Rock the River Calgary was EPIC!!!!

Rock the River outdoor concert in Calgary this weekend was ridiculously amazing!!!!!!!!!  EPIC!!!!!!!!  I admit I was unfamiliar with many of the bands that were scheduled to play, but once I heard the songs, I recognized many of them!!   Love when that happens!!!

So over 10,000 people came out to Canada Olympic Park on a beautiful day (thankfully the BC fires didn't seem to affect the day either!!!)   Our group of youth from church got some great seats fairly close to the front...

and although "my age" were way up the hill, I made sure to come down for pictures of each band (except I missed Down Here... awesome group!) and even sat on Ben's shoulders to get some great shots (thanks Ben)!!!

So we saw Hawk Nelson

Starfield

Lecrae (one of my son's favs)

FlyLeaf

Now I admit FlyLeaf is so NOT my style of music, but I took these photos for a friend of mine who couldn't make it and LOVES FlyLeaf, but what I LOVED LOVED LOVED about her was her story!!! She was going to commit suicide when God brought her someone that night who wanted to pray for her and during the prayer she felt the warmth of God flow over her and she turned her life over to Jesus that night instead of ending her life... and the rest is history!!!  She truly cares for those who have hurts in their lives and her music reaches out to them (in a crazy screaming sort of way!!!) but it obviously works!!

Skillet

Onto my personal favourite (from the "experience" point of view vs. the actual music)...

Skillet had it all!!!  The talent, the show, the fire and fireworks (okay and yes some serious pipes on lead singer John Cooper... both kinds... vocal and physical) and they had two female band members!!  Their drummer was seriously talented...

and so is John Cooper's wife who is also in the band on guitar and vocals...

So my favourite part of the whole experience was seeing the masses all singing and dancing (AKA head banging) to songs that  praise God... sometimes it feels like you are all alone in your faith and then you see bands like this and thousands within our city who also believe that Jesus loves each one of us... and it is truly a reason to party!!!  And I love that my kids can have role models in the faith that are epically cool!!!  An experience of a lifetime!!!!!!!!!