I’ve been really struggling to figure out what to talk about on this poor blog. I don’t really want to post about how frustrating work is or how difficult it is to raise twin toddlers. I get tired of reading people’s complaints online so I don’t want to be just another complaining over-worked parent. Whatever the case, work and child-raising are the bulk of my life right now, so that doesn’t leave much else to talk about.

So… it’s time to force myself to post other stuff by going with a new theme for a while. About this time of year, when I’m really over winter, I spend a lot of time thinking about summer. When I think of summer, I start thinking about Cornerstone Festival. Even in years when I’m not going, I follow along with my friends via e-mail, twitter, and photos and experience the buildup and the festival with them. I’m hopeful about attending again this year and it’s still more than three months away, but the excitement is starting ignite, like a tiny spark at the bottom of a pyre.

In the buildup and anticipation, I’ve decided to post every couple of days some of my favorite videos from Cornerstones past on youtube here and talk about them a little bit. One of the great things about Cornerstone is the laissez-faire attitude the festival takes towards audio and video recording. (Um, festival organizer friends, let’s pretend you didn’t see that last sentence. Okay? Okay.) Record labels may not like it, but what it means is that Cornerstone is one of the best documented Christian festivals out there, with plenty of material out on the Internet. I did some extensive searching and I’ve narrowed it down to 35 (yes 35!) videos. I’ll be posting them in chronological order from the first festival in 1984 up to last year’s festival every couple of days from next week up to the week before the festival. Please note, these aren’t all the *best* performances at Cornerstone. Some of those are sadly, not documented, or not online. These also are not the best quality videos. Some are barely listenable, barely visible recordings done with amateur equipment, but I hope they catch the energy of the performance. Some of the shows I was at, many I was not at. I’ll discuss a little bit of context around the video and I’d love to have some discussion about the bands and performances in the comments.

I hope you all enjoy this as much as I did selecting the videos and hopefully they will all embed with no problems and such.