July 4 was an incredible way to end the festival.  Like all of the other days, I woke up as the sun began to bake me inside my tent.  I spent a little time walking around and hanging out at The Asylum.  Then it was off to Encore 1 to check out Brandston, with Stephanie and Josalyn (who ended up at another show).

I had heard a lot of good stuff about Brandston, from several reliable sources.  For some reason, however, their set seemed like it was lacking something.  I can’t put my finger on it.  I was reminded of Swervedriver somewhat, listening to them.  However, I want to give them a second chance, just because of all of the good stuff I’ve heard about them.  They did have some bright moments in their set, but like I said, it felt like something was lacking.

Next up was Roadside Monument, another one of the bands that I had to see.  As I have said before, Roadside is one of the most underappreciated and undervalued bands in Christian music.  I’ve seen them twice, and both times their live sets have been incredible.

Roadside was spot on, playing their music with clock-like precision.  Their music is often labelled as emo, and I’ll be honest that any emo band I hear immediately gets weighed against Roadside.  Roadside’s music appears on the verge of constantly coming apart at the seems, the dissonance and chaos tearing it apart at the seems.  It’s that very tension that makes their music so challenging and invigorating to listen to.

In other words, I thought they were neat.

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Of all the days at the fest, July 3rd was the slowest. For me, nothing really happened until 3:00 that afternoon, when the 2nd annual Vegetarian Potluck occurred.  And in keeping with tradition, it rained this year again.  However, that didn’t diminish from how much fun I had.

I really enjoyed some of the discussions I got into, as well as getting to meet some more people.  A great crowd turned out, and Joe, Juan, Daniel, and the whole Asylum crew were kept incredibly busy with everything.  All in all, it was a great time and I look forward to attending many more.

The first band I was going to try and catch was Dear Ephesus, which for some odd reason, I thought played at 6:00.  However, I much discovered, to my disappointment that they had started playing at 4:00.  Vanya and I headed over to catch the show, and only saw the last 2 songs of their set, so I can’t really give you a good impression of them.  After them, was a band called Appleseed Cast, which was a fairly decent emo band.  Unfortunately, I seem to compare every emo band I hear to Roadside Monument, a hard standard for any band to match up to.

After waiting for several hours, it was time for yet another show that I was dying to catch.  Out of all of the musicians that I know and love, Joy Electric is probably the one for whom I have the most respect, simply because Ronnie Martin (the genius behind JE) has consistently made the kind of music that he wants to make.  About 10 or 15 of us donned white and filled our hair with glitter and headed down to catch the show.

To put it in one word, the show was wild.

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The first band I saw on July 2 was over at the Impromptu stage.  As it turned out, Stephanie had a couple of friends from Florida who were playing on the stage.  While we were waiting for them to come on, we caught the tail-end of a band called Free Lagoon(?).  It wasn’t too bad, with the trio playing some good emo.

After them was Stephanie’s friends, in a band called NPD (Non-Profit Development).  I hate to say it, but overall, I wasn’t too impressed.  Think of a hardcore version of MxPx, and you’re not too far off the trail.  However, I was really suprised at their last song, with featured some incredible Roadside Monument-ish moments.  If this is any indication of the rest of their stuff, then they might be a band to keep an eye on.

Later that afternoon, I saw three incredible shows one right after the other.  First up was Pedro The Lion, a band I was really excited to see.  I had heard their Whole EP, and while I wasn’t impressed at first, I had been won over.  To put it simply, their concert had me in tears.

Pedro The Lion’s music could be compared to Bedhead, with it’s emphasis on humble, unassuming, and subtle music that hits you right in the heart with that perfect chord change or lyrical statement.  I think they really impressed everyone at the show, because as soon as they were done, everyone made a beeline to the table to pick up their CD.  By far, this was the most emotional show I saw at Cornerstone, and perhaps ever.

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On July 1, the festival began in earnest.  Nolan and Steph showed up at the campsite, and we caught up on what was going on with them.  We then met a couple of our neighbors, including a poor unfortunate named David.  Turns out David flew to Chicago and was going to meet up with a few of his friends.  Due to some cancelled flight, he was unable to due so.  Fortunately, he met someone else who was going to Cornerstone and hitched a ride with them.  Without any food or friends, he ended up sleeping at our campsite.

Well, we couldn’t just leave him, so David became our adopted member.  Since Shawn had gone up to Chicago for 2 days, David moved into his tent for the time being.  It was a win-win situation.  David got a place to stay, and we got a cool new friend.

Nolan and I walked around for a little while, and heard a sound check for a band called The W’s.  It was very swing-ish sounding, so we made it a point to check out their show.

While walking around, I got my first taste of an Ostrich burger and ran into Joe and Jamie Beard, a couple I knew from Omaha.  I talked with them and hung out at their campsite.  When I saw them last year, Jamie was pregnant and they had moved to Alabama.  This year, they had a cute baby daughter (they had plenty of baby pictures) and had moved back up to Omaha.  After hanging out with them for awhile, I went back to my campsite and met Liz, a friend of Stephanie’s from Florida.  Did I ever mention that Cornerstone is a great place to meet people?

Now that the festival had started, it was mad rush to see as many shows as I could.

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We had set out for Cornerstone a few days earlier, in order to get a good campsite.  We got a great one.  However, leaving so early meant that we’d have to spend another day doing nothing waiting for festival to start.

That day was June 30th.  All in all, not a lot happened this day.  Well, let me modify that statement.  What did happen was pretty darn exciting.

Most of the day was spent taking care of sundry little things before the festival proper started.  We headed into town to get a few additional things at the grocery store, went to Dairy Queen for a nutritious brunch (why does every small town have a Dairy Queen and a Hardees?!?), and bought a few chairs at the garage sale.

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