OK. I’ve decided something, and it is this: Toby Mac and his wife Amanda are the Beckhams of Christian music. It is obvious, but to be clear, Toby is David and Amanda is Posh. 

The day of the Doves was action packed and I’m happy to say that we had a fantastic time seeing everyone and getting all dressed up. I wore really fancy clothes. A jacket and such. Mac Powell won best dressed though. He had a Charlie Daniels t-shirt that he bought for

9.99 off the rack at the Charlie Daniels museum. He told me it was the only one in the place that wasn’t XXL and definitely the only one that looked like it might fit him. When he tried it on at the museum he noted it already had a hole in the back and reeked of cigarette smoke. I thought it this made it more awesome. 

But yeah, Toby Mac is totally David Beckham. I mean, I have no idea whether he even likes football (soccer) or not, but the combined forces of Amanda (Posh) Mac and Mr. T are undeniable. For sure Toby is one of the good guys and it was a completely joyous occasion to see him win artist of the year. Just fantastic. 

That said, Charlie Daniels ruled the night. 

The Redneck Fiddleman comes strong and unrelenting. 

Now, regarding the Crowder band and the umpa-land that we were creating during our inaugural performance on the doves, no physical injury occurred, and so we count it a success. Also, my mom thought it was cute. I thought it was quite fun and adequately campy, our hope being that it would be just about impossible not to smile when the happy sunshine drops in at the end. Hogan said he caught a glimpse of The Mr. Jeremy Camp grinning madly and clapping like a four year old when the sun came, so, i mean, to make a manly man like Mr. Camp feel what I would classify as “glee” is pretty fantastic. 

If you missed it on the Gospel Music Channel, you can check out a video of the performance here: 

http://www.youtube.com/v/FNxizeUhhCE&hl=en 

We also had a lovely night as far as awards go. We were really happy to see our latest effort, Remedy, be awarded the dove for Album Packaging of the Year. The whole green cross thing was something we had in our heads the whole time we were making the recording and of course we think Gary and Kaysie Dorsey (the folks at pixel peach who do our art stuff) are freaking geniuses with the Photoshop or whatever wizardry they use to make us look presentable. I mean, yes, it is undeniable truth, we are an incredibly photogenic band, but really they do a fine job despite this. Also there was the dove for “Worship Album” and one for Pop/Rock recorded song of the year “Everything Glorious” and I also received one for singing on Mac Powell’s “Glory Revealed” album. The highlight of these recognitions was that Bibleman was the presenter for “Worship Album of the Year”. 

I don’t even know what I said when we got up there because it was all so weird, you know, a guy in a plastic muscle suit, presenting you an award for a worship album, it was just mind blowing. But the cool thing about the Doves is that it is all of those people that you’ve gotten to know over the years that are voting and it’s just really, really nice to have them vote and acknowledge that they think what you are doing is meaningful in some way. At least that’s how i like to look at it all. 

The best thing about winning a dove though, is trying to get on a plane with it. 

Hello,

Here’s the Day 4 video blog from The Rubyz, as well as pictures of the band making their video blogs for us.

Notice that they are reading CCM Magazine!

Click here to watch their video blog:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvRXPwFKnzQ

Let’s try a pictorial.

These are miis of Chris Tomlin and myself. They are to scale:

This is the Mr. Steven Curtis Chapman, one of the kindest men on the planet, and that is me on the right:

This is Little Richard being helped into an Escalade:

This deer will be on stage with us during our Dove performance, his name is Steve:

This is who will be sitting in front of me at the Dove awards:

These flowers will be on stage with us during our Dove performance. maybe:

Check out this YouTube clip from Esterlyn to see their GMA Day 3 Blog:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frr5fjygY7A

www.esterlyn.com

Hello,

Check out the video blogs from The Rubyz for Day 1, 2 and Day 3 of GMA Week.

Day 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y4RI7u6Cqo

Day 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrZCBn5nswM

Day 3:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fscOvgkx9eg

Day 3 of GMA is over and I’m drinking my nightly cup of earl grey tea and blogging, before hitting the pillow and sleeping!

This morning I did a TV filming with GODTV. Check out the photos - the hosts were Edward and Emma - both from Europe which was fun for me…us Europeans have got to stick together! Lunchtime was the GOA Showcase with great performances from Rush of Fools and Joy Whitlock as well as many other bands. I had an afternoon appointment to look around the Guitar and Gear Gallery in one of the Rennaissance Suites. They were showing off great new gear from different instrument companies…I am a rare breed of girl who loves guitars, amps, pedals and gadetry, so I had a GREAT time drooling over the new products! Following that I had coffee with my mentor and friend Melody Green (pictured). I ended the day at Rocketown for a showcase - Capitol Lights were playing as I arrived. I’d hoped to see Thousand Foot Krutch but the busy week had left me pretty sleepy, so feeling way older than I am I headed home for bed, looking forward to seeing a TFK show another time.  GMA is almost over…one day left. Then my town will be quiet again, which is partly good and partly sad…its fun to have everyone inone location for a week..its definitely encouraging my heart to have so much quality time with people who share the same passion and focus!

Tomorrow I start my day with breakfast with some English industry folks… seeing as many british people as I can this week! Will report in again at the end of tomorrow!

Today was not as bad as I was braced for.

You see, usually by today I don’t have a voice. I’m not good at talking. I do it improperly, I’m told. Apparently I have what is known as a “hard glottal attack”. This sounds more dramatic that it is. But never the less, it is true and when I talk for extended periods I lose my voice. But I haven’t lost it yet this week and it is now quite late, as in, early morning Tuesday, like 1 am, and I’m still going strong. Awesome. I have turned over, what some call, a new leaf. I have no idea what that phrase means. It is mysterious, but appropriate.

Here’s what I’ve accomplished today: I filmed two new songs for “New Song Cafe”, which seems fitting. This is basically artists sitting on couch with fancy pillows telling you how they wrote the song that they about to play and then playing the song they talked about and then explaining how exactly they are playing this song they played and talked about. Filming these segments involves getting make-up put on my face. I don’t like having make-up put on my face. I’m told it is necessary for the filming and so I allow it. But I don’t like it.

So the best part is when they give me the Ponds wipes to clean my face after the filming. That’s what I’m thinking about the whole time things are being filmed, the Ponds wipe. The Ponds wipe is an amazing product and I thank the good people at the Ponds place for making such a magical thing as the wipe. There have been times I have practically bathed with them on tour due to sketchy shower situations, so to be redundant, I’ll state again, I’m a fan of the Ponds wipe. Also, there was a small delay in filming my portion as they couldn’t find a good place to pin the microphone on me because my beard kept making noises. I would be talking about something mind blowingly awesome and then I’d hear “cut, cut, cut! we’ve got beard noise,” and the moment would be lost. It was embarrassing. There was even the suggestion that I put the beard in a band like Charlie Hall (my friend and label mate) and I had to say no. They said, “hey, why don’t you put that thing in a rubber band like Charlie Hall,” and I said, “no, the beard cannot be contained. Don’t touch it. Don’t look at it. Seriously. Please, I beg you. Don’t make it angry.” But no one took me seriously.

Then I went to look for a white belt. I really, really need a white belt. So, I bought two. One is too small, which, for a skinny guy,made me feel awesome, but it has a fantastic buckle. The other one fits, but doesn’t have such a fantastic buckle. So, I’m going to remove the fantastic buckle from the belt that is too small and put it on the belt that fits but lacks the spicy buckle love. Then I will probably wear my shirt un-tucked and no one will know that I have displayed such ingenuity because the shirt will cover it, but I will know, and this is important.

Then I went to the Grand Ole Opry where the Dove Awards are to be broadcast from because we’re (my band and i) are to be playing during the award ceremony this year. We have had the brilliant idea to do something ridiculous during our portion of the evening and all of then material elements to be used were there, not yet assembled, and I was to have a first glimpse of things. This idea, the one for the performance, could be one of those things that winds up beautiful, or tragic. Tonight I overheard my wife Toni telling someone that we have a 90% chance that this will absolutely not work. Seems like steep odds, but I mean, it’s our first time to play on the Dove Awards and why not play such attractive odds? I should mention that woodland creatures may or may not be involved. I left really excited. We have a rehearsal tomorrow and I can’t wait to see it come together. It is to be broadcast on the Gospel Music Channel. If you have that channel, it might be worth tuning in to see whether we beat the spread. For sure it will be entertaining, regardless of how it plays out, I’m confident.

This evening we went to the ASCAP awards, which is my favorite thing that happens during the week. This is mostly due to a guy by the name of Dan Keen who is the host and who should totally have a game show on prime time television. The guy is a comedic wizard. The format is a dinner and the program, which includes an appropriate amount of irreverence, poignancy, historicity, and food that is way beyond what my palate has been trained to accommodate. i mean, what are you
intended to do with the following:

That plate remained intact and untouched exactly as it is seen above until removed by a very kind lady named “Rita”. The seating is assigned and this year i sat at Mercy Me’s table and it was all very festive. This is Bart, the lead singer of Mercy Me on the left, and that is me on the right:

The highlight of the night was an award honoring the legendary producer Brown Bannister. There was a moment with Tommy Sims, Gordon Kennedy and Wayne Kirkpatrick accompanying Russ Taff that was just ridiculously appropriate.

Russ was a trip. He snuck and sat by Bart and I because he was supposed to be a surprise. He had a cordless microphone and was supposed to start singing and then make his way to the stage, I would guess. Well, he started singing while still sitting in his seat and pretty much stayed right there for the duration of the song with Dan Keen motioning frantically to him to get up and come to the stage, but Russ never made it to the stage. Instead he walked over to Brown, who was sitting in the middle of things and Brown stood up with Russ and Russ is singing to/with him and it was just perfect. I think Russ
had medals on his jacket. Also perfect. This is Russ just after he finally stood up at Bart’s rather forceful prodding:

I think my favorite line of the night was delivered by Bart, lead singer for Mercy Me, shortly after I had returned to my table after happily receiving my ASCAP award for “Everything Glorious” and found this waiting where the previous work of food art had resided:

I looked over at Bart’s plate and it was completely clean and he looked at me with a glazed gleam in the eye and said, “that is the best desert I’ve ever eaten in my life.” We laughed really hard at this for some reason. But he was absolutely right. I cleaned my plate and Rita was really proud.

Another 6am alarm clock wake up, then driving into Nashville for a breakfast meeting at “Noshville” - a fab restaurant on 21st Ave.

After that, I went to film The New Song Cafe for my publisher EMI. Here are photos of the filming with David Crowder and Matt Maher (writer of Your Grace Is Enough). Mr Crowder’s beard was quite spectacular, as was Matt Maher’s 1960s vintage Gibson guitar! Filming went well, except that I got the giggles for some unknown reason, so I kept trying to not laugh…

Saw the band Fee and Leeland walking into the filming as I was walking out, so it was a fun afternoon.

Tonight was the Compassion dinner and one of the leaders of that amazing charity, Tony Neeves, gave a really inspiring talk about justice, mercy and worship. Powerful stuff! I sat at a table with some folks from Buckhead Church Atlanta, where I’m leading worship this coming weekend, so that was fun!

More tomorrow….I’m so tired - jet lag from my England trip plus a nice and busy GMA schedule are making me glad to be on my way to bed!

Vicky

Watch the video blog from Esterlyn here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3hY3KyAkfI

http://www.esterlyn.com

Click the following links to watch a video blog from GMA Week from The Rubyz:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y4RI7u6Cqo

For more GMA 2008 videos, visit our YouTube.