Michael W. Smith and Brenda Lee are on the main stage right now and he acted insulted that she didn’t invite him to sing on her Duets album. But then she said that he didn’t call her to sing on “Friends” either.

Artist of The Year: Chris Tomlin

Aaron Shust just entered the pressroom. He told us that his mom gave him a turkey baster to sing into when he was three years old, practicing his songs for church while she played the piano accompaniment. His new album coming out is called “Whispered and Shouted” because those are the ways that God sometimes speaks to us. He worked with the same producers on this album as the last album.

Will what happened tonight, change you? He says it boosted his confidence a little and if it changes him, he hopes it’s for the positive. Today and tomorrow he will be a sinner, saved by amazing grace, he says. Funny sidenotes he mentioned as walking off stage: his favorite color is blue and he likes the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The Crabb Family is performing on the main stage now.

New Artist of the Year • Aaron Shust

aghh…. that means Leeland didn’t win.

Nicole C. Mullen is backstage now, and I know the outward appearance doesn’t (shouldn’t) count, but she is always so fashionable, and with her arm muscles I think she could take out most guys in the room. Speaking of, someone just asked her about her new clothing line “i-613″ (Isaiah 6:13) and she told us about these jeans that they’ve created which have a removable cuff at the bottom so that you can change them out in just a few minutes and have a whole new outfit. She takes 8 kids on the road with her now, including her daughter who is 14 years old now and homeschooled. The kids dance on stage, but they are also schooled and trained in the Bible, which Nicole says is her main goal and calling.

Chris Tomlin is now on the live stage with Christy Nockels and someone else (we didn’t see who) singing his version of “Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone).” It looks like Christy is pregnant again.

Rock Recorded Song of the Year     •    “Breathe Into Me”; End Of Silence; Red; Jasen Rauch, Anthony Armstrong, Rob Graves, Jason McArthur; Essential Records

Red was just here backstage and spoke a LONG time. They talked about how fans at secular clubs come up to them after the show and say, “You’re Christians, aren’t you?” People are surprised to see them drinking Red Bull instead of beer and other things.

I THINK Natalie Grant just won Female Vocalist of the Year. I saw her walk up to accept an award and that would be an appropriate award to be presented at this time in the show.

The band “Conner’s Vine” is backstage now, but I’ve totally missed why…

AudioA has been together for 21 years… since 1986. Will’s mom introduced them on the first day of Bible College, and then she passed away about 5 years later, but the band stayed together. They were surprised to be recognized tonight on the Doves telecast. August 28th is the release date of the live DVD for this final Wakiki show, which is this coming Saturday (not next week as I said earlier.) Mark Stuart said that he’ll probably have to get a steroid shot (”industry secret”) to be able to do voiceover dubs and stuff for the DVD.

Leeland is now performing a pre-recorded version of “Tears of the Saints” on the broadcast. (I really like that song!) I was predicting them to win a fair number of awards tonight, but it’s so hard to keep up that I’m not even sure whether or not they have yet. Sean is sitting behind me and I have him assigned to listening to the headset to help me keep up with the broadcast. Unfortunately I missed a lot of the pre-show awards cause I couldn’t listen in.

An artist named “Zorro” just left the pressroom and now Stellar Kart is here. On the TV monitors I just noticed that Nicole C. Mullen was trying to contain a giant Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber. I’ll have to watch the broadcast to see that later.

The name Stellar Kart is from a go-cart track at a camp in California. They were about to get signed and had been working at a camp with kids and they needed a band name. After the label rejected the first 50 names submitted

Male Vocalist of the Year     •    Chris Tomlin

A quick trip to the restroom and I came back to find Take 6 on the stage answering questions. Earlier Rebecca St. James told us that she enjoys gardening and has a crepe-maker to make crepes and omelets for her band while on the road!

MercyMe is backstage now. Earlier on the show they gave a farewell address to Audio Adrenaline (AudioA’s farewell concert is next week in Hawaii) and told AudioA that MercyMe was inspired by them to want to become a band. Last night when they played at B.B. King’s, it was the first time they didn’t play “[I Can Only] Imagine” since 1998. I’m not sure if that’s an exaggeration or not, but they said it was the best thing to ever happen to them [to not have to play it.]

DecembeRadio just won their first Dove Award tonight for Rock Album of the Year and someone in the press room asked them to compare the GRAMMY experience with the Doves experience.

Their band name came from a calendar that was turned to the wrong month, sitting on top of a radio. Not a real unique naming method, but that’s where they got their name.

Their favorite Nascar racer: Jeff Burton (”an Atlanta boy”) They sang the anthem a cappella-style at a recent Nascar race.

They said they were in TOTAL shock that they won, especially beating out Skillet. They also discussed the Virginia Tech tragedy.

The hard rock band Red is performing a pre-recorded song on the monitors.

… who got voted off of American Idol tonight. She came into the press room and immediately told us NOT to tell her who got voted off tonight because she’s got to go home and watch it on her TiVo. She talked about being able to witness to other contestants during her stay on American Idol and also about her new book coming out, “Idoleyes: my new perspective on faith, fat and fame.” She is amazingly deep and had some wonderful insights on all of these subjects… too much for me to summarize here, but I got it on tape.

Mac Powell, Brian Littrell, Mark Hall of Casting Crowns, and Steven Curtis Chapman are performing a quartet now live on stage… “By his wounds, we are healed…” I don’t recognize the song from the little snippet we heard… it ended with the line from the old hymn, “What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.” [edit: The song is called “By His Wounds” from the Glory Revealed album]

It seems like it’s been a long while since they’ve presented an award on the show, but I guess they only do like 7-8 over the final two hours. Quite a change from the 30+ that they do in the first two hours!

Right now the legendary group, Caravan, is backstage. One of the members is wheelchair-bound, so they couldn’t get up on stage.

Now the a ccapella group, Take 6, is on stage performing another AMAZING song. They are just so talented!

DecembeRadio is now performing “Drifter” on the show, but it’s pre-recorded… Earlier on the live broadcast, someone said that they had wanted to bring us more performances this year on the Doves, but couldn’t “fit all of the gear” backstage. So they have been doing these pre-recorded segments. Interesting…

Michele Pillar, Dino (the piano guy), and another guy are backhere in the press room. Michelle says she’s going to record again (she hasn’t since 1992). TobyMac just left a few minutes ago and Family Force 5 visited too and explained how mullets parallel our faith life.