Long and Lonely Road
This summer marks 5 years since I started playing with Hawk Nelson. Wow. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long… but it does make sense. A lot has happened in that 5 years.
I was 20 when my friends Jas, Dan, Davin, and Matt signed a record deal and began touring. I remember getting a pre-release listen to the first record, “Letters to the President”, and being incredibly proud of the guys for how that record turned out. It sounded like a band on its way to a real career, which is something that so many of us in the Southern Ontario music scene wanted.
For all of us in other Ontario bands, it was a mixed bag of pride and envy. We were very proud of our friends in HN, but we all felt a twinge of jealousy when we watched them fly out to Seattle to record, or hit the road on a big US tour.
Nobody could say they didn’t deserve it though…. I’m not sure how many people know this, but the 4 original hawk boys practiced 5 days a week (mon-fri) from 5pm-9pm or so. They spent unbelievable amounts of time working on songs, making plans, booking shows, and promoting themselves online. Not only that, but they worked jobs and contributed to the band when expenses came up. They worked incredibly hard.
Just prior to the release of “Letters”, Daniel asked if I could fill in for Dave for a few shows in July, as he was getting married. I gladly agreed, and played 2 shows…. the first in Omaha, Nebraska, at a venue called “The Rock”, and the second in Berwyn, Illinois (don’t remember the name of the venue). These shows were small, but incredibly fun. I had the time of my life, but I took it with a grain of salt, knowing that I was just filling in for a few shows. I had no idea that I would become a permanent fixture in the band…. so remembering these two specific shows is somewhat special for me.
The next week, Letters to the President was released, and the HN boys set off to play some of the summer festivals.
Several months later, I was again asked to fill in for Dave, at a show in Little Rock, Arkansas. I was to fly down, play the show, and fly home. As it turns out, I never ended up flying home. Haha. I stayed on with the band, and finished out the rest of the tour they were doing with Sanctus Real and Seven Places. I have a ton of great memories from that tour as well.
We took a break for Christmas, and returned in January to do a second leg of the Sanctus Tour. In February and March we did a tour called the X Tour, with Falling Up, KJ52, and a few others.
It was in March of 2005 that we got a really exciting opportunity… our first A-level tour. We got the opening slot on the 2005 Diverse City Worldwide Tour, featuring Audio Adrenaline, Tobymac, Kutless, and ourselves. It was such an incredible opportunity, and we were incredibly excited about it. A few of us (Jas and I mostly) had grown up on Christian music, and Audio Adrenaline and DC Talk were some of our first tapes as kids… so it was a special tour for us.
We filmed several little LIVE videos on this tour, and I came across some of the videos we filmed this week. Many of these I remember, but I found one that I didn’t remember at all! It’s a live (read: VERY live) version of Long and Lonely Road. I hope you enjoy it!
p.s. for you gear nerds…. I got that tone out of a standard TELE and an AC-30… still don’t quite remember how I did that?!
Oh, and on that same tour… THIS happened.
Hope you enjoyed my little trip down memory lane… I sure did. Oh, if anyone was at either of those first 2 shows in 2004…. in Omaha or Berwyn.. email me and let me know. That would be fun! It could be even better if you have photos! How embarassing!
j.
Ahhhh Yes… a few people have written to remind me that I also filled in at Lifest in 2004…. so that makes 3 shows that month. My memory is fading!
