If you follow Christian/worship music, then you are probably familiar with the name Michael Gungor. He has written songs that are being sung in churches all around the world – Friend of God, Say So or Wrap Me In Your Arms. You may know those songs and maybe you even sing them but, I promise, you have not heard the best of what Michael Gungor has to offer.

This week at re:create we were part of what I could only describe as a holy moment. 10 incredibly talented musicians, 13 songs, 60 minutes of creativity, passion, devotion and honesty packed in to one incredible holy moment.

“Beautiful Things” is the name of Gungor’s new CD (which releases tomorrow) but it is also the live experience that they have created to accompany the CD. You might call it a concert.. but you’d be mistaken. “Beautiful Things” tells the story of creation, fall, redemption and restoration through music, video and spoken word in a way that brought a room full of “creatives” (whatever that means!) to its knees, figuratively, and to its feet, literally. There was weeping, whooping, silence, cheering and the realization that we were witnessing the birth of something new – something very real – that is about to invade the world.

Am I going over the top on this? Honestly.. No. The only thing that I would be able to compare “Beautiful Things” to would be the U2 tour that came through town in the fall. And yes, there’s been much hype on that tour – justifiably so. The Gungor experience left me in the same kind of place as my night with Bono and the boys. Someone said to me this week that the only thing that they could use to compare Gungor was a live show by Sigur Ros. “And,” they continued, “it compares.” That is high praise.

So, can I give you a taste of what it was like? Sort of. Check this out –

How can you find out more?

Gungor – www.gungormusic.com
Twitter – www.twitter.com/gungormusic
iTunes – “Beautiful Things”

So what can you do? Let me suggest three things –

1. Buy the CD and support the band. You might feel it’s your God-given right to steal music and “share” it from friend to friend but.. honestly.. these people need your money. Quit being selfish and vote with your wallet.

2. Go and be a part of the live experience. There are tour dates listed now on their website.

3. Tell someone else about the CD and the “Beautiful Things” events. If music like this is going to spread around the world it will only happen because people who have been moved by it introduce it to others who will be moved and will tell other who will then be moved. So do it – introduce Gungor to someone who loves good music and good artistry. They will not be disappointed.

And, finally, let me say that this experience, for me, would not have happened if it wasn’t for the community and the event of re:create. Worship leaders, you know that there are a zillion worship conferences for you to attend every year. There are all run by good people who have good intentions and good desires for the church. But if you are looking for something more, something different, something challenging, you owe it to yourself to investigate re:create and be a part of it. More on that later.

Image from stripspiritual

Let me know!

The show ran 2+ hours and U2 pulled out all the stops – the local Toronto references to Yonge Street and the Toronto International Film Festival, old and new favourites and of course the ridiculous stage setup nicknamed “The Claw”. Everything about the night was impressive – the look of the SkyDome with the roof wide open and the CN Tower looming overhead, the ridiculous LED screen above the stage, the live concert DVD quality content that showed up on those screens, the audio mix, on and on and on.

A couple of strange moments – at the end of one song Bono’s wireless mic began losing signal and there was a good amount of static for 15 seconds or so. I’m sure someone got fired. Then towards the end of the first set, things turned a little and became less about “the show” and more about U2′s message. For this tour, the band is focusing on raising awareness for the situation in Iran as well as in Burma and they used two songs – Sunday Bloody Sunday and Walk On – to do that. To be honest, I’m a bit beyond artists using their platform to simply “raise awareness” for issues without giving the audience an opportunity or an encouragement to be mobilized in some way. It seemed to lessen the original significance of those songs and the Walk On moment, particularly with the volunteers holding up masks and walking the stage, came off a bit high school talent show for U2.

(Hit the pause button. I’m not saying that the two issues they are hilighting are not worth the awareness. I’m saying that the WAY Bono and U2 did it seemed to be very disconnected from the rest of the night.)

All in all, this was a night I hope I’ll never forget. It was worth every dollar, every moment, every bit of lost sleep once we finally pulled in to our driveway at 2:30 in the morning knowing our kids would wake us up four hours later

If you want a bit more of a play-by-play of how the night progressed, here’s my twitter feed from the show –

#U2 #Toronto #theclaw

The roof is open at SkyDome for #U2 #panorama

iPhone battery is proving to be pretty lame compared to BB Pearl I switched from. Not sure if it will last.

The biggest question I’m left with after the #U2 show: What am I spending my life on? Thanks fellas.

I’ve never seen U2 live but four years ago, after U2′s last tour stop in Toronto, my wife and I decided that we would go see them the next time they came through. This is that next time! So tonight we’ll be at SkyDome with 50,000 of our closest friends and one really great Irish rock band.

The incredible part about tonight is that the weather is going to co-operate for the roof to be open! The only time the roof has ever been open for a concert at SkyDome is when Bruce Springsteen was here back in 2003. They had the roof open last night and it looks like they’ll be able to do it again tonight. U2 has been talking all along about doing everything they can to make the stage “feel” as big as the stadium and now that we’ll be under the stars in downtown Toronto, this will be a night I will remember for a long time.

Lots of reports last night of cell phone signals being totally jammed in the stadium (probably partly because of people sending photos to Twitpic, etc) but I’ll see if I’m able to get some photos and send them along. Check the Twitpics over on the sidebar or follow along on twitter tonight – @chrisfromcanada

Dan Brubacher!

Congratulations Dan! I know you were excited about seeing this show and here’s your chance. I’ll have the Unite Productions guys get in touch with you to work out the details for your tickets and your copy of the Chris Tomlin CD.

PS I know the post says 19 comments and the randomizer image says 20 – there was one comment from Renee that included her twitter/facebook links but it wouldn’t show up on the post for some reason.

So here’s how this contest is going to work. The tickets are only available for the shows in MONTREAL, TORONTO or SASKATOON. If you live in one of the other cities and are interested in going, you better move quick because the show is either sold out or very close! Alright.. So we’ve got two tickets available to one of those three shows – Montreal, Toronto, Saskatoon – as well as a copy of Chris Tomlin’s new CD, “Hello Love”.

How can you enter? Let’s do the contest this way -

1. Leave a comment on this post and include the title of your favourite Chris Tomlin or Kristian Stanfill song.

2. Post about this comment on Twitter, Facebook or your own blog and then come back here and post a second comment with a link to your tweet, blog or Facebook post. That will count as a second entry.

3. The winner will be announced on September 16 and I’ll email that person that day.

Remember – this contest is only for the Chris Tomlin shows in Montreal, Toronto and Saskatoon so it would be helpful if you were able to go to one of those shows

Let’s do this – enter away!

UPDATE: We have a winner! Congratulations to Ami on winning the tickets. I hope your son and his friend have a great time! Thanks to everyone who entered and thanks to random.org for picking the winner –

Two great bands are coming up to Canada for a pretty solid tour and the good people at World Vision Canada want YOU to be there. Lots of tour info is available at www.building429canada.ca so head over to that site to get filled in.

If you’re not familiar with these two bands, here are the quick hilights -

Building 429

• 2005 GMA New Artist of the Year
• Signed to INO Records
• Toured with TobyMac, SonicFlood, TFK, Jeremy Camp, Tree63 and more!
• Latest album “Building429″ released October 17, 2008

downhere

• Juno, Dove and Covenant Award-winning band from Canada (!!!)
• Signed to Centricity Records
• Won 2007 Juno Award (Canada’s version of the Grammy’s) for Contemporary Christian Album of the Year for “Wide Eyed & Mystified”
• Performers of one of my favourite songs of all time, “Great Are You”

So here’s the deal. We’re going to give away one pair of tickets to one of the shows on the tour that these guys are doing together. If you live near one of the cities and are planning to hit the show, then this contest is for you! Here’s how we’ll do this giveaway -

1. Leave a comment on this post and tell me why you’re excited about winning these tickets. Lots of comments are great but it will still only get you one entry in the contest

2. Post about the tour and the contest either on your own blog or twitter – make sure you include a link back to this blog when you are posting! Post a link to your post as a second comment and you’ll get entered TWICE in the contest.

3. The winner will be chosen early on Friday, August 14th – so if you are wanting to go to the first show in Toronto on Saturday, August 15th you will have time to get your tickets worked out.

So leave your comments – good luck!

This was not the first time I’d seen Hillsong United live – they were in Toronto a few years ago and played at a large church in town. They’ve been back a bunch of times since then and have required bigger venues each time. This is the second year they played at Molson Amphitheatre at Ontario Place and the the whole night was great.

We made it down in time to catch the last half of Bluetree’s set. Most of the songs they played were the same from their set in Toronto with Vicky Beeching from last fall, including “God of this City.” The guys are great musicians and learning more and more about playing venues of this size. This is really something they’ve been thrust in to with the Chris Tomlin-induced success of “God of this City” so the band is playing some catch-up when it comes to working a crowd, etc. But, all in all, very solid set from these guys and I’m looking forward to seeing them again.

The always-awkward intermission was next and I’m not exactly sure why the break between bands needed to be 45 minutes but it definitely seemed like the guys on stage (including Hillsong’s youth pastor who made an appearance laster) were just killing time before getting Hillsong United on stage. On a pretty random sidenote, in all of my years of going to concerts I have NEVER been to one attended by a couple who had just been married. Not only did that happen on Saturday at this concert but it also happened at the Michael W. Smith concert in Hamilton last month – two concerts in a row where the bride & groom show up to the concert after being married without even taking the time to get changed. Nevermind the comments about having “better things to do”…

After intermission, the Hillsong United guys finally made it out. The show went pretty much as predicted – 4 or 5 hype songs at the beginning, leading to some more reflective stuff for a while, a quick build leading in to the youth pastor talk, some extended quieter response songs and then ending with the hyped up pump songs. I should have kept a songlist of the show because by the time they were done the band had played for about 3 hours and seemed to just keep going and going!

Hilights of the show for me –

• Joel leading us in the chorus of “The Stand” and looking around at hands and hearts raised to God all over the amphitheatre – thinking about the impact of those lives surrendered to Him
• Jill McCloghry (for everyone who was asking, she was the one in white on the right side of the stage) singing an incredibly beautiful new song (“At The Cross”?) which will apparently be on the new Hillsong Live album.
• Brooke Fraser – that girl could sing the phone book and I’d be mesmerized. I love her voice, her demeanor, how she handles herself on stage – everything. She sang “Desert Song” and “None But Jesus” and also talked about the refining of her faith through struggles. Great wisdom and insight from her – really appreciated it.
• The Hillsong United guys were obviously impacted by the level of engagement of the crowd. They made several comments about loving being in Toronto, their memories of being here and how the Toronto audience was really the first one to “accept them” and make them feel at home away from Australia.

All in all, it was a great night. Big thumbs up to Unite Productions for putting together such a great event. The guys at that company are awesome to work with and I’ll continue to do what I can to support them.

UPDATE: My friend Matt has posted some video of that incredible song from Jill. It’s called “His Glory Appears” – here you go!

Here are the artists who are playing on Saturday –

Hillsong United
Bluetree
Hello Kelly
Manafest
This Beautiful Republic
Group1Crew
Finochio
Carried Away

That is a pretty sweet line-up of Canadian & international talent. If you are looking for tickets, comment here and I will be in touch. Make sure you include your email address!

To enter the contest, click here and submit your info. The winner will be selected on May 15 and gets 4 tickets to the event on June 6.