The Purple Door Arts and Music Festival In Review

by Mark Rounds

This year I got a chance to return to the Purple Door Festival,held again this year at Ski Roundtop in Lewisberry, PA. This year's festival was fairly good, even though there was the absence of the previous year's headliners P.O.D.. This seemed to be a concern for some festival goers who obviously missed them, but I think the acts that were there this year more than made up for it.

Purple Door's choice of locations, Ski Roundtop, is a Ski Resort with lots of shade trees and other amenities that can help beat the summer heat. One of which I think is really cool, Snow Machines. To help keep people cool, they ran the snow machines during the day for the festival goers to run through and keep cool. Snow machines obviously cannot produce snow in the summer heat; but they do provide a huge water jet that is really cold and fun to stick your head in.

I had a chance to see only a little of the Main Stage acts the first night. I saw a little of Bleach, and a little of Relient K. Both of which were quite good shows and I was very impressed by both of them. Another thing that I thought was cool was that Relient K had a buffalo that they sent crowd surfing (Hey, I'm from just outside Buffalo NY, I think that's cool!)

I woke up early in the morning on Saturday to check out a band on a friend's record label, Last Tuesday. It was early in the morning for these guys for sure. They were all making comments about being too tired but gave the show their best effort and made it worth my while to show up so early. The band is pop punk and drew a pretty decent crowd considering the Rock for Life stage was quite the small stage for a festival. All in all, it was worth waking up that morning.

Then it's over to the HM Stage for The Blamed. Excellent set from the Blamed. They seemed to be really on for the day. I was impressed with them over all, having never heard them live before. They were tight, and really had the crowd into the music. I was quite impressed.

I next went over to the Main Stage (alone thanks to my wife wanting to go shopping in the merchandise tent!) for Thousand Foot Crutch. Much to my amazement, they played before noon and drew a crowd of more than half of the main stage bands the previous evening. I'm tempted to say more than half of the main stage bands that night! They also had the crowd well into the set, and that, again, is quite impressive considering it was before noon! After this set was over, I decided to get lunch and a much-awaited desert! Deep Fried Oreos!

The year before, we saw this stand selling Deep Fried Oreos. This didn't sound right, but last year I tried them, and they were good. Oreos, dipped in pancake batter, and thrown in the grease. Simple recipe, and they are really good. This alone would make the trip to Purple Door well worth your while.

My next concert run would be to see Joy Electric. It was a pretty good set. The thing that stuck out most from previous performances that I've seen is that the drummer was not around this time. I personally don't like listening to Joy Electric's albums, but the live set is usually always great. I think that the drummer was the key to that. But I did appear to be alone in that opinion as the crowd was very into the set. The fact that that they had the crowd with a well played set (considering) is the mark of a good performer.

After a little of my Press duties (I sat in on the Paul Colman Trio press conference and a Madison Greene Press interview for this site) I went down to the main stage to catch the Paul Colman Trio. I only caught the Worship set from these guys, and let me tell you, these guys can worship! These guys seemed to emanate Christ from the stage during the set, and definitely have a heart for God that was apparent even from as far back as I was standing during this set. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to see their set on the previous night where they played their own stuff, and I will definitely make an effort to see one of their shows as soon as I can get a chance!

The festival is one of the better ones that I've been to in quite a while. I always look forward to the Purple Door festival. I think that the two day festival is not too much, and not overdrawn by a whole week and makes for a comfortable two days of music, ministry, praise to God, and the celebration of creative expression. From the art gallery to the stages to the merchandise tents, it's a well-run festival that I think is just the right size to be effective.