Casting Crowns has taken the stage to perform East to West which gives me more time to pay attention to Wynonna… i think she’s pretty awesome actually… i’m sure that it comes experience, but she really handles herself well and she seems entirely authentic…

Natalie Grant is doing the little mini-interview with the hosts and Brandon Heath has just stepped up to the mic back here… i’m very happy to see him take home this award… he’s a good guy and i enjoyed my interview with him earlier this week… oh yeah, it was only yesterday…

The Clark Sisters have taken the main stage for a performance and i’ve been listening to Brandon…

Donnie McClurken and Jaci Velasquez have come forward to announce the nominees for the group of the year…

and the winner is… CASTING CROWNS…

no surprise there…

peace… love… bdg…

Up next is Trin-i-tee 5:7 with a style that none of ya’ll have ever seen before… Zydeco… that’s right, look it up… and in the words of Adam Sandler in the classic college film, Billy Madison… “[they] gonna sets it on fiya”… Queen Wynonna has come backstage to talk about gospel and such… Trin-i-tee 5:7 absolutely blew the roof, doors, windows and anything else you can think of off the hinges with an absolutely AMAZING performance…

comercial break whilst we talk to Wynonna…

Mark Shultz and Brian Free have taken the main stage to present the award for Natalie Grant of… i mean, Female Vocalist of the Year… Wynonna seems a bit cantankerous with these questions… i’ve never seen Mark Schultz in a suit before… he must be nervous…

and the winner is… NATALIE GRANT

Q: Wynonna, what is your reaction to Natalie winning the Female Vocalist of the Year award?

A: Did she win? Well, I wanna curse, but I can’t do that here.

peace… love… bdg…

Natalie Grant and Wynonna are out singing the lights out with a duet and after they restore the ambiance, Skillet came out to announce the nominees for Male Vocalist of the Year… i wonder who might possibly win this… oh yeah… Chris Tomlin is nominated…

and the winner is… CHRIS TOMLIN…

he gives his standard humble speech and then yucks it up with Matthew West and that girl…

peace… love… bdg…

Kicking things off is a montage of New Artist nominees including 33 Miles, Mandisa, DeWayne Wood, Group 1 Crew, Brandon Heath and Rush of Fools… Aaron Shust and Jeremy Camp are out to present this award and they’ve brought out some body guards to make sure that no one gives acceptance speeches that are too long…

and the winner is… BRANDON HEATH….

he’s been interviewed briefly by someone from The Kitchen Sink and Matthew West… apparently they’ll be interviewing all the winners…

peace… love… bdg…

so, i had to go ahead and, um, stretch my legs… and i come back to see Group 1 Crew, the winners of the hip-hop album of the year and sudden front-runners for New Artist of the Year honors… we’ve also seen the Veggietales guys, Mike Nawrocki and the songs guy… they won for the CCM songs award… man, i’m really falling behind again… we saw Disciple, and now is Ricky Skaggs is talking about where Jesus would hang out…

something that was interesting was T-Bone and Mark Stuart tag teaming the mic and talking about expanding the Hands and Feet project into Nicaragua… also Cindy Morgan, songwriter of the year came in and talked a bit about her song, new album and she dedicated the Dove to her father… Nazareth is back here now… he hosted the pre-show and he’s doing a pretty good job…

Q: How did you become a Christian?

A: I was caller number nine to the radio station. I won salvation and two free t-shirts…

Okay… gotta get ready for the big show…

peace… love… bdg…

so let me keep you up to speed with what’s going on here backstage… we’ve had Mac Powell and David Nasser back here talking about their two Doves for the Glory Revealed project… they were joined after a bit by Steven Curtis Chapman, who was humbled by sneaking back on stage to accept an award that belonged to someone else… as if he doesn’t have enough already… i guess after a while you just get used to just walking up there and taking it home…

i’ve all but given up on that GodTube thing… it says that there have been over 1000 visits, but i’ve been kicked out a few times and had to rejoin and it’s currently lagged by about 10 minutes…

Next up for us, as best as i remember was Tenth Avenue North, a new band worth checking out, who performed earlier on the main stage… followed by Michael W Smith talking about his Christmas album of the year win… they’re doing a special celebration during the live show to celebrate the 25 years that he’s been a part of CCM so that will be cool…

up now is Mark Lowry and his producer talking about their win for Inspirational Album of the year… (In your face, Sandi Patty - Mark)…

peace… love… bdg…

Okay, so we’re backstage already for the Dove Awards and i’ve got the GodTube.com broadcast of the pre-show queued up and the XM Radio stream queued up for the actual show, but i’m not sure how it’s gonna work out… there’s some nice plasma televisions with the broadcast, but i was hoping to be able to listen to the show even when they turn the volume down for the interviews, but it seems like there’s a significant delay when the stream is actually active… so far not too impressed with the old GodTube.com…

so far, we have seen a number of awards, but just a few that i made predictions for in the Dove’s Feature… let’s see if i can remember them now…

Packaging of the year, was Remedy as i predicted… Special Event Album of the Year, i picked Amazing Grace and Glory Revealed ended up taking it… Skillet took home rock song of the year for “Comatose,” breaking his streak of 18 trips as a bridesmaid… John really plays up the humor and as he’s come backstage to address our questions…

i missed worship song, but i got worship and Christmas albums right and, you know what… i’m so not able to keep up with these things… i’ll sort out all the winners later i suppose…

peace… love… bdg…

as i’m sitting here now, i realize that i didn’t spend much time talking about what went down yesterday at all… well, part of that is because it was a blur and part of it was because i was trying to get the make-up entries done, which pushes back current entries, creating more back-up entries and the cycle continues… so here today is what happened yesterday…

09:00 - 11:30 interviews with Stephanie Smith, Warren Barfield, Brandon Heath, Brooke Barrettsmith, Fireflight and Krystal Meyers… yeah, a six block… that’s the blur… i did also chat a bit with Third Day in the middle there, but it was off the record, though i also got the record, if you know what i mean…

11:45 - 12:10 Lunch and cooling off in the hotel…

12:30 - 02:00 interviews with Chris Taylor, Jadon Lavik and Thousand Foot Krutch

02:10 - 02:30 quick chat with my co-workers, heading down to the press room to get ahold of a publicist with hopes of relocating an interview…

02:30 - 03:00 emails, etc while sharing a table with JR, Da T.R.U.T.H and their peeps…

03:00 - 04:00 interviews with esterlyn and Hello Kelly

04:45 - 05:45 FOB-FOB… flat on back, feet on bed…

06:00 - 07:00 Dinner

07:00 - 09:30 Inpop / Midas Showcase… Hosted by Jimmy Needham, featuing Julian Drive, Article One, Paul Colman, NewWorldSon, Rush of Fools, and Superchic[k]

10:00 - ??:?? unwinding with the NBA playoffs, The Office and whatever else was on…

How’s that?

peace… love… bdg…

The last make-up post involves one of the highlights of the week’s event every year: The Songwriter’s Showcase… i would’ve done this one earlier, but i didn’t have the list in front of me… last year this event was hosted by Mark Schultz and Mandisa, but this year, they went with Bart Millard and Mark Hall of MercyMe and Casting Crowns, respectively…

Bart opened the night with a stripped down version of “Bring the Rain” which is up for song of the year and then Mark Hall rejoined him onstage and they introduced the first of three sets… included in set one was Cindy Morgan, Mike Weaver (Big Daddy Weave), Everyday Sunday, and Rush of Fools… Cindy was easily the best of the bunch, scoring the first “wow” moment of the night with her unedited version of the Point of Grace hit, “How You Live (Turn Up the Music)” and Everyday Sunday seemed nervous and/or starstruck as they introduced and performed “Wake Up! Wake Up!“…

after a pretty humorous interlude with Bart and Mark, the second group came out on stage… Chris Tomlin and Louie Giglio started this group off with “Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone“… now, i guess i didn’t explain this very much, but the idea is that the songwriters come out on stage and perform the songs even when someone has made it famous… it’s generally an acoustic version of the song, rougher, and often more authentic and moving… anyway… Brandon Heath performed “I’m Not Who I Was” and he sounded very true to the recorded version, which seems to mean that he’s as authentic on the album as he is in person…

and then came “wow” moment number two… Steven Potaczek comes out on stage and he kind of looks like Andy Kaufman with his hair and no one seems to have a clue who he is or what this song, “How Big Can Small Be” is going to sound like… as such, not too many people were excited to see him walk over to the piano, but once he started playing, everyone was captivated… Steven and his wife are part of the 1000 Generations team and apparently won the songwriting competition at this past year’s GMA in the Rockies… it’s clear why…

Following that was Joel Lindsay and Sue Smith with what was apparently a big hit in the Southern Gospel world, but a song that did nothing for me, “He Erased It“… and then came Toby… i’m not sure i can rate it as a “wow” moment, but Toby came up and kicked into the opening verse of “It Takes Two” by Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock before performing a very cool version of “Made to Love“…

More Mark, more Bart and then more music… Group three was solid… Sanctus Real, who came out last year and blew me away with an acoustic version of “I’m Not Alright,” returned with “wow” moment number three, an acoustic version of “Don’t Give Up“… followed quickly by “wow” moment number four: Leeland and Jack Mooring performing “Tears of the Saints“… simply amazing as always… Natalie Grant’s latest hit, “In Better Hands” was given a nice treatment by the trio of writers and “By His Wounds” was introduced by David Nasser and performed by Mac, Mark, Travis Cottrell and Shane Everett…

Mark Hall closed out the night with “East to West” and mentioned something about our lives being nothing but a closed fist in Heaven… something i still cannot quite decypher…. Anyway… a great time was had by all…

peace… love… bdg…

Sorry about the flood of entries, but last night, i couldn’t keep a connection actve for very long and i ended up just shelving a bunch of entries before i finally turned in for bed… just one of those nights, i guess, which started with, yes, missing Robert Randolph and the Family Band… they didn’t show up and Jars of Clay played instead which is fine, but, since i’ve seen them before, i finished up my chicken fingers and headed out to try and catch the INO acoustic showcase that featured Sara Groves, Caedmon’s Call and The Afters among others…

The Bourbon Street Blues is a club that happens to be on a rather seedy alley… i actually walked past it, because i didn’t see their sign behind all the signs for showgirls and, believe it or not, nude karaoke… even if i were into visiting those types of places, i’m not sure that even sounds like a good idea… anyway… moving past that i came to the club as Sara was clearing out and heading over to her other performance… Despite missing her, though, i did get to see Derek Webb with Caedmon’s Call sing a few tunes and i saw The Afters play their mini-set… both were quite good…

After that, i headed back over to the Wildhorse Saloon and got there in time to catch the Switchfoot portion of the Music Builds show in its entirety and i must say, the’ve come a long way sing the last itme i saw them… when they were done, we decided to take off and get out of the sweaty, packed club, bypassing the Third Day set… i got back to the hotel pretty early (11-ish) and struggled to get some work done while the connection kept dying out… i’ve just noticed that the pictures did in fact upload last night and you can see them all at Flickr… hopefully, i’ll be able to add some descriptions and such later, but at least you can see them… off to another set of interviews… more on today, later…

peace… love… bdg…