Mrs. Lord, I think, arranged for a Christian Rock band play at our elementary school one time and this is what sent me on my journey to where I am today. To this day I am still trying to to find out what the the name of that band was.

They had showed up at our school with this touring bus that looked like the Partridge Family bus and it was amazing to look at. It had real groovy colours and patterns in the design. It looked like the Big Top just pulled in, well to a little kid anyway.

They were a 5 piece band with long hair. There was 3 men (guitar, drums and bass) and 2 women(Keyboards,flutes and tambourines).

When we went into our class, after the beginning/morning bell rang for us to go in, the anticipation was so thick that you could cut it with a knife! The morning had pasted and we where called in for the afternoon. As they were doing their sound check, my heart was racing so fast and I was literally bouncing off the walls! Mrs. Lord knew that I was going to go inter ballistic so, to make sure I wasn’t anymore of a distraction then usual, she asked me if I would see how the band was doing. Thank God the door was open or I would have bolted right through the damn thing.

As I entered the gym, the regular lights were out, the bands lights were being worked on and they were tuning and talking to each other. It was at this time that I think that I had an outer body experience!

I just stood there right in front of the stage and absorbed everything I could. I saw these glittering drums these big tall black things with lights and knobs on it (it must have been a Marshall, full stack) these things that a women was playing on the right side if the stage, that sounded like an organ one time and then the next moment sounded like a whole herd of violins that sounded much better then the grade 8 class ever did!

I had never heard a keyboard with such a full, wild sound like that before. Our church organ/keyboard had a traditional sound and feel, but seeing and hearing this electric keyboard\organ thing was wild! This was a change from the organist at our church which was always a man. I was trying to listen to both the guitar player and keyboardist but I was just in ahhhhh with what they were doing.

Finally the whole school was asked to go in and the event that was going to change my life was about to start!

When we were all seated on the floor, I didn’t sit with my classmates. I sat right in the middle and if anyone would have tried to ask me to go to where my class was sitting, I think that … well they wouldn’t be with us anymore.

The lights then went down and this very eerie music that made me feel very strange and scared, started to play! Then after minute pasted, a flash of light appeared and the transformation had begun. The lights were flashing and the POWER CHORDS brought me to another place in my mind!

Throughout the whole show I thought that I was the one that they were playing for, nobody else! I watched intensely as they played, the drummer was sooo powerful and the guitar solos made me feel like I was literally floating in the air. I finally looked around and saw kids holding their ears and running out of the gym, what the hell where they running from?I thought, GREAT, I hope they all leave and I can have this experience all to myself.

When the show was over I started screaming like some crazy girl at a Leif Garret show. For those not familiar with this guy, go and google him! Then everyone started screaming and screaming! Finally they came out for an ovation! They did this acapella thing that was a lot better then the harmonies that we did for mass and that stuck with me too!

After the show, we could go up and ask them questions and I told the guitarist that I too was a guitar player and he said that was great! He said keep practicing the basics and go VERY SLOWLY with it at first and then I will get faster later. Mrs. Lord then added that I was a good guitar player and she wanted to see if he would listen, and he said yes. I wasn’t nervous about anything back then so I played the band some songs and they liked it!

I got a chance to see them pack things up, and I watched them drive away. The guitar player drove away with one of the women in the band on the back of his motor cycle, wow, I knew then that this is what I wanted to be!

Has anyone ever had an experience like this in their life that changed them in such a drastic direction?

Keep on jamming everyone!