Opening for Michael W. Smith

A lot of folks have asked us in the last 2 weeks – “So how was it?! How was opening for Michael W. Smith?!”

And to be brief the answer is “Great!”

It really was a fun experience – albeit with a couple rough moments – we had a great time and were honored to have the band with us that we had. We only briefly got to interact with the man himself, but he was very kind and genuine and still puts on an incredible show considering how long he’s been around. We all got to meet him after he finished sound-checking and politely shook all our hands with a smile and said “Hey! My name’s Mike. Looking forward to hearing y’all!” He asked if we were the house band for the church in York and I told him briefly where we were from before he had to head back to his bus – presumably to finish watching the football game that caused him to be late to soundcheck to begin with. His band was also phenomenal and really nice – they all apologized for being so late with sound check.

All was good though, we managed to fit in probably the shortest setup and sound check in history. We were all using in-ear monitors and had to get our individual in-ear mixes done in about 5 minutes so it was a bit rough but we got the job done which was good enough. Problem was, as soon as we stepped on stage to start our set – something must have changed on the board because for the entirety of our set, the only thing I could hear in my ears was Electric Guitar. What made it worse was that we were playing to a click track – can you say sloppy? So, to me, it sounded terrible. I had the worst time hearing anything and was at first upset before I decided it was an opportunity to put my faith in action and trust God that it sounded great to the audience.

Sure enough, after finishing our set to a standing ovation and hitting our merch table, we were overwhelmed by all the positive response. It was such an honor and privilege to be a part of the evening and we can’t think CMI and WJTL enough for the opportunity.

Our friend David O’Donohue captured the event for us an set it to our song Beauty in the Broken. We hope you all enjoy the highlight reel!