Hey Guys.
i want to begin by saying that we’re in Melbourne now, and so much of our focus going into this trip was on our time here in Melbourne, getting to visit people and places affected by the fires. We had plans to brings artists to shelters, to offer their time and their songs in trying to make life a little better for folks who have lost so much recently. Anthony from Bayside, Stephen from Anberlin, Aaron from Underoath, and Jordan from New Found Glory were all excited to go.
Because of the weather, we had to cancel our plans. Unfortunately, the weather is simply too dangerous in the areas that have already been affected. The concern is that there will be more fires because of the temperatures and the wind.
i mentioned the guys who were planning to go because i think it’s important to say that they care, that there are people on this tour who are thinking beyond the stage and the shows. i walked up to Jordan from New Found Glory a couple days ago and gave this awkward introduction, started trying to explain our plans and he stopped me mid-sentence with “I’m in.”
The good news is that all of us will be at Soundwave tomorrow, and we’ll get to spend the day with thousands and thousands of people from Melbourne and the surrounding areas. My guess is that everyone there tomorrow has been touched by the fires in some way, and that some have known significant loss. It’s our hope that tomorrow will be a special day in the middle of a difficult time for people here.
There’s no easy transition. i’ll simply say that the fires have been on our mind and remain on our mind. Again, the good news is that we’re excited to spend the day with the people of this place tomorrow. Say a prayer for Victoria.
The trip has been great so far. Here’s my best attempt at bringing you here with words:
I went and said hello to the Bayside guys just before they went on stage at Soundwave in Sydney last weekend. My friend Jack plays guitar in Bayside and I asked him how he was enjoying Australia. This was his response:
“I’m trying to think of one good reason why I shouldn’t move here, but I’m having trouble coming up with anything.” He eventually added that living in Australia would put him far from his family, though it was the only negative he could find.
We heard similar things the next day when we introduced Aaron and Spencer from Underoath and Stephen from Anberlin to Bondi Beach. At Bondi, the shops and cafes and houses stand along the water like an audience, and whether you prefer city or coast, we all agreed it would be hard to find a prettier place or a setting more alive. (I’m a surfer so I may be a bit partial.)
Our (TWLOHA) team on this trip to Australia is Chris Youngblood and Rich Sullivan and myself, and we are here primarily for Soundwave Festival, which happened last weekend in Brisbane and Sydney and will happen again tomorrow in Melbourne. Sunday is Adelaide and then we get one day off to fly across the continent to Perth. Adelaide and Perth will be firsts for us so we’re certainly excited.
Chris was our first intern and when I met him, about two years ago, he had never left Georgia. I think his first time out of Georgia was to help us at The Almost show in Columbia, South Carolina. Over the last couple years, he’s become a big part of our story and our team. On our better days, Chris reminds us that community is not some idea for blogs and stages. It is something real and needed, as we have become his and he is part of ours and mine. He traded everything he knew to join our team.
These days, Chris handles everything in the realm of the internet and social networking for TWLOHA. He also spent last summer representing TWLOHA on Warped Tour and will be back out there again come June. Chris and I just took a long walk down Chapel Street in Melbourne, Australia, and this makes me smile because it’s safe to say that he is a long way from Georgia at the moment.
Rich is one of my oldest friends. A few years ago, we shared a room in a house nicknamed “Summerset”. Byron Cutrer is TWLOHA’s Director of Operations, and he lived there too. Well, technically he didn’t live there, but he slept on the couch probably five nights a week. Summerset was a bunch of guys who liked music way too much, doing life together and wrestling with dreams we didn’t know what to do with. We walked through a lot together. We look back now and smile because so much has changed since then, but also because the things we began to believe back then are the things we get to believe now with TWLOHA.
Anyway, Rich was part of the first “Stop the Bleeding” tour we ever did, to Nashville and back in 2006. He has been a friend ever since, played a major part in HEAVY AND LIGHT last month, and started full-time with us just after that, focusing on all things related to music and events.
Okay, back to Australia. (Sorry for the detour, but I feel like I am usually the one who writes these things and I like the idea of you getting to know the folks behind the scenes.)
We’re here for Soundwave and we’re off to a great start with Brisbane and Sydney. Brisbane is a beautiful city on Australia’s east coast, the furthest north we get to go on this journey. Brisbane’s downtown is really cool – lots of shops and really clean and alive with lots of young people walking around. Sydney is hard to describe – I haven’t been everywhere but it must be one of the world’s great cities. It is a beautiful mix of harbor and hills and skyline and beaches. In trying to explain it to folks back home, I’ve found myself saying that Sydney is like San Francisco meets Seattle meets the tropics. I don’t know if that’s remotely accurate but that’s what comes to mind. To say it a different way, I could totally live here.
The folks from Soundwave have been incredibly generous and inviting to us. We arrived the first day in Brisbane to find that they had set us up our own tent, more space than we needed, right next to the main merch tent. They have something like 50 bands to look after, not to mention thousands of people coming out each day, and we were blown away that folks from the Soundwave team kept coming by asking how our day was going, asking if we needed anything. It’s an amazing thing when people believe in what you’re doing, when people get excited and start sharing whatever they have, opening whatever doors they can.
The kindness we found with the Soundwave team didn’t end there. It must be an Australian thing because people have been really amazing to us, thanking us for coming, asking how we like Australia, asking our plans for this place and how they can get involved. We’ve had countless conversations with folks here who believe in the work and mission of TWLOHA. It’s been exciting for me personally, to see the passion and belief in the people here. There’s something powerful about finding things are true around the world, that we share ideas and needs and solutions, that we’re all people in need and that hope is contagious and universal.
We have an info book with us at every event we do, and so it’s adjusted for this trip so that we’re able to point people to resources here in Australia. For over a year now, we’ve supported financially the work of Kids Helpline, which provides 24-hour online and phone counseling for young people in Australia. We knew early that TWLOHA was meant to be something that went beyond central Florida, something that went beyond America. We think it’s important to invest in solutions around the world, as we talk about issues that affect people around the world.
Soundwave Sydney was enormous, something like 35,000 people. I watched Underoath and Anberlin play back-to-back to a sea of people, maybe 15,000. A quick sidenote about Underoath: Underoath is an example of something bigger than the sum of it’s parts. The six guys in this band are part of something much bigger than them and I think they’d be the first to tell you. If you haven’t seen them live, you need to. I don’t think it matters what kind of music you prefer or what faith you claim. Something special happens, something big and alive and basically undeniable, when those guys (six dudes from Florida) are given a stage. It’s a rare and special thing.
Monday was a day off in Bondi and we all agreed we could get used to this sort of thing. It’s hard to imagine liking a place more, especially with our friend Joel sharing his favorite café.
We did an “An Evening with TWLOHA” at a tiny room in Castle Hill (outside Sydney) Monday night. We’d spent the day with Aaron Gillespie and he asked what we had planned. Joel mentioned that the place where we doing the event is a place where bands normally play. Aaron asked what bands would be playing that night, and when the answer was “none”, he asked if he could come along and play some songs. So with that, we had our surprise musical guest. The place was packed at 6 and even more packed when we did it again at 8. Aaron opened both sessions playing solo acoustic, and I must say that he’s a tough act to follow. I found myself wishing I had songs and musical talent. Instead, I read the original TWLOHA story and told some other stories and shared some things we’ve come to believe about community and hope and help. After that, Aaron came back up and we opened it up for feedback and questions from the audience, for the goal is always something that looks and feels more like a conversation (and not a bunch of people being talked at).
It continues to amaze me what happens when we simply begin to go there, when we begin to say these things out loud, to talk about our pain and questions and the possibility that it’s okay to be honest, that hope just might be real, and community just might be the best way to live. People begin to share – things they’ve lost, things they need, things they dream about, questions they wrestle with.
Aaron confessed that the big shows begin to run together, the lights and crowds and smoke, it all begins to blur. But he said he would remember this “small” night, the individuals and the questions and the things we wrestled through together. I love the contrast, a guy choosing to spend his night sweating through songs and questions in a room that barely holds 90 people, when the day before he played to 15,000.
We talked about it as a group, that maybe it suggests that one isn’t bigger than than the other, that if a room has people in it, the room becomes significant. And that maybe the same is true for our lives and our relationships and conversations, that when something involves people, our own story or ours and some other story colliding, it becomes important.
That’s why we’re here. We were there in that tiny room and we are here in Australia and even on this internet because we believe it to be true, that people matter and that hope is real, that everyone has a story and every story deserves to be heard. We’re here believing that stories deserve better endings, that fantastic things like redemption and healing still happen. Renee’s three years serve as a reminder, every day a battle, but one so worth the fighting.
The setting continues to be surprising. We’re all the way in Australia. People come to hear the music and we’re the tent with the title with too many words. “What is this?”, they ask. It’s a great question, and I hope that we smile when we answer, because the answer is certainly worth smiling about.
Peace to you, from Australia.
jamie
PS: Rich has been taking some great pictures. Check out the Australia/Soundwave photo album we just added.
PS2: Check the new Contrast Love hoodie and Alive white v-neck, available now in the TWLOHA Online Store.