It started with great timing and a Facebook status i stumbled upon: Skillet play at Freedom Festival 27 april, Cape Town Ostrich farm. Want to win tickets from me??
Now to give this some perspective, Skillet have for the longest time been my bonus favourite band… for many years of my life i listed four bands as my top 4: U2, Coldplay, R.E.M., Tree63 and then Skillet was next in line. So understudy in case any of the others stopped playing. And despite them having released something like 9 albums of which i have most of them, i think some of my favourite memories and moments still come from their first self-titled album and i hurt my neck plenty head-banging by myself in my room when the house was empty with the music turned full blast to the words of ‘I can’ and ‘My Beautiful Robe’
From ‘My Beautiful Robe’:
I was crucified with Christ
But how come I’m not dead
God gave me a cross
But I made my own instead
Complete Lyrics of ‘I can’
Looking on the sad times, the guilt and all the shame
I have learned to submit my existing hurts and pains
All the grief I’ve learned to set aside‘Cause I am, I am, I am
Feeling underooted feeling undermined
Can this grace of God cover me this time?When I feel the pain I know why I feel strange
When I hear the rooster crow I am ashamed
Jesus on the cross and this cross upon my back
I have learned to submit then I whine about my lackSometimes I drop my cross, deserve a little rest
That’s when I run to you and I nail your feet and your wristI’m feeling underooted feeling undermined
Can this grace of God cover me this time?Do you really love my soul, even after I hated you?
Do you really know my name, can I really come to you?
Are you really more faithful than the changing of the seasons and the morning sun?
Do you really know my name, can I really come to you?
I can, I don’t care if the rooster crows
I can
The point being that i love this band and have enjoyed and appreciated their music for many years and so getting the opportunity to see them live in concert feels like a huge gift. Honest, edgy lyrics that really grab at the heart and the soul of the truth being discussed made for much incredible music wrestlings over the years.
Then Andrea Steyn [who you can get tickets for this amazing gig from] took it one further today by writing this question on my wall:
Do you want to have a chance to meet the band?
Do raiSINs have the word sin in them? Some questions just don’t need to be asked. So while ‘Do you want to have a chance to meet the band?’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘You will definitely have a chance to meet the band!’ i’m gonna go with Jim Carrey on this one from Dumb and Dumber… “So you’re saying there’s a chance?”
And so, whether or not it actually materialises or not, i thought it would be a fun activity either way to invite you to help me compile a question list so that if i was to meet the band and get a chance to ask them a question or two, what questions would those be?
Skillet fans, this is for you. If you got to meet the band and had the chance to ask one question, what would that be? Leave it in the comments section below and who knows, if this happens, maybe yours will be one of the fortunate ones to go live…
BREAKING NEWS UPDATE: Sadly, i got this message today: I have unfortunately bad news, that the concert has to be postponed until the summer time. Big upset with some organisational thing I wasn’t privy to. – And so, for the time being it looks like this will be on hold, but in the meantime you can keep your questions coming…
You guys have to prepare quite a big selection of songs when working on a new album. What happens to the songs that don’t make it onto the album?
Ooh, nice one, thankx.
How do you guys balance touring internationally and being involved with your local church?
I loved these guys… saw them live in an obscure venue playing to 20 people in London 15 years ago. Wow
I relly would ask them…..if they like to fry bacon…..in their Skillet?
Then I’d most probably ask them a serious question like Can I get your Autogragh? But seriously they are a great band, having made it through a landscape of mundane Christiany music changes , and they still seem to have stayed ‘clean’ and true to both biblical lyrics and relevant image/genre/style. So maybe I’d ask them HOW they did all that.