Family Force 5Considered one of the premiere music events in the Northeast US, the Purple Door Arts and Music Festival is getting ready to celebrate its 15th anniversary on August 13th and 14th.  But these days when new large outdoor concerts come and go, what does it take to keep such a festival going each year?  We spoke with Chris Strayer, Festival Producer, to learn more.

So what does Purple Door do to keep people coming back?  “Well one thing we have going for us is longevity,” Strayer offered.  “We have people coming to the festival who came as a kid except now they are bringing their kids.  We have built a name for ourselves that many people are familiar with. We also offer such a diverse and yet different lineup.  At most festivals you will also not find such diversity of bands/musicians/performers.”

The Elms final showAfter a 10 hour drive, a two hour wait outside the venue, about an hour waiting through the opener and a set change, The Elms hit the stage at about 10:00 PM.  Owen Thomas, lead singer, walked onto the stage with what seemed to be a tear in his eye.  This show was to be the last for The Elms, whose career spans ten years.  A little over four hours later, the show culminated with a bunch of tired musicians and a satisfied audience.

I’d made the trek to Indiana a few times before, as my sister lives an hour south of Indy.  As it turns out, she was out of town that weekend.  But that didn’t deter me from swinging through Columbus, Ohio to pick up a concert friend and continue the adventure to Radio Radio in the historic district of Fountain Square, Indianapolis on Friday July 30, 2010.

Over the years, delirious? have released many concert recordings.  However, the concert experience does not get any better than this, the band's only Blu-Ray release.  Thanks to the technology of the Blu-Ray disc, the video and audio quality are like they have never been before.  Watching this on your home video system is definitely the closest to feeling like you were there.

The concert presented here is the exact same concert (both the main concert and the Cutting Edge pre-show) as was on the DVD release.  For more details on the concert's video and audio content, I recommend you read both the DVD and CD review.  The only major difference is that the video is in full 1080p High-Definition.  (The audio is also presented in 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio as well as Dolby Digital 5.1 and Stereo, but I do not have the equipment to test the 5.1 mixes for their quality.)  The visuals of the disc are crisp and clear, even despite the tough lighting conditions that is a dark concert hall with very bright lights.  The Cutting Edge show video, which seemed a bit more compressed on the DVD, looks especially beautiful on this Blu-Ray.  The behind-the-scenes tour video included on the DVD is also included here in standard definition video.

Over the years, delirious? have done a number of live concert videos.  The first, A View From The Terraces, was a VHS-only release in the UK that later appeared on the archive:d DVD release.  It was much later in their career when Now Is The Time was recorded in Chicago and just last year My Soul Sings was released.  These DVDs were great quality, but the songs featured were mostly the band's newest material and the classic favorites were not well-represented.  Thankfully, Farewell Show is a beautiful recording of the band's last show on DVD that includes some of the new as well as plenty of the old.

To kick off the show, the band shows up on stage but behind a large curtain.  Lights from behind the band project silhouettes of them on the curtain and the crowd begins to cheer.  After lead singer Martin Smith sings the chorus of "All This Time", the lights start flashing, guitarist Stu G starts jammin', and the curtain falls.  "Bliss" is a fitting opener to the show and uses the band's impressive stage setup to full effect.  The stage features a video projection screen above the LED video wall that's become standard at today's arena concerts.  The video screen for "Bliss" features a new video retrospective of the band that also shows up on the DVD's intro briefly.  Ohh, and did I mention that there were green lasers fanning out across the stage and over the audience?  Yeah, this show is a visual tour de force.

The five guys from Littlehampton, England known as delirious? have had an amazing career.  From leading worship for a local church movement in 1992 to being a pop radio hit in Germany to playing for hundreds of thousands in Hyderabad, India, these guys have done it all.  Fall 2009 brought their farewell tour of the United Kingdom.  Thankfully, the last show of the tour, at London's iconic Hammersmith Apollo, was recorded for all of us to enjoy.  Even though delirious? have released five other live albums (including another double-disc collection), Farewell Show spans their whole 19-year career like no other.  One of my favorite parts of this release is the second disc, a 35-minute opening set of songs from the very early days of delirious?.

Earlier this week, I had a phone conversation with Owen Thomas, the lead singer and primary songwriter for The Elms.  The Elms started in the year 2000 on Sparrow Records and have released four full-length, studio albums over the years as well as a couple EPs and downloadable tracks.  Their last album, The Great American Midrange, released in September 2009 to great acclaim and instantly became one of my favorite albums of all time.

On June 1st, 2010, the band announced via their website that their final show will be July 30th in Indianapolis, Indiana.  Also, last week they released a digital box set containing 40 tracks comprised of previously unreleased studio recordings, alternate versions of album songs as well as live recordings and bootlegs.  It's called Stoppin' On A Dime: Live & Rare 2000-2010 and is available only on their official website, TheElms.net.  We talk below about their decade-long career, the transformation of the music industry and the way the Internet has changed our lives.

Earlier today, an interview with Jennifer Knapp, a popular Christian music artist from 1998-2002 who recently announced a comeback to music, was posted on the Christianity Today website.  In the interview, Jennifer Knapp reveals that she is a lesbian and has had a relationship with a same-sex partner for eight years.  But she says that's not the point.  I urge you all to read the interview for yourself.

A couple Christian music websites have made disclaimers along with the story saying they do not endorse the opinions of Jennifer Knapp.  I'm sure that, in the next couple days, music websites and fans alike will be condemning Jennifer's music and some may even get together copies of her old albums and burn them.  The album will not be carried in Christian bookstores, I can almost guarantee that.

Each year, the timing of the Grammy Awards aligns with the annual dinner at my church.  Sure, I suppose I could record the festivities.  But the likelihood that I would watch it later is slim.  I used to watch every music related awards ceremony available as a child, yet over the years I have lost interest.

Though when I opened up my Facebook account this morning, I noticed several status updates with comments on the event.  So I decided to go over to Twitter and read what folks had to say.  In some cases, I had to read several tweets from different people in order to pick up what had happened.  I then collected various tweets from friends, musicians, writers, and fellow inReview staff and in the end, almost felt as if I had watched it with them.

As folks begin to make plans for summer tours and festivals, we thought we'd dust off this exclusive interview with The Devil Wears Prada from the Warped Tour in 2008.  We spoke with Jeremy DePoyster and Andy Trick at the Scranton, PA stop.  Unfortunately a bad sound quality from the press area almost stopped this interview from going to print, but we were able to salvage some good conversation.

inReview: I'll admit, I am not a huge fan of hardcore music, but I like your sound.  Why do you suppose that is?

Jeremy: We don't approach it the same way, I guess, a lot of times ... I guess it all comes back to just trying to be as real as possible or whatever.    

In my family, the Christmas season does not start after Halloween. It doesn't even start after Thanksgiving.  We usually put the Christmas tree up 3-5 days before Christmas.  In our family and at my church, the period after Thanksgiving until Christmas is called "Advent."  This time is a period of planning and preparing for the birth of Christ Jesus.  It's a time to remember the great wonder that God the Father sent his son, Jesus, to earth.