? A produce company was one of the sponsors and they choose to highlight the sweet potato, even to go as far as have a sweet potato mascot come out on stage. Go figure!
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Feb 5th, 2007 at 07:48:37
that sounds retched! i’ve been to concerts where they’ve done the whole “adopt a kid” thing, but it’s always been short and to the point. they gotta remember, people are there to have a good time (be loud), not sit through a youth conference and being good little boys and girls.
Feb 5th, 2007 at 08:10:36
Commercials were not near as good as I remember them being in years past.
I didn’t watch the halftime show, I made it a point to skip it, being Prince and all. Actually, I was driving from one gathering to another.
Overall, I’d say Super Bowl XLI sucked! (yes, I am a Bears fan)
Feb 5th, 2007 at 16:10:45
Today a few people asked me if I ended up going (I said I wasn’t), while beaming ear to ear, ready to tell me what an out-of-this-world good time they had.
Ehh.. from what I’ve heard, Winter Jam indeed is pretty mediocre compared to other shows you can go to, featuring the same artists that were there.
The only reason I would have gone would have been for Hawk Nelson (seen them twice before.) I asked two friends who went immediatly what they thought of them. Eeek, they didn’t like them at ALL! Appearently they were the heaviest band there (kinda funny.) They were literally apalled by them because of their “screaming”.–And my straitlaced, uberly spiritually-sheltered Pentecostal pal Robert insisted that they were in no way Christian, nor did they look or act such. (Well, I guess alternative Christian music is a whole other topic).
Bleh.
Anyway, I actually don’t like the style of music Hawk Nelson plays.–They’re studio music is so poppy and lyrically bland if you ask me. They’re not nearly as heavy as I’d like them. Though the shows they put on are AMAZING. Man, oh man… They really know how to sing and rock, and get you involved when you see them live.
As far as sponsors go, with any big tour or festival you’re gonna have them up there on stage annoying you between sets. At C-stone they had a ‘Sponsor-a-Kid’ organization, too. Man, did THAT get old quick. Some guy would get up on Mainstage a few times every evening between bands and list about ten thousand reasons why “you kids should really go sponsor a kid in Africa”. Not that I had $40 a month to sponsor one, but I still checked out their booth one day in a merch tent. Uhm… if you weren’t eighteen or older they wouldn’t let you sponsor a kid (which really doesn’t make since to me. Lots of kids have jobs and could easily have sponsored one if they wanted). How dumb was that? They target us, the teenagers, incessintly while we’re there, and then we can’t even do what they want. At one point, in a monotone voice, they even said “Hey, guys, honestly we don’t have as many kids sponsored as we’d like……… Try to be more Christ-like and help them out.” Wow! Who were they to use Christ as a marketing plug like that? I don’t know. They were just so frusterating. And then when I tried to ask them at their booth how my monthly contribution would have been broken down, they couldn’t answer me. Blah.. it’s no wonder they didn’t get many people to help them. I mean tons of sponsors were up on mainstage plugging their stuff (Scion, HM Magazine, etc.)–But they usually only spoke for maybe two or three minutes. The sponsor-a-kid guy would go on for ten-fifteen minutes, puting everyone on a guilt trip. It quickly got to a point where we closest to him near the cat-walk were throwing things at him while he was speaking (that move reeeeally make the festival staff happy, let me tell you. :D)
Anyway.. yeah. I should really blog about my trip to C-stone. Louis’ parents and my Dad and I are already conversing on the set-up we’ll have going back this year. Hopefully this time my Dad won’t be leave for four days haha.
Later.
Feb 5th, 2007 at 17:09:00
Wow, the amount of spelling and grammatical(sp?) errors in that last comment is quite embaressing. Heh.
I’m more intelligent than I sound, really.
Later.