lyrics and ashes | live

Lyrics and Ashes from Jonathan Sprang on Vimeo.

jon hopkins makes me crazy

one of the guys that opened for coldplay last night was this guy, jon hopkins. he did some producing on the 'viva la vida' album, including the music behind 'life in technicolor' and 'the escapist.' i just bought his newest album, the fourth state, online. it's straight electronic ambient noise. i can't wait to get it.

he has just started using video with his live gigs with animations from nexus productions. here's a video of him at madison square garden earlier this year. *warning: videos are very psychodelic and may cause insanity

coldplay rocks!

wow. i am speechless. it was a really awesome show. they were dead on.

one of things that really blew me away was the camera work for the jumbotron. they must have been using hd cameras. it looked more like a music video than just your standard concert video. it totally added to the production side of things.

the sound was amazing in the aac (american airlines center)! i never realized how much the drummer is influenced by sequences, but his beats are very chopped up, and it totally moves the live versions of these songs to rock!

chris martin is really a talented pianist. he played a few classical outros that had some difficulty to them. it's cool to know that he's not just a "bang around till i found something that sounds good" type of piano player. he is super talented, and has got a ton of energy.

i kept track of all the songs on my phone throughout the show so i could post them for your pleasure (i created an imix in itunes if you're interested in downloading any of the songs. it would be like you were there with me :)

coldplay
2008-11-19
american airlines center
dallas, tx

coming out:
i just wanna love you (give it to me) [jay-z]
symphony piece [du-du-du-du-du-du plunk-plunk plunk-plunk] please comment if you figure it out, thx

setlist:
life in technicolor
violet hill
clocks
in my place
speed of sound
cemetaries of london
chinese sleep chant
42
fix you
strawberry swing
God put a smile upon your face / talk
the hardest part
viva la vida
lost
the scientist (acoustic)
death will never conquer (acoustic with drummer singing)
interlude -viva la vida dance mix-
politik
lovers in japan
death and all his friends

-encore-
yellow

exit song:
the escapist

imix
some songs are missing because they were not available on itunes. also, 'death and all his friends' includes 'the escapist' as the outro.

not leading

sunday was the first time since i've been in the ministry that i was at the church where i work, and didn't lead the worship. yeah, we had special people come in and take up the whole service, but it wasn't like, someone else was leading from the church. it was totally weird, and totally awesome at the same time.

it's going to be the same thing this sunday, when i preach my last sermon of the core series. i'm excited about how this is going wrap up. i think it's going to be really cool and really practical, how we love God by loving others, and we utilize our grow groups as a "catalyst" for serving out of the love that we have.

btw- i'm seeing coldplay in 21 hours and 15 minutes.

my arms are sore

i don't have any kids of my own. i enjoy kids more than i used to. i guess, the ones i used to be around, i wasn't around very much so they never really warmed up to me and i really didn't care to warm up to them.

my niece, abbie, warmed up to me pretty good when she was a baby, but still, she wanted nanna more and was somewhat scared of me (i guess she'd never seen anyone so beautiful before LOLOLOLOLOLO). her brother isaiah and i get along well. he runs up to me and says hi and stuff and it's really cool to get a hug from such a little person.

once addy, levi's daughter, was born, i've learned a little more about how to communicate with them and enjoy being around them. we consider addy and keegan family too. we love them and enjoy being a part of their lives.

tonight, levi and heather take a night away and meagan and i are staying with addy and keegan. it was a lot of fun. we went to chik-fi-la and after eating i played with keegan in the playground. he's so crazy: climbing up the stairs and laughing the whole way as i bang on the different windows and try my best to sneak up on him. meagan was playing with addy at the table with her new kid's meal toy (which after opening it and putting all the stickers on it and putting it together, said, 'i want to trade this back in for ice cream.).

i just got done putting keegan to bed. my first time rocking a baby to sleep. my arms are a little sore from . when i put him in his crib and left the room, he let out one little cry and then went silent. success!

old friends, pt. 5

when i was in high school there was a guy that came to our church and became real influence in my life. we hung out a lot and he taught our sunday school class and he was just a cool guy. he totally got me and my buddy david involved with video and design stuff.

he moved to savannah to go to scad (savannah college of art and design) and we saw him rarely. we did get to take a few trips up to savannah to hang out and it was really cool. he actually got into a couple of movies while he was there (eg. an extra in 'forces of nature', and a citizen in 'the legend of bagger vance' where he had a line). he then moved to l a and i haven't seen him since. i did catch wind that he made a short film called 'passing normal' but never saw it.

thanks to the beautiful thing that is facebook, i looked him up and found him and already had a few messages back and forth. i'm hoping that we can get out to l a some time and see a bunch of friends that are out there, especially him and my 'sister' holly.

if you have friends that you haven't talked to in a while, look them up, it's totally worth it.

pandora's box

we had some friends over tonight for dinner. it was getting close to time for them to get here and we didn't have any music going. i didn't really want to put my ipod on shuffle cause it would just be too crazy (david crowder to dave matthews to the righteous brothers to sheryl crow to justin timberlake etc.).

so i thought i'd take my friend julie's suggestion and download the pandora app for my ipod touch. it was so awesome. i put it on the dave matthews channel (cuz they like dave too, i don't force it down everyone's throat) and just let it roll. we listened to bunch of stuff including a track from the foo fighter's acoustic album, pearl jam, counting crows, and john mayer.

i've used it before but it's priceless for a party!

holy long-sermon batman!

i preached yesterday and it went really well. i really tried to not sound like an idiot, which is sometimes the most i can hope for. (you can download by right-clicking here.)

when i preached it earlier in the week (i say preached but i think it must've been more just a read-through) it was 20 min. i was like, oh dang! am i saying enough? is it going to connect? does it move people easily through the movements? so i added a few things and this video to hammer a point home.

i new i went long when i got to the end of the message and looked at the clock and it said i was already 5 min past when we were supposed to be done, and we still had 2 songs in the schedule (about 10 minutes). i didn't know how long it went until today. not including the video it was 34min and 24sec! the podcast never lies.

with the video it moved it up to 39:24 which just busted levi's record of 38:34

yeah...this week's message?

5 minutes

tops

:P