 By Andrew Baker
I was blessed to have been raised in the central part of the state where the longest running Christian music festival is held, and I’ve been to a lot of concerts at the festival, and concerts at the college that is associated with the festival. Because of this, I’ve been going to concerts for at least as long as I’ve been old enough to go to youth group with my older brother. I can’t tell you how many hundreds of concerts I’ve been to. One of the best concerts I’ve ever been to was when Audio Adrenaline opened for DC Talk during the Jesus Freak tour. That was the first time I heard songs like “Big House” and “We’re A Band”.
That was only 11 years ago. In the time since, I’ve seen Audio A in concert at least a handful of times. And now I’ve discovered that they’ve scheduled to start their farewell tour on February 16 in Tulsa Oklahoma, with their very last concert scheduled in Honolulu Hawaii on April 28th. This two month tour will take them across much of the US, and I’m extremely excited that one of the last concerts will be in my hometown!
The first Audio Adrenaline album that I purchased was Live Bootleg, and it was on cassette tape. At the time I was helping as a youth counselor at a youth group in the same town where I was going to college. We listened to that cassette tape all the time at youth group. I remember how much fun it was when I rewrote a few of the words to We’re a Band, and made it We’re A Van. It went: We’re A Van, We’re A Van. In the Baby Blue Van We’re Crossin’ The Land. We’re A Van, We’re A Van. For The Son Of Man We Will Take A Stand. That was such a fun time in my life! I lost that tape on a snowy youth retreat when it fell out of my car. I’ve still not repurchased Bloom on cd. But I own just about everything else that Audio Adrenaline has released.
My musical tastes have definitely changed since I first started listening to Christian music, as has Christian music as a whole. But one thing that hasn’t changed is my love for Audio Adrenaline. I have a lot of awesome memories associated with that band. I can’t wait to get my tickets to the final concert that I’ll get to see of one of my favorite bands. The headlining band on this tour is Mercy Me, and newcomer Aaron Shust will be opening. Don’t miss this final chance to see Audio Adrenaline in concert. The full concert schedule is available on Audio Adrenaline’s website.
http://www.audioa.com |