Cornerstone Wrap Up

It's all over and I'm suffering from too much exposure to nature. My allergies are killing me. We did have a lot of fun and see some great bands. It was too much of a pain to embed links for all the bands into my posts so I'll leave the Cornerstone page up for a while in case you want check some of the bands out. Later, I plan to transition it to a music page. There's a lot of Cornerstone stuff here and it won't all fit on the main page so make sure to visit the blog archives to see all the info.

So here are my thoughts, good, bad and indifferent (keep in mind, this is only for the bands I saw).

Best Performance:
Tie, Family Force 5 and Underoath

Best Message:
Glenn Kaiser

Friendliest Band:
Hawk Nelson

Needs the most work:
Carry the Ghost (they didn't even get a blog entry)

What they got just right:

• The Message. The Cornerstone folks did a nice job with the message. You couldn't miss that this was a Christian festival but you weren't pounded by it.
• The Rules. Fun stuff was allowed (stage diving, mosh pits, pets, skateboards). Bad stuff was not (standing/sitting on barricades, drugs).
• The Venues. All the stages were covered, really a requirement for Florida. They managed to avoid the giant outdoor stage with everyone roasting in the sun.

What still needs some work:

• The Schedule. The schedule wasn't ready until the last minute so you had no idea on Friday who playing when until you got there.
• The Message from the Bands. Glenn Kaiser, Family Force 5 and Falling Up had a good solid gospel message for the crowd. For Hawk Nelson, Gasoline Heart and Ezekiel's Eye, it was noticeably absent. We need to hear it from the bands, not just the organizers.
• The Expo. The expo was actually pretty goods. It's in this section because it was so uneven. I'm sure some of that was because alot of these bands are still up and coming and not used to this but bands like Kutless, Relient K and others should have had a stronger presence.

Overall, it was terrific. I'd go back next year.