Faith in Focus is a weekly reflection on what God has been teaching me throughout the week regarding my faith. Whether it’s personal interactions, reading, or the Sunday sermon, God speaks through it all, and I hope this helps you focus on His mission.

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Sermon Reflection

After sixteen chapters of correction, encouragement, theology, and practical instruction, Paul's message to the Corinthian church remains remarkably simple. Whatever the question, whatever the struggle, whatever the circumstance, the answer is ultimately found in Christ and His resurrection.

Based on the sermon by Jonathan Land, Connection Church Sioux Falls, May 24, 2026.

The Thread Running Through 1 Corinthians

There is something deeply satisfying about reaching the end of a long journey.

Over the past several months, we have walked chapter by chapter through Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth. We have wrestled with difficult passages, explored complex doctrines, and confronted challenging applications. Along the way, Paul addressed division, sexual immorality, lawsuits among believers, marriage, singleness, Christian liberty, worship, spiritual gifts, and the resurrection.

At first glance, 1 Corinthians can feel like a collection of unrelated issues. One chapter discusses church conflict. Another focuses on marriage. Another dives into spiritual gifts. Yet another builds one of the most robust defenses of the resurrection found anywhere in Scripture.

But as we reach the end of the letter and look back, a remarkable pattern emerges.

Every road leads back to Jesus.

The World Behind the Text

The church in Corinth was messy.

Located in a prosperous and influential city, the Corinthian believers struggled to separate themselves from the values of the culture around them. They carried worldly assumptions into the church and then wondered why problems followed.

Sound familiar?

The Corinthians often approached their faith by asking questions similar to the ones Christians ask today.

How should we handle disagreements? What should our relationships look like? How do we use our freedoms? What does spiritual maturity look like? How should worship function? What happens after death?

Paul answers every one of these questions, yet he refuses to let the conversation stay merely practical. Instead, he consistently moves beneath the surface and addresses the deeper issue.

Their greatest need was not better techniques. Their greatest need was Christ.

Walking the Passage

One of the most fascinating observations from this study is how frequently Paul points to Jesus throughout the letter.

Across sixteen chapters, Paul uses the name Jesus twenty six times, Christ sixty four times, and Lord sixty six times. These aren’t accidental references sprinkled throughout the letter. They reveal Paul’s central focus.

Everything revolves around Christ.

When the Corinthians were dividing into factions, Paul pointed them to Christ crucified.

When they were tolerating sin, Paul pointed them to Christ’s holiness.

When they struggled with pride, Paul pointed them to Christ’s humility.

When they misunderstood love, Paul pointed them to Christ’s example.

When they questioned the resurrection, Paul pointed them to Christ’s victory over death.

Paul never treats Jesus as a supporting character in the Christian life. Jesus IS the Christian life. This is why Paul writes, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2, ESV).

That statement is not a rejection of theology or practical wisdom. Rather, it is a declaration that every aspect of theology and wisdom finds its center in Christ.

When we dig deeply enough into any issue, we eventually arrive at the cross.

When we ask how to forgive, we find Christ.

When we ask how to love, we find Christ.

When we ask how to endure suffering, we find Christ.

When we ask what gives life meaning, we find Christ.

When we ask what happens after death, we find Christ and His resurrection.

The world constantly offers competing answers. It tells us fulfillment can be found in success, relationships, wealth, status, self-expression, or personal achievement.

Paul disagrees.

Christ is not one answer among many. Christ IS the answer.

That truth can sound exclusive in a culture that celebrates endless options. Yet Christianity has always proclaimed that ultimate hope is found in a person, not a philosophy.

Jesus Himself declared, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6, ESV).

The gospel does not present Christ as an enhancement to life. It presents Him as life itself.

A Fair Counter-Reading

Some readers may object that reducing every issue to “Jesus is the answer” oversimplifies the complexities of life.

After all, Scripture contains practical commands, wisdom literature, and detailed ethical teaching. Doesn’t Christianity require more nuanced answers than simply pointing to Christ?

There is truth in that concern.

Paul certainly provides practical instruction throughout 1 Corinthians. He gives specific guidance regarding marriage, worship, church discipline, generosity, and spiritual gifts. Christianity is not opposed to practical wisdom.

Yet Paul never allows practical wisdom to become disconnected from the person and work of Jesus.

The issue is not whether practical answers matter. The issue is whether those answers remain rooted in the Gospel.

Paul’s genius is that he refuses to separate doctrine from discipleship. The practical instructions always flow from the reality of who Christ is and what He has accomplished.

The Turn

One of the challenges facing modern Christians is the temptation to blend into the surrounding culture. We often want to be accepted, understood, and comfortable.

Yet Paul consistently calls believers toward something different.

He calls them toward holiness, sacrificial love, and toward a life shaped by the cross.

In many ways, genuine Christianity should appear strange to the world.

Not because Christians seek to be offensive or are trying to stand out. But because the values of Christ often run contrary to the values of the culture.

Paul closes the letter with a simple but profound command: “Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Corinthians 16:14, ESV).

That sounds simple until we attempt to live it.

Responding to criticism with love, serving others before ourselves, forgiving those who hurt us, and choosing humility over self promotion are all countercultural.

Living every aspect of life through the lens of Christ’s sacrificial love will often make us appear strange in a world built on self interest.

But perhaps that is exactly the point. The church was never called to look like Corinth. The church was called to look like Christ.

Carry It Into the Week

As we close the book of 1 Corinthians, it is worth pausing to recognize what has happened.

You have journeyed through an entire book of the Bible.

That may not feel significant at first glance, but it truly is.

In a culture increasingly driven by short attention spans and quick answers, you have spent time dwelling deeply in God’s Word. You have wrestled with difficult passages. You have explored theology. You have followed Paul’s argument from beginning to end.

That is no small accomplishment.

More importantly, my hope is that this study has accomplished what Paul intended all along.

Not merely that you would know more about Corinth or that you would understand more theology. But that you would see Christ more clearly.

Because every chapter ultimately points to Him.

Every correction, every command, every promise, and every hope points to Him.

As we move into our Summer in the Psalms series, my prayer is that the same hunger for God’s Word continues to grow in anyone who reads this. Scripture is not simply information to consume. It is God’s revelation of Himself, culminating in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Thank you for walking through this journey with me.

I hope you’ll continue to join me as we turn the page and begin exploring the Psalms together.

Song of the Week: Confidence - Sanctus Real

We all have things that scare us. For some, it’s spiders crawling across the floor. For others, it’s standing in front of a crowd to speak or looking over the edge of a towering height. Fear is something every person experiences in one way or another. Yet some of the deepest fears are not physical at all. Sometimes the hardest fears to face are the spiritual ones. The fear of speaking openly about our faith at work. The fear of being judged by family or friends. The fear of defending what we believe when difficult conversations arise. Even as Christians, fear has a way of making us feel small and uncertain.

That is why Sanctus Real’s song Confidence resonates with people. The song is more than just catchy lyrics or a powerful chorus. It’s a prayer. A cry for God to give ordinary people extraordinary faith in the middle of life’s battles.

“So give me faith like Daniel in the lion’s den.” Daniel stood surrounded by danger, yet he trusted God even when fear should have overwhelmed him. That lyric becomes a prayer asking God to help us stand firm when life feels intimidating and uncertain. Help me not to run from the things that scare me. Help me trust You even when I feel surrounded.

“Give me hope like Moses in the wilderness.” Moses spent years wandering through uncertainty, yet God never abandoned His promises. Sometimes life feels like a wilderness season where prayers seem unanswered and the road ahead feels unclear. This line reminds us to ask God for hope that sees beyond present struggles and believes He is still leading us somewhere greater.

“Give me a heart like David, Lord be my defense.” David faced giants, enemies, and impossible odds, but his confidence was never in his own strength. His confidence came from knowing who fought beside him. That same prayer applies to our own lives when battles come in the form of anxiety, hardships, temptation, grief, or spiritual struggles. We ask God to fight for us when we are too weak to fight on our own.

“So I can face my giants with confidence.” That single line captures the heart of the Christian walk. Confidence doesn’t mean we never feel afraid. It means we know fear doesn’t have the final word because God is greater than whatever stands in front of us. The giants in our lives may not be literal warriors or lions, but they are still real. Fear, doubt, insecurity, suffering, and uncertainty can all feel massive in the moment. Yet through Christ, we are reminded that we do not face those giants alone.

True confidence is not rooted in ourselves. It is rooted in knowing that God is our salvation, our hope, and our strength. He is faithful in every season, present in every battle, and stronger than every fear we carry. My prayer is not only that God continues to grow this confidence in my own life, but that everyone reading this would pray the same thing. That God would give us faith when we are afraid, hope when we feel lost, strength when we feel weak, and confidence to face whatever lies ahead knowing He walks beside us every step of the way.

Week in Reflection

This week truly felt like the beginning of summer. The weather is getting warmer, the days are stretching longer, and suddenly calendars start filling with opportunities to connect with people outside again. Between bonfires with friends, dreaming about future travel plans, and stepping into a new opportunity with photography at church, it felt like one of those weeks where God quietly reminds me how much beauty can be found in everyday moments.

There is just something special about summer bonfires. Maybe it’s the slower pace, the glow of the fire cutting through the darkness, or the way conversations seem to naturally go deeper when everyone is gathered around together. This week brought a night like that, sitting around the fire with friends talking about life, interests, future goals, and everything in between. One of the biggest conversations ended up being the possibility of organizing a trip to Japan in 2027, which honestly still feels surreal to even talk about.

What started as a casual discussion quickly turned into excited conversations about places we would want to visit, food we would want to try, and experiences we would love to share together. Beyond the excitement of travel itself, moments like that remind me how important community really is. Fellowship is not always confined to church walls or organized Bible studies. Sometimes it happens around folding chairs in a backyard while smoke from a fire drifts through the air and everyone shares pieces of their lives with one another. Those moments matter deeply because they create opportunities to encourage one another, laugh together, and witness how God is moving in each person’s journey.

Alongside those moments of fellowship came an opportunity that honestly pushed me out of my comfort zone in the best way possible. This week I had the privilege of photographing services at Connection Church. From morning prayer before service began, to the welcome team greeting people at the doors, to baptisms during worship, and the sermon itself, it was an incredibly humbling experience to try and capture the heart behind everything happening throughout the morning.

Going into it, I was definitely nervous. Photography is always interesting because there is a balance between technical skill and simply being present enough to recognize meaningful moments as they happen. Walking into an environment where every moment carries spiritual significance added an entirely different layer to that responsibility. I wanted to do justice to the joy of baptisms, the sincerity of prayer, and the welcoming atmosphere that so many people work hard to create every Sunday.

Even though I have not received feedback on the photographs yet, I walked away feeling genuinely grateful for the opportunity itself. There were multiple moments throughout the services where I could feel God guiding my attention toward moments that deserved to be captured. A smile during worship, someone deep in prayer, or the excitement and emotion surrounding baptisms. Moments that may seem small from the outside but carry so much meaning within them. It reminded me that photography, at its best, is more than simply taking pictures. It becomes a way of preserving moments that reflect joy, community, faith, and the work God is doing in people’s lives.

As summer continues to unfold, I find myself increasingly excited for what lies ahead. The season is only beginning, yet already it has brought opportunities for deeper fellowship, new experiences, and reminders of God’s faithfulness in both big and small ways. Whether it’s conversations around a bonfire, planning adventures down the road, or stepping into opportunities that feel intimidating at first, I am thankful for the ways God continues to open doors and create moments worth remembering.

If this is only the beginning of summer, I truly cannot wait to see what the rest of the season holds.

And always remember, God loves you, and so do I.

Connection Church in Sioux Falls is a gospel-centered community committed to helping people follow Jesus through authentic relationships, biblical teaching, and everyday mission. Rooted in historic Christian belief and aligned with gospel renewal movements, the church exists to see lives transformed by Jesus. Learn more: https://siouxfallsconnection.com/who-we-are

Some nights feel bigger than the room.

Not because the room is packed wall to wall. Not because the bar line never ends. Not because the whole city suddenly decides to show up and prove it has been paying attention. Sometimes a night feels bigger because the people who do show up get handed something wild, loud, sweaty, ridiculous, and fully committed. Something that makes you look around halfway through and think, “There should be more people here for this.”

That was the feeling inside xBk Live on Thursday, May 21, when Minneapolis shock-rock outfit Caster Volor rolled into Des Moines with local support from Parabola and Psycho X. It was also my very first booking at xBk, which meant I walked into the night with the excitement of a toddler granted unsupervised access to a candy store. Obviously, I am not new to booking bands, but a touring act paired with original local bands is not my normal lane. That made the whole thing feel fresh, slightly terrifying, and absolutely worth doing.

This show had the best kind of collision built into it. Two bands from our own Des Moines scene helped anchor the night, while a touring band brought something strange and theatrical from outside the local orbit. That combination is exactly why nights like this are worth fighting for. Local music needs rooms. Touring bands need people willing to take a chance on them before everyone else catches up. And sometimes, when those two things meet in the right space, the result is not perfect, but it is alive.

Local Fire Before the Smoke

The night opened with Parabola, a Des Moines original rock band that brought the evening down to the floor level before the touring spectacle took over. In a bill that would eventually lean deep into theatrical shock-rock, Parabola gave the show its local foundation: gritty, direct, and rooted in songs that felt built from the same raw materials as the room itself.

The band describes itself best: “Parabola is a four-piece rock band that blends the raw energy of grunge with the timeless edge of classic rock. Drawing inspiration from the ’70s, ’90s, and early 2000s, our sound combines gritty guitar riffs, powerful rhythms, and introspective lyrics. Parabola channels the rebellious spirit and seeks to inspire listeners to think deeper and Imagine a Better World.”

That description lands because Parabola does not sound like a band trying to chase whatever version of rock is currently fashionable. Their music pulls from eras where guitars still carried dirt under the nails and lyrics were allowed to wrestle with something heavier than surface-level attitude. There is a lived-in quality to their sound, with enough grunge weight to keep things grounded and enough classic-rock edge to keep the songs from sinking into gloom.

As an opener, they did what strong local original bands are supposed to do. They did not simply warm the room. They claimed their corner of it. Their set gave the night an early pulse and reminded everyone that Des Moines has original bands worth putting in front of touring acts. In a scene that too often asks local musicians to prove themselves over and over again, Parabola walked in with the kind of confidence that says the songs are already doing the talking.

Psycho X followed with a different kind of local power. A respected Des Moines rock cover band, they are a true local supergroup, made up of highly talented and familiar musicians who have helped shape some of the area’s stronger acts over the years. That kind of history matters in a room like this because Psycho X does not feel assembled for convenience. They feel like musicians who know the circuit, know the crowds, and know how to move a night forward.

Cover bands have a different job than original bands, but it is not an easier one. They have to take songs people already know and make them feel immediate again. Psycho X understood that balance. Their set gave the crowd recognizable rock muscle while keeping the energy sharp enough to support the heavier, stranger world that Caster Volor would bring later. They were not there to simply fill the middle slot. They were there to connect the audience to the night.

Together, Parabola and Psycho X made the local half of the bill feel intentional. Parabola brought original Des Moines grit. Psycho X brought veteran scene presence and familiar rock firepower. By the time Caster Volor was ready to drag the evening into smoke, props, costumes, and chaos, the room had already been claimed by the city.

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xBk Keeps Proving the Point

I have covered shows at xBk Live several times now, so I will keep this part short. The venue has quickly become one of my favorite places for press coverage and concert photography in Des Moines. It is intimate without feeling cramped, professional without feeling sterile, and flexible enough to host a wide range of touring acts and local talent.

That flexibility was important for this night. Caster Volor does not arrive like a band content to plug in, play loud, and disappear. They bring props. They bring smoke. They bring costume changes. They bring a theatrical attitude that needs a room willing to bend with it. xBk gave them enough intimacy to make the chaos feel close and enough structure to keep the whole thing from flying completely off the rails.

For photographers, this kind of show is a gift and a workout. Smoke eats light. Movement refuses to sit still. Props appear without warning. Bodies climb, lunge, pose, collapse, revive, and sprint through frames before the shutter can catch its breath. But when it works, the camera gets rewarded. Caster Volor gave us a moving target all night, and that is exactly what made them fun to shoot.

The Freak Show Arrives

If you think rock and roll is dying, you have not seen Caster Volor.

The Minneapolis band does not simply play a set. They unleash one. Their world is hard rock, heavy metal, shock-rock spectacle, vaudevillian swagger, industrial steel, and glorious bad behavior all shoved into the same cannon. On paper, it sounds excessive. In person, the excess is the point.

The lineup for the night was Alex on lead vocals, Steven on guitar, Kasey on bass, Niko on drums, and Kaitlin on background vocals. Together, they moved less like a standard band and more like a finely tuned machine of madness. The stage became a playground for heavy metal theater almost immediately. Thick smoke poured through the room. Props appeared. The pacing refused to relax. There were multiple costume changes, nonstop movement, synchronized headbanging, dancing, antics, and enough visual chaos to make the room feel bigger than it was.

And yes, there was Clarice.

Clarice, for the uninitiated, is the infamous blow-up doll who apparently belongs in the Caster Volor universe as much as any guitar, drum kit, or microphone stand. That sentence probably tells you everything you need to know about the band’s commitment to the bit. They do not flirt with ridiculousness. They marry it in a smoke-filled chapel and drag it screaming across the stage.

Frontman Alex was the gravitational center of the madness, carrying the kind of stage presence that requires full-body commitment. His signature custom-lit codpiece was not just some visual gag either. It actually held his microphone, because apparently normal mic stands are for bands with less imagination and fewer insurance questions.

Guitarist Steven matched him step for step. At one point, he brought out a hand drill and used it against his guitar strings, sending the performance into that wonderful territory where you cannot decide whether to laugh, cheer, or duck. It was absurd in the exact way rock and roll should still be allowed to be absurd. Not ironic. Not sanitized. Not focus-grouped into harmlessness. Just loud, strange, and fully committed.

The peak of the night’s showmanship came when Steven climbed onto Alex’s shoulders and kept playing while Alex paraded him through the middle of the audience. No dropped note. No broken spell. Just a guitarist soloing from above while the singer carried him through the crowd like some deranged heavy-metal victory lap. It shattered the barrier between band and audience in the most literal way possible.

That moment alone should have been enough to make people talk about this show for weeks.

Anthems, Covers, and a Buzzsaw Original

For all the smoke and props, Caster Volor would not work if the songs did not have muscle. The spectacle is the hook, but the music has to hold the weight of it. Their original material pulls from the more theatrical side of hard rock and metal, with a taste for big riffs, chant-ready choruses, industrial menace, and a certain sleazy glam-metal grin flashing through the darkness.

Their 2025 EP Paracosm captures that blend well, especially in the way it balances satire, rage, defiance, and heart without pretending the whole thing needs to be polite. The standout original of the night was “Black Leather Middle Finger,” a track that ripped through the room like a buzzsaw with a bad attitude. It has the kind of title that tells you exactly what neighborhood it lives in. Raw, unapologetic, heavy, and built around a driving groove, it felt like the clearest thesis statement for the band’s entire identity.

Then came “Bodies.”

Their cover of Drowning Pool’s “Bodies” was easily one of the hardest-hitting moments of the night. The second it landed, the room changed. The energy spiked. The floor tightened. Heads started moving harder. The crowd turned into a small but frantic storm of moshing, headbanging, and release. It was not the biggest crowd, but in that moment, the room stopped acting its size.

That is the trick with a song like “Bodies.” Everyone knows where it is going. Everyone knows the pressure points. A lesser band can phone it in and still get a reaction. Caster Volor did not phone it in. They shoved it through their own theatrical grinder and made it fit the larger freak show.

The band also has a reputation for pulling covers from several decades and warping them through its own hard-hitting lens. Their orbit includes rock and metal staples from KISS, Billy Idol, Mötley Crüe, AC/DC, Rob Zombie, Rammstein, Marilyn Manson, Godsmack, Hollywood Undead, and Falling In Reverse, along with more unexpected detours from acts like LMFAO, t.A.T.u., and Enrique Iglesias. That range makes sense after seeing them live. They are not interested in simply copying a song. They want to drag it backstage, smear eyeliner on it, bolt steel to its spine, and send it back out under red lights.

The Cold Hard Truth

Here is where the night gets honest.

This was a ticketed show. It was my first booking at xBk Live. I went into it excited, hopeful, and probably carrying more wide-eyed optimism than was medically advisable. Caster Volor put everything into the performance. They did not scale it down because the room was not packed. They did not coast. They did not punish the people who showed up for the people who stayed home. They delivered the full show.

But it was a Thursday night, and Des Moines does not know them yet.

Bringing in local openers was the smart move. Parabola and Psycho X gave the bill local draw and scene connection, which helped. Still, we did not pack the house. My guess is there were around 50 people in attendance. Those 50 people got one heck of a show. Sadly, a lot of people missed out.

That is the hard part of booking shows like this. You can do the work. You can put the bill together. You can bring in a touring band with a real production, strong songs, and a stage show that deserves attention. You can pair them with local talent. You can put it in a venue that knows how to host a night properly. And still, sometimes the city is slow to catch on.

But I do not look at this night as a failure. I look at it as a first flare.

There are bands that need to be explained before they are seen, and then there are bands that explain themselves the second the lights drop. Caster Volor belongs to the second category. They are not subtle. They are not trying to be. They are loud, theatrical, strange, ambitious, and completely unafraid to look ridiculous in pursuit of making the room feel something.

That kind of band does not need pity. It needs witnesses.

Afterglow

By the end of the night, I was tired in the best way. My camera had been worked hard. My expectations had been flipped around a few times. I had spent the evening with colleagues, friends, new band members, local musicians, and a touring act that treated 50 people like 500.

That is the part I keep coming back to.

The house was not packed, but the show was full. Full of smoke. Full of noise. Full of weird props and harder riffs. Full of local pride and touring chaos. Full of those strange little moments that remind you why live music cannot be reduced to numbers on a door sheet.

Caster Volor came to Des Moines and gave xBk Live a full-throttle freak show. Parabola and Psycho X helped make it a night rooted in the local scene. And the people who showed up got the better end of the bargain.

Sometimes the room is smaller than the show.

Sometimes that is exactly why you remember it.

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Having only been to Vibrant Music Hall once before, I thought I had already seen it close to full.

I was wrong.

When I got to the show, the place was packed from one side to the other, with the balcony filling in quickly and the floor already compressed into one breathing mass of black shirts, crossed arms, raised horns, and people waiting to be flattened by sound. There is a particular kind of anticipation that only happens at a heavy show when the room knows what is coming. It is not polite excitement. It has teeth.

Signs of the Swarm

By the time I entered, Signs of the Swarm were already playing and had pulled the audience into a tightly knit group of fans. I had heard the name passed through circles and tour conversations for years, usually by people whose taste in heavy music I trusted enough to take seriously. They have been in the scene since 2014, and through a menagerie of lineup changes, they have sharpened themselves into something with a clear shape: brutal, technical, guttural, and carved deep into one of the heavier corners of deathcore and blackened extreme music.

This was not background noise for people still finding their places. Signs of the Swarm arrived like a weather system built out of double bass, guitar swells, and vocals that sounded less performed than summoned. Their music has that strange ability to make the body react before the brain finishes sorting out what is happening. The drums were structural and punishing, the guitars moved in thick waves, and David Simonich’s vocals cut through the room with a kind of animal precision. It was ugly in the way extreme music can be beautiful, all tension and pressure and release.

The lights helped turn it into something more physical. Endless strobe patterns hammered the room until it became easy to feel consumed by it, pulled into a natural and strange state of primal rage. During one song, which I have narrowed down to either “IWONTLETYOUDIE” or “Amongst the Low & Empty,” Simonich unleashed a high-pitched growl that seemed to match the strobe light in rhythm and intensity. For a few seconds, voice and light felt fused, both flickering at the same impossible speed.

Their name prepares you for heaviness, but the live version still had force behind it. Signs of the Swarm filled every second of their 7:00 to 7:30 set with brutality, but brutality was not the only thing they brought. There was craft in it. There was control. There was the feeling of a band that knows exactly where the trapdoors are in its own music and knows when to kick them open.

In my early years of listening to heavy music, back in the early 2000s, this probably would have been too much for me. Thankfully, my opinions have learned how to behave less like fences and more like doors. I am a fan now. Everyone who lives with me is too, although they did not exactly get a vote. It gets played at my house every day.

The Beauty of a Clean Changeover

After Signs of the Swarm finished, set change began immediately.

Having had a direct hand in set changes in past routes my life has taken, I always try to watch at least part of that process. It is easy for audiences to miss how much work happens between bands because, when it is done well, it almost disappears. Vibrant Music Hall and the touring stage teams made it look clean, quick, safe, and structured. After seeing it happen a few times there, I can honestly say I am a bit jealous of their workflow.

They know what they are doing, and they all do it well.

That matters more at a show like this than some people realize. These bands do not travel light. There are lighting cues, backline changes, risers, drums, cables, instruments, smoke, haze, and enough moving parts to turn a sloppy changeover into a delay or a hazard. Instead, the room kept its pulse. Nothing sagged. Nothing felt stranded. The night moved with purpose.

By the time Paleface Swiss were ready, the crowd had not deflated. It had thickened.

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Paleface Swiss Break the Room Open

Paleface Swiss came to the stage with a presence you could feel before the first full hit landed. The room was not silent. It was busy and noisy, full of conversations, movement, and the rustling impatience of people preparing themselves for impact. Then the band started playing, and the room changed immediately.

By the time they were into their second song, I believe they already had a circle pit moving. For anyone unfamiliar, a circle pit is a large mosh pit where everyone runs in the same direction, which sounds silly until you are close enough to feel the air pull as bodies start orbiting the floor. It can look chaotic from the outside, but inside the scene there is an odd structure to it, a rough code of movement, collision, and quick hands helping people back up.

Paleface Swiss brought a different kind of attitude than what often gets expected from the metal world. The band made its name playing bars in Switzerland and Germany, and they carry that history with them: hungry, physical, direct, and fully aware of the room. But there was also something else on that stage. Most of them wore mesh shirts. Their stage presence pushed against the stiff, hyper-masculine armor that heavy music can sometimes mistake for authenticity. They did not posture like men trying to prove they were dangerous. They performed like people confident enough to be strange, sensual, funny, aggressive, and entirely themselves in the same breath.

When learning more about the band, I found that this is not some accident of styling. Paleface Swiss are openly comfortable breaking against the boundaries of toxic masculinity that still get guarded too heavily in parts of the heavy metal community. They are not afraid to share a kiss on stage. During the show, vocalist Marc Zellweger sensuously grabbed the guitarist from behind around the neck mid-solo, turning what could have been standard metal staging into something more playful and more confrontational.

And they know exactly what they are doing.

There is humor in it. There is defiance in it. There is a clear sense that if someone leaves the show because the band expresses fluid sexuality on stage, Paleface Swiss will not be wounded by that reaction. They might actually find it funny. Personally, I find that very cool. Heavy music is supposed to make people confront something. Sometimes that thing is fear. Sometimes it is grief. Sometimes it is anger. Sometimes it is a man in a mesh shirt making fragile people uncomfortable by being freer than they are.

Musically, Paleface Swiss were punishing. Their sound pulls from deathcore, beatdown hardcore, and nu-metal pressure, with grooves that do not ask permission before stepping on your chest. The pit responded accordingly. The room bent itself around them, and the band kept pushing.

They played until 8:45, thanking the fans for coming out and thanking Lorna Shore for bringing them on tour. With the least bit of irony, they also thanked Slipknot and dedicated a song to them. In Iowa, that gesture landed differently. Slipknot are not just another influence here. They are part of the state’s heavy-music mythology, a band that turned Iowa into something louder and stranger in the global imagination. Considering Zellweger discovered Slipknot as a kid, it felt appropriate. Without that discovery, Paleface Swiss may not exist the way they do now.

That is one of the stranger chains in heavy music: a kid finds a band, builds a life around the feeling it gives him, crosses oceans with his own band years later, then thanks that same band in the state that birthed it. Metal has a memory, even when it is screaming.

Haze Before the Horse Breaks Loose

Lorna Shore started at 9:05, and saying the anticipation was radiant still feels too small.

Before they appeared, haze swallowed the stage. Floodlights lingered through it like travelers moving down a misted road at night. The room was no longer merely waiting. It was bracing. Lorna Shore have become one of those bands whose reputation arrives before they do, especially after the explosion of “To the Hellfire” and the way their music has pushed symphonic deathcore into larger rooms than some people once imagined possible. But knowing a band is powerful and standing in front of that power are two different things.

They took the stage as “Oblivion” began to unfold, and Will Ramos came out wearing the same sweater from the music video. He took the stage like it was a training pen and he was a wild horse.

From side to side, with unwavering force, Ramos took the night by storm. As a fan, I was overtaken by the sheer joy of witnessing this band live. I had never imagined this would be something I would get to do: stand there in front of a band I genuinely love, record the experience, photograph it, and then write about it afterward. I was trying my best to keep my composure from the front of the stage, between the crowd and the band, screaming along to the lyrics while still doing the job.

Then they played “Unbreakable,” my favorite song.

I nearly had tears in my eyes while taking in the full experience, singing along and shooting photos. There are songs that hit because they are heavy, and then there are songs that hit because the heaviness feels like it is carrying something upward instead of dragging everything down. Lorna Shore have that rare quality. Their songs often carry an essence of earth-shattering hope. The music is devastating, but it does not feel empty. It feels like something clawing toward light through a collapsed ceiling.

That hope rides on top of backing music heavy enough to crack pavement. Part of Lorna Shore’s rise can be traced through the moment “To the Hellfire” broke beyond the usual lanes, reaching No. 7 on Billboard’s Hot Hard Rock Songs chart and helping producer Josh Schroeder hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Hard Rock Producers chart in August 2021 through his work with the band. That kind of chart placement does not explain the band’s emotional force, but it does show how far the sound has traveled.

At Vibrant, it felt like the sound had traveled all the way into the bones of the building.

Human Waterfalls and Midwest Treasure

The set stretched across Lorna Shore’s recent era, reaching from the shadow and grandeur of 2022’s Pain Remains into newer material from I Feel the Everblack Festering Within Me. They played songs like “Cursed to Die” and “In Darkness,” the latter made even wilder when their photographer Nick Johnson came out for guest vocals. That moment gave the crowd another charge, the kind that ripples through a packed room before anyone has time to decide what to do with it.

Then came “Sun//Eater,” and the crowd surfing turned relentless. People came over the rail in such repetition that it started to look like a waterfall of humans, bodies spilling forward again and again to be caught, guided, and safely administered back into the crowd. Security had their hands full, but the flow stayed controlled enough to keep the moment from tipping into danger. It was one of those scenes where the crowd becomes part of the show’s machinery, not in a cheap participation way, but as a moving extension of the music’s force.

Lorna Shore treated Vibrant Music Hall like a Midwest treasure deserving the full experience. That is still the phrase that keeps circling my brain. We do not get nights like this every day in rooms like this. The show felt part awestruck, part enriching, thoroughly overwhelming. I keep trying to put the exact feeling into words, and the words keep looking too small for the shape of it.

When they finally played “Glenwood,” the room was already somewhere beyond normal concert exhaustion. Then, in one of the strangest and funniest turns of the night, Ramos found a pack of Pokémon cards that had been thrown onto the stage by a fan. He picked it up and showed the crowd before the lights dimmed and the band sauntered backstage.

Moments later, you could hear him exclaim that they got a Mega Charizard and that it deserved a pit.

So they played “Prison of Flesh,” with Signs of the Swarm’s David Simonich coming out for guest vocals. It was the kind of ridiculous, perfect live-show moment that cannot be planned into feeling real. A Pokémon card pull became a pit command. A Mega Charizard became a reason for more destruction. Somewhere, an eight-year-old collector and a deathcore vocalist briefly occupied the same spiritual dimension.

Pain Remains

The band left the stage, then returned for an encore with Ramos acknowledging the sadness of a final song. But it was okay, he said, because it was a trilogy.

Then Lorna Shore played the full Pain Remains sequence: “Dancing Like Flames,” “After All I’ve Done, I’ll Disappear,” and “In a Sea of Fire.”

There is a reason that trilogy has become sacred ground for the band’s fans. In a genre often misunderstood as pure abrasion, Pain Remains reaches for grief with both hands. It is enormous, theatrical, mournful, and punishing. Live, it became less like three songs and more like one long emotional collapse with blast beats underneath it. The crowd did not simply listen. It endured, celebrated, and carried it.

Then Ramos brought the Pokémon cards back into the story.

“Who the f--k said Pokémon cards aren’t valuable?” he joked. “That Mega Charizard is worth 10 dollars! You guys know what that means? We get to share a meal at Taco Bell after the show!”

It was funny because it broke the cathedral atmosphere without cheapening it. One moment, the room was drowning in the Pain Remains trilogy. The next, the frontman was turning a fan-thrown Pokémon card into a Taco Bell budget meeting. That balance is part of why Ramos connects the way he does. He can summon impossible vocals and still talk to the crowd like a human being who cannot believe his luck either.

Before sending everyone into the night, he thanked the crowd again, thanked Slipknot, and pointed out a few MVP crowd members. One was a little guy who could not have been older than eight and had been crowd surfing. Another was a girl he said had been to every Iowa show they had played and was tougher than any guy in the pit. He had the crowd surf the boy up once more, gave him the setlist, asked everyone to get home safely, and told the fans the band loved them.

Then the room emptied into the night.

Afterglow

After the show, I drove to the campground near Saylorville Lake, where my family and friends had set up camp. I got there and all but gloated about how great the night had been.

Some shows leave you tired. Some leave you bruised. Some leave your ears ringing in a way that makes ordinary silence feel suspicious. This one left me enriched. That is the word I keep returning to, even if it sounds strange for a night built from gutturals, pits, strobes, blast beats, and human waterfalls. I left with the kind of high that does not come from spectacle alone. It came from standing in the narrow space between fan and correspondent, between the crowd and the band, realizing I was inside a moment I never expected to hold.

Signs of the Swarm turned brutality into architecture. Paleface Swiss broke open the room with confidence, humor, and force. Lorna Shore made the whole building feel like it was rising and collapsing at the same time.

The experience of live music sits in a category of beauty by itself. Every soul should try it at least once. Not because every show will be this exact kind of overwhelming, but because sometimes the room fills, the haze rises, the lights hit, the first note lands, and something in you gets reminded that it is still alive.

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A Night That Felt Bigger Than the Room

There are local shows where the room simply fills.

Then there are shows where the local scene starts to feel like it is remembering its own voltage.

Long Rest’s album release show at Icon Lounge on May 22 carried that second kind of charge. Before the headliner stepped into the full glow of the night, the signs were already there. More than 200 presales for a smaller local venue told its own story. The door stayed busy deep into the evening, with people still filtering in as the night pushed toward Long Rest’s set. Even a white rabbit made an appearance, offered almost like a strange little omen from the crowd, the kind of surreal detail local music folklore tends to keep in its back pocket.

The bill had the right architecture. Zero Ritual opened with enough force to test the room. Ghost Cat followed with a wider, more textured sound that warmed the crowd into motion. Then Long Rest took the closing slot and treated the night less like a routine release show and more like a full-scale arrival.

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The Sound Was Already a Victory

One of the quiet victories of the night was the sound. Smaller local shows can live or die by balance, and this one had its footing early. The mix was cleaner than expected for a venue of its size, and between bands, there was not the usual swamp of long adjustments and fussy corrections.

Instead of pulling attention away from the performances, the production gave each set room to breathe. The guitars had weight without turning muddy. The vocals stayed present. The transitions moved with very little drag, letting the night feel like one connected arc instead of three separate shows stitched together at the seams.

Zero Ritual Opens With Teeth

Zero Ritual came out first, and for a band only playing its second show, they had the confidence of something already sharpening its teeth.

Hailing from Sioux City, Iowa, they brought a new-age local metal sound that blended heavier rap instincts with metal’s physical push. At moments, there were flashes of Beastie Boys-style swagger, then harder pivots into Rage Against the Machine territory, which became even more fitting when they leaned into an actual Rage song shortly after.

Their set moved through changing riffs, time shifts, popular meme sound clips, and a kind of online-age humor that hit the crowd’s nervous system in recognizable places. But the band also knew when to drop the mask.

One of the most memorable moments came when the lead stepped down toward the front of the crowd, offering handshakes and hugs in a gesture that felt unusually personal for a heavy set. It was not performative distance. It was contact.

That human thread carried into a later instrumental moment, where the band offered words of encouragement and reminded the crowd to be there for someone. They closed with a song about suicide, turning the end of their set into something heavier than volume.

It was a strong showing from a young band still carving its shape in real time.

Ghost Cat Brings Texture and Breath

Ghost Cat came next, bringing a full-band lineup and a very different kind of momentum. They are already a local favorite for many, helped in part by the presence of Josh Lee, but what continues to set them apart is how naturally their instrumentation breathes.

Any local band that brings saxophone and keys into the mix immediately earns attention, but Ghost Cat does not treat those sounds as decorative garnish. The saxophone finds its place song by song, weaving into the structure instead of elbowing its way to the front.

Their set leaned more chill and steady, with beats that settled into the room rather than trying to flatten it. There was a looseness to their groove, the kind that lets a crowd sink back while the vocals stay forward and the songs keep moving.

Electronic elements surfaced here and there, matching the band’s atmosphere without feeling pasted over the top. Ghost Cat gave the night its middle chapter, softening the room without cooling it down.

Long Rest Arrives in Lasers

By the time Long Rest stepped onstage, the crowd had shifted into expectation. The room moved differently. People were still coming in. The lights were already doing work.

Then the lasers hit.

For a local non-EDM show, lasers are not something people automatically expect, and that was part of the thrill. Long Rest leaned into spectacle without losing the basement-show heartbeat of the thing. Their set opened into a cosmic rush of themes, stories, lights, and movement, with the band encouraging the crowd to dance and meet the night halfway.

This was not a band treating its debut album show like a formality. Long Rest pulled out the stops. They made Icon Lounge feel like it had been chosen for something.

Long Rest’s Full Shape Comes Into View

Part of what made Long Rest’s set feel so complete was the lineup itself. The band’s current formation brings together Samuel Welch on guitar, Stephen Hightower on drums, Lukas Finch on vocals, Nicole McAloon on bass, and Chris Thode on guitar, giving the songs both muscle and movement.

That dual-guitar setup gave the set its width, while McAloon’s bass kept the low end locked in with Hightower’s drums. Finch worked the front of the room with the kind of presence a debut album night demands, less like someone simply singing through a tracklist and more like someone guiding the crowd through the band’s newly built world.

The night also carried a deeper thread for longtime followers, with Rachel Purps, Long Rest’s OG bassist, featured during the set. It gave the release show a sense of continuity. This was not just a debut album celebration. It was a glimpse at where Long Rest is now, with a nod to the people who helped shape where the band began.

A Band Thinking Beyond the Usual Local Playbook

The debut album itself already showed signs of a band thinking beyond the standard local playbook. Their merch table included the new album in flash drive format, a clever modern alternative to CDs, which many fans no longer have a way to play.

Small decisions like that can reveal the shape of a band’s ambition. Long Rest is not only writing songs. They are paying attention to how people actually encounter music now.

Musically, Long Rest occupies a lane the local scene does not have in abundance. There is a cleaner Transplants-adjacent energy in their sound, mixed with a grungier Box Car Racer-type edge, all filtered through their own sense of movement and melody. It hits with enough grit to feel grounded, but enough polish to suggest a band building toward a larger stage.

Gunslinger, I Love You Always Forever, and the Crowd’s Breaking Point

Their second song, “Gunslinger,” landed as one of the strongest early moments of the set, a track that already feels like a fan favorite in waiting. It carried the kind of immediate identity that makes a room perk up.

But later in the night, when Long Rest played “I Love You Always Forever,” the crowd erupted.

It was one of those moments where a room’s volume stops being about the band alone and becomes a shared reflex. Everyone suddenly seemed to understand the same thing at the same time. The show had crossed from performance into memory.

Local Music Did Not Feel Small

Long Rest never treated the night like a standard release show. They built an event around it.

The order of the lineup made sense. The production felt intentional. The crowd stayed engaged. The songs translated. The merch showed growth. For a few hours, the room stopped feeling local in the limiting sense and started feeling local in the sacred one.

A debut album show can sometimes feel like a checkpoint, a band saying, “Here is what we made.”

Long Rest made theirs feel more like a door opening.

And for one night at Icon Lounge, with the presale numbers, the busy door, the saxophone, the hugs, the lasers, the flash drives, the white rabbit, and a crowd going wild at exactly the right moment, local music did not feel small at all.

It felt alive.

Afterglow

What lingered after Long Rest’s set was not just the volume or the lights. It was the feeling that everyone in the room had watched a local band stretch beyond the usual expectations placed on local bands.

The night had its share of memorable details, from Zero Ritual’s crowd-level connection to Ghost Cat’s saxophone textures to Long Rest’s laser-cut finale, but the real afterglow came from how carefully the whole show had been built. Nothing felt accidental. The lineup climbed with purpose. The production gave the songs shape. The crowd kept feeding the room back to itself.

Long Rest’s current lineup sounded fully locked in, while Rachel Purps’ appearance as the band’s OG bassist added a nice pulse of history to the night. It made the set feel less like a band introducing itself from scratch and more like a chapter turning in public.

That is the part a good local show can still do better than almost anything else. It can turn a familiar venue into somewhere slightly unrecognizable for a night. It can make the people standing beside you feel less like an audience and more like witnesses.

Long Rest did not leave Icon Lounge with only a debut album behind them. They left with proof of concept. The songs worked. The room responded. The scene showed up.

For a band still carving out its future, that kind of night is not just a celebration. It is a signal.

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There is a particular kind of Star Wars story that works best when it stops trying to explain the Force, stops rearranging royal bloodlines, and simply drops a tired gunslinger into a rotten corner of the galaxy with a job that smells worse the closer he gets to it.

The Mandalorian and Grogu understands that instinct.

At its best, Jon Favreau’s film is not a thunderous new scripture for the franchise. It is a grimy adventure serial with a child-sized mystic, a chrome-plated foster father, and enough underworld weirdness to remind viewers that Star Wars was never supposed to feel clean.

This is not the Star Wars of marble destinies. This is Star Wars with grease under its fingernails.

The film arrives carrying more baggage than a Jawa sandcrawler. It is the first theatrical Star Wars movie in years, spun out of a Disney+ series that became both a cultural phenomenon and, eventually, a victim of its own interconnected sprawl. Jon Favreau, who directs and co-writes with Dave Filoni and Noah Kloor, has the unenviable job of making Din Djarin and his tiny green apprentice feel large enough for cinemas without turning them into theme-park mascots doing a victory lap.

The result is alive in all the right ways. It has the scuffed charm of the original show’s strongest episodes, the occasional bloat of modern franchise filmmaking, and a voice cast so unexpectedly strange that it almost feels smuggled in from a better, weirder timeline.

The Outer Rim Gets Its Groove Back

The strongest version of The Mandalorian has always lived in the dusty margins of the galaxy. Not the glowing command rooms. Not the grand Jedi temples. Not the endless committees of people explaining why nobody can do anything useful until the second act.

The magic is in the border towns, the crooked informants, the bounty pucks, the crime dens, the leftover Imperial machinery still twitching in the weeds.

The Mandalorian and Grogu returns to that territory with confidence. Din Djarin, played by Pedro Pascal, is once again less a chosen one than a working-class knight, a man who survives by reading rooms quickly, shooting faster, and saying very little unless absolutely necessary. He is not Luke Skywalker. He is not Obi-Wan Kenobi. He is a contractor with a creed, a weaponized single father who keeps stumbling into galactic significance because everyone else is either dead, corrupt, or holding a committee meeting.

Pedro Pascal’s performance remains an exercise in restraint. With Din sealed behind the helmet, the character lives through voice, posture, and silence. It is a strange acting challenge, but Pascal has long understood that Din’s emotional vocabulary is built from small shifts. A pause. A turn of the helmet. A line delivered with just enough gravel to suggest that the man underneath is carrying more than weapons.

Din is less mysterious now than he was in the show’s early seasons. That was inevitable. The more a masked character speaks, bonds, loses, heals, and explains himself, the less mythic he becomes. The film compensates by leaning into the most durable part of his story, which is not the armor. It is the bond.

Grogu Is More Than a Merchandising Moon

Grogu is still adorable, of course. Disney would sooner throw Mickey Mouse into the Sarlacc pit than abandon that particular revenue stream.

But The Mandalorian and Grogu gives him more to do than coo, blink, snack, and move merchandise from shelves to nurseries across the galaxy. He is learning. He is choosing. He is becoming something neither Jedi tradition nor Mandalorian doctrine can fully define.

Grogu stands between two belief systems. The Jedi fear attachment. The Mandalorians ritualize belonging. Grogu carries both worlds in his tiny body, a foundling with Force sensitivity, clan loyalty, and a snack economy that would bankrupt a lesser household.

His relationship with Din is still the emotional engine of the story. The film does not overcomplicate it, which is wise. Their bond is not cute decoration. It is the story’s moral compass. In a franchise that has often treated love like a doorway to catastrophe, Grogu and Din offer a different possibility. Love can be discipline. Love can be duty. Love can be the thing that keeps a warrior from becoming only a weapon.

The movie lets that feeling breathe, and that is where its emotional strength comes from. The spectacle works because the relationship underneath it has weight. Din and Grogu are not merely traveling through danger together. They are teaching each other how to survive without becoming hollow.

Jeremy Allen White as Rotta the Hutt Is the Film’s Strangest Smart Choice

The most fascinating casting choice in The Mandalorian and Grogu is Jeremy Allen White as Rotta the Hutt.

On paper, casting Lip Gallagher from Shameless as Jabba’s son sounds like something invented after three blue milks and a bad night on Tatooine. In practice, it becomes one of the film’s smartest swings.

White brings a wounded, streetwise rasp to Rotta. He avoids the obvious trap of turning the character into “Jabba Jr.” Instead, his performance gives Rotta the texture of a legacy kid raised under the shadow of a monster, someone whose body belongs to a crime dynasty but whose voice suggests exhaustion, resentment, and the desire to be more than a slug-shaped inheritance dispute.

Rotta the Hutt could have been cheap nostalgia bait, another deep-cut callback dragged from The Clone Wars and polished for applause. Instead, the film gives him enough interior contradiction to make him useful.

He is Hutt royalty, yes, but also a gladiatorial survivor, a bruised son of a dead empire of appetite.

White’s voice turns him into something oddly tragic. You hear Lip in there, not because it breaks the illusion, but because that vocal history carries useful dramatic charge. Lip Gallagher was always the smartest guy in the room and the dumbest man in his own life. That energy fits Rotta beautifully.

A Hutt who understands the machinery of power but cannot fully crawl out from under it has more dramatic voltage than another sneering crime boss. White makes Rotta sound trapped inside a name bigger than himself, and that turns what could have been a novelty role into one of the movie’s more compelling surprises.

Martin Scorsese as Hugo Is Bizarre in the Best Possible Way

Then there is Martin Scorsese as Hugo, which is the sort of casting decision that sounds fake until the credits roll.

Scorsese voices a four-armed Ardennian food vendor who feeds Grogu and gives Din information with the nervous velocity of a man who has seen too many people vanish after talking too much. The character’s name also links him to Rio Durant from Solo: A Star Wars Story, the Ardennian voiced by Favreau himself, creating one of those tiny connective threads Star Wars loves to hide in the machinery.

Scorsese’s cameo could have been a distracting stunt, especially given his long-standing public skepticism toward modern franchise cinema. Instead, it lands as one of the film’s sharpest little jokes. Not a wink so large it pokes you in the eye, but a sly bit of cinematic irony hiding behind alien arms and street-cart steam.

Hugo talks like a guy who has survived by knowing when to shut up, which makes Scorsese’s voice perfect in a sideways way. He brings a New York pulse to the Outer Rim, all clipped warnings and moral weather. For a few minutes, Star Wars becomes Mean Streets with a baby wizard and a helmeted bounty hunter at the counter.

That scene also reveals what this film does best.

It works when it remembers that Star Wars is not just lightsabers and bloodlines. It is diners, alleys, dock workers, smugglers, gamblers, war leftovers, bad information, and people selling hot food under governments too weak to protect them.

The galaxy feels enormous when the camera pauses long enough to notice the small lives caught between regimes. Hugo may only be a cameo, but he gives the film a whiff of civic rot. In a franchise obsessed with emperors and chosen ones, a frightened fry cook can tell you more about the state of the galaxy than a Senate chamber ever could.

Sigourney Weaver Gives the New Republic a Spine

Sigourney Weaver’s Colonel Ward brings a sturdier New Republic presence than this era of Star Wars usually allows.

The New Republic has often been portrayed as naïve, slow, bureaucratic, or fatally allergic to obvious danger. That can become frustrating when the audience already knows the First Order is waiting down the historical hallway like a bad sequel-shaped omen.

Weaver gives Ward some spine.

She plays the role with clipped authority, less “space bureaucrat” and more “old soldier trying to build a government out of scrap metal and survivor’s guilt.” Her presence helps the film avoid turning the New Republic into a punchline, even if the script still uses institutional weakness as one of its central engines.

The best thing about Ward is that she feels like someone who knows victory is not the same thing as stability. The Empire is gone, technically. Its shadows are not. Its habits are not. Its officers, weapons, money, and loyalists are still drifting through the galaxy like poison in the water.

Weaver gives that reality weight. Her performance helps the political backdrop feel less like franchise homework and more like a galaxy-wide hangover after decades of authoritarian violence.

The Villain Problem

The villain side of The Mandalorian and Grogu is the one area where the film could have pushed harder.

The Imperial remnant material continues the Mandoverse’s long march toward explaining how the galaxy slides from Return of the Jedi into the sequel trilogy’s political failure. There is value in that connective tissue, but it also risks making every story feel like it is filing paperwork for The Force Awakens.

Lord Janu works as a threat, but he never becomes the kind of villain who crawls under the skin. He is functional, menacing, and appropriately Imperial, but not unforgettable.

Star Wars villains need at least one of four ingredients. Operatic grandeur. Spiritual menace. Grotesque charisma. Political horror.

Janu has fragments of those traits, but the film does not forge them into something iconic. He serves the story well enough. He does not haunt it.

That leaves the film relying more heavily on atmosphere, action, and character dynamics than villainous force. Fortunately, Din and Grogu can carry a lot of weight. A sharper antagonist would have pushed the film even closer to classic status, but the central adventure has enough momentum and heart to keep the weaker villain material from dragging the whole ship into the asteroid field.

The Action Works Best When It Stays Western

The action is muscular and cleanly staged, especially when Favreau lets physical geography guide the chaos.

The film remembers the western DNA of The Mandalorian. Ambushes. Standoffs. Traps. Beasts. Hideouts. Uneasy alliances. Deals made with one hand resting near a blaster.

When Din moves through a fight, there is still pleasure in the economy of it. He is not flashy. He is blunt force with a code. Grogu’s interventions add punctuation, sometimes comic, sometimes startling. The best sequences feel like old pulp illustrations kicked into motion.

This is where the film feels most confident. Not when it is trying to become a galactic epic, but when it lets Din do what he does best. Walk into a bad room. Read the danger. Protect the kid. Finish the job.

Star Wars does not always need to be about destiny. Sometimes it only needs a door that should not be opened, a bounty hunter dumb enough to open it, and a creature behind it large enough to make everyone regret their career choices.

Favreau understands that Din’s action scenes are not built around elegance. They are built around impact. The armor gets hit. The floor shakes. The blaster work feels practical. The danger feels local. That is where this movie finds its pulse.

The Movie Still Carries Some Television DNA

Visually, The Mandalorian and Grogu has moments of real theatrical sweep, but it cannot completely escape its television ancestry.

Some scenes have that Disney+ sheen, where the image is expensive without always feeling vast. The creatures, costumes, and environments are often delightful, yet the film sometimes feels assembled rather than discovered. Star Wars should have dust in the lens and danger in the corners. This movie gets there often enough to satisfy, though a few stretches still feel like prestige streaming scaled up for a bigger screen.

The structure also exposes the challenge of moving a streaming series to theaters.

The Mandalorian was built around episodic rhythm. A planet. A job. A monster. A moral choice. A quiet moment between Din and Grogu. Repeat with variations. That structure works beautifully on television because it allows the galaxy to feel wide and strange.

A movie needs a different kind of propulsion. It needs escalation, compression, and consequence. The Mandalorian and Grogu mostly finds that rhythm, but there are moments where its television roots show through the seams.

The important thing is that those seams do not break the experience. The film is entertaining, strange, emotionally grounded, and far more confident than many franchise continuations that arrive buried under their own expectations. It may carry some TV DNA, but it also understands why people fell in love with this corner of Star Wars in the first place.

The Cameos Mostly Work, But the Continuity Is Heavy

The screenplay tries to be accessible to casual viewers while rewarding fans who know Zeb, Rotta, Ardennians, Hutt politics, New Republic weakness, Imperial remnants, and half the back alleys of animated canon.

That is a difficult balance.

A cameo is seasoning. Too many cameos become trail mix.

To the film’s credit, most of its references are woven into the adventure rather than presented under glass with a museum plaque. Rotta has dramatic purpose. Hugo has atmosphere. Zeb Orrelios gives the wider New Republic effort some familiar muscle. These appearances do not completely derail the story.

Still, there are moments when the film feels like it is walking through a museum of its own continuity, gesturing at artifacts without always making them essential.

Modern Star Wars has a lore problem. Not because lore is bad. Lore is part of the fun. The problem comes when the story starts to feel afraid of empty space. Every corner gets labeled. Every stranger gets a backstory. Every surname becomes a thread. Every thread becomes a wiki page.

The Mandalorian and Grogu is strongest when it lets the galaxy breathe without explaining every oxygen molecule.

Thankfully, the film’s best cameos do more than nudge the audience. Rotta expands the emotional and criminal underworld stakes. Hugo gives the Outer Rim texture. Zeb makes the New Republic feel connected to the animated side of the franchise without hijacking the movie. The continuity is heavy, but rarely dead weight.

The Voice Cast Gives the Film Its Weirdest Spark

The voice casting deserves real attention because it gives the movie a tonal electricity it might not otherwise have.

Jeremy Allen White as Rotta and Martin Scorsese as Hugo are not just “famous person in Star Wars” novelties. They bend the texture of the film.

White brings bruised humanity to a Hutt, which is not an easy sentence to type with a straight face. Scorsese brings urban paranoia and comic danger to a small underworld scene. Steve Blum’s Zeb adds veteran animated-universe muscle, while Sigourney Weaver lends the New Republic a much-needed air of adult competence.

The casting suggests Favreau is not merely chasing recognizable names. He is playing with contrast, pulling voices from different cinematic and television traditions and letting them ricochet through the Star Wars soundscape.

That is exactly the kind of weirdness this franchise needs more often.

Star Wars should be strange. It should have monks and mobsters, frog ladies and war criminals, opera-house politicians and cantina philosophers, tiny cowards and giant saints. It should feel like a place where an Oscar-winning filmmaker can become a nervous alien food vendor and the guy from Shameless can make you care about Jabba the Hutt’s son.

The Film Works Best When It Stops Trying to Be Important

Despite the theatrical release, Din and Grogu do not need to save all existence.

Their magic is local.

Protect the kid. Finish the job. Help the person in front of you. Survive the trap. Do not trust the warlord. Feed the baby.

In a franchise often crushed under prophecy, that modesty feels almost rebellious. The Mandalorian and Grogu is at its most compelling when it accepts its smaller scale. Its best scenes do not scream for mythology. They find meaning in survival, loyalty, and the battered ethics of people living in a galaxy that keeps replacing one form of violence with another.

This is Star Wars as a battered lunchbox myth. Dented, warm, practical, passed from hand to hand across a dangerous galaxy.

Din Djarin and Grogu may not be enough to single-handedly restore Star Wars to box-office invincibility, but they remain one of the franchise’s cleanest emotional signals.

A father. A foundling. A job gone sideways. A galaxy full of predators. A tiny hand reaching through the dark.

Why This Movie Feels Like the Right Star Wars Reset

The Mandalorian and Grogu succeeds because it does not try to out-saga the saga.

It is not obsessed with being bigger than everything before it. It does not need to bend the Force into another philosophical knot. It does not need to turn every emotional beat into a prophecy. It finds its strength in character, texture, and momentum.

For years, theatrical Star Wars has wrestled with the burden of expectation. Every film has been asked to define the future of the franchise, redeem the past, please every generation of fan, launch new mythology, honor old mythology, sell toys, inspire debate, avoid controversy, and somehow still function as a movie.

That is an impossible cargo load.

The Mandalorian and Grogu works because its ambitions are cleaner. It wants to give Din and Grogu a cinematic adventure worthy of their bond. It wants to make the Outer Rim dangerous and funny and strange again. It wants to show a galaxy still bruised after the Empire, still full of predators, still worth protecting.

Final Verdict

The Mandalorian and Grogu is not flawless, but it is exactly the kind of Star Wars film the franchise needed: strange, heartfelt, tactile, funny, and confident enough to let the Outer Rim feel dangerous again.

It is too comfortable with continuity in a few places, and some of its villain material could have used sharper teeth. But those flaws do not sink the ship. They are scuffs on the armor, not cracks in the creed. The film’s emotional center holds beautifully, the action has that dusty western snap The Mandalorian does best, and the casting choices give the movie a weird, wonderful pulse.

Jeremy Allen White’s Rotta gives the film unexpected pathos. Martin Scorsese’s Hugo is a bizarre little gift from the cinema gods. Sigourney Weaver brings steel to the New Republic, and Din and Grogu still carry enough heart to make the galaxy feel personal, even when the stakes widen.

The Mandalorian and Grogu is a sturdy, scrappy, deeply enjoyable big-screen chapter that works because it remembers Star Wars does not always need to chase prophecy. Sometimes it only needs a wounded father figure, a mysterious child, a dirty job, and a galaxy full of trouble.

Final rating
7/10

Outside WAMU Theater, Seattle looked like somebody had ripped open a pack of black eyeliner and spilled it across the sidewalk.

The line wrapped around the venue in layers of fishnets, leather jackets, smeared makeup, dyed hair, cigarettes, platform boots, and handmade signs held like scripture by people who clearly needed this night for reasons bigger than entertainment. You could feel it before anybody made it through security. This was not just another stop on a tour schedule. This was a gathering of the loud, lonely, beautifully overdramatic, and emotionally caffeinated.

Then there were the Christian protesters. Something we don’t often run into when we do our Midwest show coverage!

Megaphones. Signs. Warnings about sin and damnation aimed directly at kids wearing chains and YUNGBLUD merch. Honestly, it only made the atmosphere feel more correct. If somebody is already condemning the concert before doors open, chances are the night is about to become legendary.

Getting inside took around thirty minutes, which honestly was not terrible considering the sheer size of the crowd and the ticket-scanning chaos happening near the entrance. Compared to the maze surrounding MCR at T-Mobile Park, WAMU felt refreshingly straightforward. Once inside, though, the venue felt smaller than expected. Not tiny, but intimate in a way that worked in the show’s favor. Less arena spectacle. More pressure cooker.

And the room was already buzzing before the first band even touched the stage.

The Warning Played Through the Dark

I had only recently heard about The Warning, the hard-rock trio made up of three sisters from Mexico, so walking into the set felt like stepping into something new without expectations attached.

Then they came out swinging.

No easing into things. No cautious opener energy. They hit the stage loud, confident, and sharp enough to immediately win over a crowd that had mainly come for somebody else. That is not always easy in a room this size, especially one already vibrating with anticipation for the headliner.

For a huge portion of the set, the stage was dark enough to feel accidental and strangely cinematic at the same time. The massive screen behind them did most of the heavy lifting while a stagehand literally held a flashlight toward the lead singer like somebody trying to document a ghost sighting in real time. A brief sound issue hit the lead vocalist and guitarist too, because apparently the tech gods decided this set needed extra adversity.

The wild thing was how little it mattered.

If anything, the darkness gave the performance more grit. The Warning powered through the glitches without losing momentum, turning technical failure into atmosphere. It stopped feeling broken and started feeling raw in the best possible way.

They even treated the crowd to unreleased material, including a new track titled “Ritual,” which felt appropriately named considering the entire set already felt like some smoky basement summoning ceremony fueled by distortion pedals and stubborn determination.

By the end of their set, I had already added new music to my playlist, which honestly is one of the best compliments you can give an opener.

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The Room Got Weird Before Dom Even Appeared

Before the main act even touched the stage, a kid got hit in the pit and somebody threw up directly in front of me.

All before YUNGBLUD.

Kind of impressive, honestly.

The room already felt overheated in every sense of the word. Excitement, adrenaline, humidity, hormones, cheap beer, cigarettes lingering from outside, bodies packed shoulder-to-shoulder under blue light. It felt less like a venue and more like the inside of a shaken soda can waiting for somebody to crack it open.

Then Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” started rolling through the speakers.

And the place lost its mind.

“War Pigs” Opened the Sermon

As “War Pigs” thundered through WAMU, the screens followed Dom backstage weaving through corridors toward the stage while the crowd screamed themselves hoarse before he had even appeared.

It felt like the opening hymn at a very unholy church service.

Then he launched into “Hello Heaven, Hello”, and suddenly the entire building changed shape.

YUNGBLUD does not really “walk onstage.” He detonates into the room.

Everything about him moves constantly. Hands, shoulders, voice, expressions, pacing. He performs like stillness would physically injure him. The second he appeared, the energy inside WAMU snapped upward so hard it almost felt visible.

And somehow, despite all the chaos, it never felt fake.

That is the trick with Dom. Plenty of artists can imitate punk aesthetics. Plenty can scream, swear, climb barricades, or wear fishnets under stage lights. Very few can make thousands of strangers feel personally seen while doing it.

That is where YUNGBLUD separates himself.

The entire show carried this cinematic pulse underneath it. Cameras floated around the stage feeding massive screens with dramatic angles and close-ups that made the performance feel larger than life without losing intimacy. Instead of distancing the audience, the visuals somehow pulled everyone deeper inside the experience.

Seattle was not just watching the concert.

Seattle was inside it.

“Fleabag” Turned the Crowd Into a Stage

During “Fleabag”, Dom brought a fan onstage to play with him, turning the performance into something loose, chaotic, and weirdly sweet all at once.

Later, he climbed onto the crowd. Not exactly crowd surfing. More like allowing the audience to temporarily crown him king of the beautifully unstable for a few minutes while hundreds of hands kept him balanced above them.

It was reckless in the classic rock-and-roll sense, but there was also trust buried inside it. Nobody underneath him wanted to let him fall.

At one point he joked about not wanting to leave Seattle for Portland later that night, asking the audience if anyone wanted to kidnap him.

I volunteer.

Purely for journalistic purposes, obviously.

“Changes” Hit Like a Farewell Letter

The emotional center of the night arrived with “Changes”, performed in honor of Ozzy Osbourne.

Earlier this year, Dom’s performance of the song during the Birmingham tribute concert earned him the Grammy for Best Rock Performance. Hearing it live made that win make perfect sense.

For a few minutes, the chaos stopped dressing itself up as chaos.

The lights softened. The crowd sang differently. Not louder. Just heavier.

And standing there under the glow of thousands of phone lights and stage beams, Dom looked genuinely overwhelmed by the amount of love coming back at him from the room. Several times throughout the night he kept muttering “holy shit” while staring out at the crowd, like the reality of all these people connecting to his music still catches him off guard in real time.

During “Changes,” it almost looked like he was trying not to break apart in front of everyone.

Not because he was weak.

Because he cared.

That vulnerability is exactly why his audience connects so fiercely to him. He creates space for people who often feel too loud, too emotional, too strange, too messy for the world around them. For one night, all of that becomes strength instead of burden.

WAMU stopped feeling like a concert venue during that song.

It felt like a sanctuary for misfits.

“Fire” Brought the Camera Down From the Ceiling

Then came “Fire”.

Dom started the song laid out across the stage while a camera lowered directly above him from the ceiling, feeding this massive overhead shot to the screens behind him. The visual looked incredible. Sweaty, theatrical, dramatic, and unapologetically seductive in exactly the way glam rock has always thrived on.

It could have felt corny in somebody else’s hands.

Instead, it felt dangerous.

The entire production balanced modern cinematic staging with old-school rockstar energy. Not nostalgia. Not cosplay. Actual rockstar energy. The kind that makes an entire room feel like it is leaning toward the stage at the same time.

“Zombie” Sent Everyone Back Into the Night Softer Than They Arrived

By the time “Zombie” closed the night, the room felt emotionally exhausted in the best possible way.

The recorded version already hits hard, but hearing thousands of voices carry it together inside WAMU made it land differently. Softer. Sadder. More human.

I might have teared up a little.

Just a little bit.

The set balanced newer material with older fan favorites well enough to keep both longtime fans and newer listeners fully locked in. But more importantly, the show never lost its emotional center underneath all the spectacle.

That is what makes YUNGBLUD work.

The cameras, the lights, the cigarettes, the screaming, the chaos, the eyeliner, the climbing into crowds, the sex appeal, the punk theatrics, all of it matters because there is still an actual human being underneath it trying desperately to connect with people.

And judging by the look on the faces leaving WAMU Theater, he succeeded.

Afterglow

Outside the venue after the show, Seattle felt quieter somehow.

Not physically quieter. There were still crowds everywhere, still traffic, still kids screaming lyrics while walking back toward parking garages and train stations. But emotionally quieter. Like everybody had collectively emptied something out during those two hours inside WAMU.

That is the strange magic YUNGBLUD seems to create.

He can turn a sold-out room into a giant chaotic family reunion for people who have probably spent most of their lives feeling out of place.

No one can honestly say he is not passionate about what he does. The energy, the showmanship, the emotional honesty, the way he pulls complete strangers together under one roof and makes them feel like they belong there, it all feels real.

YUNGBLUD is absolutely the definition of a rockstar.

But somehow, he still carries himself like a guy who cannot believe any of this is happening to him.

Ozzy would be proud.

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Every year, people try to explain Electric Forest using lineups.

And every year, that explanation falls apart almost immediately.

Yes, the music matters. Deeply. Forest consistently books one of the most eclectic and emotionally charged rosters in festival culture. You can spend an afternoon bouncing between bass music, jam bands, indie acts, house music, funk, experimental electronic artists, and surprise performances without ever feeling like the festival loses its identity.

But Electric Forest has never been just about who is playing.

It is about wandering into moments you never planned for.

It is about turning down a random glowing pathway at 2AM and discovering a hidden piano performance in the woods. It is about strangers handing you tiny handmade gifts. It is about accidentally finding a secret bar hidden behind what looked like an art installation thirty seconds earlier.

For first-time attendees, Forest can honestly feel overwhelming at first.

For returning attendees, that chaos is part of the magic.

So before Electric Forest 2026 officially takes over Rothbury from June 25–28, here are some of the artists, experiences, traditions, and hidden corners of the Forest that deserve your attention this year.

The hidden bars are worth the effort

If there is one thing every first-time Forest attendee should experience at least once, it is the hidden speakeasy culture scattered throughout the festival.

Some require scavenger hunts.

Some require passwords.

Some require interacting with performers or solving strange little puzzles hidden around the grounds.

And honestly? That effort makes the payoff even better.

Finding your way into one of these hidden spaces feels less like entering a bar and more like accidentally unlocking a side quest inside another dimension.

Inside, the atmosphere changes completely. The music shifts. The crowds shrink. Conversations get quieter and stranger in the best possible way.

You may even run into one of the artists performing that year if your timing is right.

One year, while cooling off inside one of the hidden bars tucked away in the Forest, one of the weekend’s performers casually walked in with their crew after finishing a set earlier that night. No giant celebrity entrance. No chaos. Just someone genuinely trying to enjoy the atmosphere like everybody else.

That’s part of what makes the hidden spaces at Electric Forest feel special. Once you step inside, the normal separation between artist and attendee starts to disappear a little.

Camp life becomes its own adventure

People underestimate how much of Electric Forest happens outside the actual venue.

The campgrounds are alive almost 24 hours a day.

Neighbors become friends incredibly fast. Entire campsite rows start sharing food, drinks, fans, chargers, sunscreen, and survival advice by the second day. Some camps turn into full community hubs with decorations, games, lights, couches, and open invitations for exhausted wanderers looking for a place to sit for a while.

Even the struggle becomes part of the story.

By the end of the weekend, everyone looks slightly sleep deprived, slightly dusty, and somehow happier because of it.

And honestly, there’s something weirdly beautiful about watching thousands of people collectively agree to live a little differently for four days.

The Dream Emporium and immersive spaces deserve real time

One of the easiest traps at Electric Forest is treating immersive experiences like quick photo opportunities.

Don’t.

Take your time inside spaces like the Dream Emporium and the countless interactive art installations spread throughout the grounds.

Open doors.

Talk to performers.

Read strange signs.

Participate in things that make absolutely no sense initially.

Forest rewards people who lean into the weirdness instead of rushing past it.

There are entire hidden narratives, mini-games, performances, and experiences buried inside the environment that many attendees never even realize exist.

Hydration and pacing are survival tools, not suggestions

This sounds boring until it becomes important.

Michigan heat during Electric Forest can hit hard, especially combined with constant walking, late nights, crowds, and exhaustion.

Drink water constantly.

Find shade during peak heat.

Take breaks.

Eat real food occasionally instead of surviving entirely on iced coffee and vibes.

Veteran Forest attendees understand this already. The people trying to sprint through all four days at full speed usually learn the lesson the hard way by Saturday afternoon.

Electric Forest is a marathon disguised as a party.

Treat it accordingly.

Thursday sets that could define the weekend

Thursday at Electric Forest always feels unique because the energy is still fresh. Everybody is arriving, exploring, reconnecting, and trying to figure out where the weekend is about to take them.

And this year’s opening night lineup is stacked harder than most festivals’ main days.

Excision will almost certainly deliver one of the heaviest sets of the weekend, turning the Forest into a full-scale bass apocalypse before many attendees have even fully unpacked camp. If you want massive production, earth-shaking drops, and crowds moving like tidal waves, this will be one of Thursday’s biggest moments.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, Disco Lines feels tailor-made for Forest energy. His sets tend to carry that loose, euphoric, late-night dance atmosphere that thrives inside Sherwood.

Ganja White Night should also be a major draw Thursday night. Their visual-heavy style and wobbling bass feel almost engineered specifically for Electric Forest crowds.

And honestly, don’t sleep on Midnight Generation. Forest thrives on funky, groove-heavy discoveries, and this feels like one of those sets people will stumble into accidentally before suddenly refusing to leave.

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Friday belongs to GRiZ — but the undercard is dangerous

Friday may quietly end up being one of the strongest full days of the festival.

Obviously, GRiZ returning to Electric Forest is one of the biggest stories of the weekend. His relationship with Forest feels deeper than a normal artist booking at this point. Expect emotional energy, packed crowds, and one of the most anticipated sets of the entire festival.

But Friday gets dangerous once you start digging deeper into the lineup.

Passion Pit feels like the kind of sunset Forest set people will be talking about for years afterward if the timing lines up correctly. There’s something about hearing those massive indie-pop choruses echo through the trees that feels built for this environment. I once saw Hoodie Allen open for them at a small Minnesota stadium over a decade ago.

Ivy Lab should absolutely be on bass fans’ radar. Their production style leans darker and more experimental than many of the festival’s heavier acts, which makes them perfect for late-night wandering.

Meanwhile, Daily Bread feels almost guaranteed to soundtrack one of those hazy Forest moments where you completely lose track of time.

And if you want pure dancefloor momentum, Purple Disco Machine may quietly host one of the happiest crowds of the entire weekend.

Saturday looks completely unhinged in the best way

Saturday is where Electric Forest usually fully descends into beautiful chaos.

This year looks no different.

Madeon returning to Forest feels huge. His live performances balance emotion and spectacle in a way that fits Electric Forest perfectly, especially once the lights fully take over Sherwood at night.

Then there’s the absolute fever dream of DJ Diesel B2B T-Pain.

There is genuinely no predicting what that set is going to become.

It could be hilarious. It could be chaotic. It could somehow become legendary. Most likely, it will be all three simultaneously.

Chris Lake should also pull one of the biggest dance crowds of the weekend. Forest crowds tend to fully lock into groove-heavy house music after dark, and Chris Lake thrives in exactly that environment.

For bass fans, ISOxo and Kai Wachi both feel primed for explosive sets.

And then there’s The String Cheese Incident.

You cannot talk about Electric Forest history without talking about String Cheese. Their Saturday performances are basically part concert, part ceremony, part shared hallucination at this point. Even attendees who don’t normally listen to jam bands should experience at least part of a Cheese set while at Forest.

It’s tradition.

Sunday feels emotional every single year

By Sunday, Electric Forest changes emotionally.

People are exhausted. Dusty. Sleep deprived. Somehow emotional about leaving a temporary world that only existed for four days.

And Sunday’s lineup this year feels perfectly built for that bittersweet atmosphere.

Illenium is almost guaranteed to deliver one of the biggest emotionally-charged sets of the weekend. His music naturally leans cinematic already, but inside Electric Forest, those moments tend to hit differently.

Then there’s Kaskade, who feels like the perfect soundtrack for that final-night feeling Forest creates. Melodic house music drifting through Sherwood on Sunday night feels almost unfair emotionally.

Bob Moses also feels tailor-made for Forest’s atmosphere, especially if they land in a nighttime slot surrounded by glowing trees and haze.

And then there’s GRiZ returning again Sunday for “Chasing the Golden Hour.”

Honestly? That may end up becoming one of the defining sets of the entire weekend.

Golden Hour sets already carry a deeply emotional atmosphere on their own. Pair that with Forest’s environment and the final day energy of Sunday night, and it has all the ingredients to become something unforgettable.

Sherwood Forest changes after dark

During the daytime, Sherwood Forest already feels impressive.

At night, it transforms completely.

The moment the sun disappears, the entire environment starts glowing. Trees pulse with color. Art installations suddenly come alive. Hidden pathways begin pulling crowds deeper into the woods while lasers cut through the haze overhead.

There are very few festival environments in America that feel this immersive after midnight.

You are not just walking between stages anymore. You are wandering through a living art installation.

And that atmosphere changes people.

You see strangers dancing together under lights without caring who is watching. You see giant groups sitting on the ground sharing food and stories at impossible hours of the night. You see people slowing down enough to actually absorb where they are.

That’s part of what makes Forest feel different from faster-paced festivals built around nonstop movement and overstimulation.

Electric Forest understands pacing.

It gives people room to breathe.

Afterglow

Years from now, most attendees probably won’t remember every exact setlist.

They’ll remember moments.

The random conversation with strangers at sunrise.

The hidden path they almost didn’t walk down.

The artist they accidentally discovered.

The laughter back at camp at 4AM.

The silence standing beneath glowing trees after the music finally stopped for the night.

That’s the real magic of Electric Forest.

Not just the production.

Not just the lineup.

The feeling that for a few days, the world becomes softer, stranger, more creative, and more connected than normal life usually allows.

And every year near the end of June, thousands of people return to Rothbury searching for that feeling again.

Most of them find it.

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In my first-ever podcast appearance, I discussed “the death of DEI” with the panel featured on this week’s episode of the Conversation 2B Had podcast, hosted by Chalo and Rashon.

The Arena Picks Up a Signal

By the time the lights dimmed inside the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center, the building felt less like an arena and more like a machine waking up.

Television static glowed across the visual world of Shinedown’s “Dance, Kid, Dance” tour. Colored haze drifted through the rafters. Outside the bowl, the venue still carried the clean, industrial precision of a major Midwest entertainment space. Inside it, the night started bending into something louder, stranger, and more alive.

A signal cut through.

It came through southern grooves, progressive mythology, emotional confession, and enough pyro to make Sioux Falls feel briefly wired into the same overloaded broadcast.

Black Stone Cherry Brings the Ground Floor

The night opened with Black Stone Cherry, who wasted no time kicking into “Me and Mary Jane.” From the start, the Kentucky hard rock outfit knew exactly how to handle the room. They didn’t just slam the gas and hope the crowd followed. They worked the energy up and down with a well-built set, letting the heavier moments hit harder because the quieter pockets had room to breathe.

Their massive cherry-skull backdrop loomed behind them while reds, greens, and stage haze gave the whole set a grit-stained glow. The band sounded locked in, but the real unsung hero was the sound engineer. Vocals and instruments were balanced cleanly across the room, with enough punch in the guitars and drums without turning the mix into arena mud.

That balance gave Black Stone Cherry’s songs their weight. The riffs had muscle. The vocals had space. The groove had room to move.

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Coheed Opens the Portal

Then Coheed and Cambria changed the temperature of the room.

This was personal. Coheed had been sitting on my “need to see live” list since around 2006, and when they opened with “The Pavilion (A Long Way Back),” all that waiting snapped into the present.

Large round blue lights announced their arrival like moons flickering on behind the band. As the set moved forward, those lights shifted colors while bar lights between them cut through the stage in sharp, moving lines. It gave the performance a strange, cinematic charge, less like a standard support slot and more like a transmission from another corner of rock’s universe.

Coheed have always occupied their own orbit. Their music carries prog complexity, post-hardcore urgency, and the deep mythology of The Amory Wars without losing the human ache beneath it all. Live, that worldbuilding became physical. You could feel it in the crowd, especially from the fans who knew every turn before it arrived.

They ended strong with “The Suffering” and “Welcome Home,” sending the arena into full release. “Welcome Home” hit with that massive, descending-riff authority that still feels built to shake loose whatever dust has settled in your chest.

Shinedown Takes Control of the Broadcast

From the opening moments of Shinedown’s set, the production felt dialed in with film-level timing.

The intro leaned hard into a television-cinematic atmosphere, pulling the crowd into the tour’s visual world before the band’s arrival was marked by a loud burst of pyro. It wasn’t subtle. It didn’t need to be. Shinedown entered like the whole room had been waiting for a fuse to find flame.

The stage design played directly into the tour’s visual language: screens, broadcast imagery, static, countdowns, and tension. During “Planet Zero,” the countdown began while guitarist Zach Myers headed back toward the main stage. As it hit zero, pyro fired again with perfect timing.

That was the strength of the show’s production. It never felt random. The bangs, lights, movement, and visual cues landed where they were supposed to land.

The Whole Room Sings

Then came “If You Only Knew.”

That was the moment the room stopped feeling divided into sections, rows, and ticket tiers. Guys and girls alike sang it back with full force, and the arena softened without losing volume. Shinedown has always understood how to turn private feeling into a public release, and this was one of those moments where the entire crowd seemed to find the same nerve at the same time.

They made note how each show was different in setlist and things they talked about. Brent Smith also brought humor into the stormy night with a line that fit the evening almost too well:

“Normally we say we’re gonna tear this place down, but we didn’t mean to bring a tornado.”

Then he added:

“No seriously, last time we heard a siren on tour was in Iraq.”

It landed because it felt real to the room. Outside, the weather had its own drama. Inside, Shinedown kept the night locked on course.

Down in the Crowd

One of the strongest production choices came during the deeper portion of the set, when the band brought the drums down into the crowd-stage area. It changed the geometry of the show. Suddenly, the performance wasn’t just happening at one distant end of the arena. It moved into the people.

Arena shows can sometimes feel huge but distant. Shinedown worked against that. They kept finding ways to shrink the room emotionally while still making the production feel massive.

It also deserves mention that $1 from every ticket went toward cancer awareness. In a night built on spectacle, that detail gave the whole machine a human pulse.

Afterglow

Long after the final lights came up, the signal still seemed to hang in the rafters.

Black Stone Cherry had brought the dirt and groove. Coheed and Cambria had cracked open the night’s mythology. Shinedown turned the whole arena into a broadcast of fire, confession, static, and release.

Some fans came for riffs. Some came for songs they had carried for years. Some came looking for something loud enough to drown out the noise outside their own heads.

On a storm-marked night in Sioux Falls, they all found the same frequency.

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A Night of Culture, Cellos, and Mongolian Folk Metal

The last time I stepped into Myth Live, the walls were shaking under the heaviest deathcore music I had ever experienced with Slaughter to Prevail. Blast beats, and guttural vocals filled the venue from start to finish. Walking into the same building tonight felt like entering an entirely different world. Instead of relentless breakdowns and crushing brutality, the stage was set for a celebration of international music and culture led by The Hu and Apocalyptica, with special guests The Rasmus.

What made this show so fascinating was how effortlessly each band brought pieces of their homeland and identity into the performance. The evening wasn’t just another rock concert. It felt like a musical journey across continents, blending traditional instrumentation, symphonic elements, hard rock, and metal into something that stood apart from the average touring package.

What stood out most throughout the night was how diverse the crowd was. Metal fans, rock fans, and even people seemingly attending out of cultural curiosity all gathered together under one roof. It served as a reminder that music is one of the few universal languages capable of bringing completely different backgrounds together for a shared experience.

For a venue tied in my memory to crushing heaviness, tonight showed a completely different side of what live music can offer. This wasn’t about aggression. It was about artistry, heritage, and the power of blending cultures into something unforgettable.

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Discovering a Hidden Gem from Finland

To kick off the night, The Rasmus took the stage and immediately brought a surge of energy into the venue. Formed back in 1994, the four-piece band from Finland was honestly a complete surprise to me. Before this show, I had never heard their music or even really come across their name, which made their set one of the most enjoyable surprises of the evening.

That is one of the best parts about getting to a concert early enough to catch the opening acts. Every once in a while, you stumble across a band that completely catches you off guard in the best way possible. There is something exciting about discovering a group live, without any expectations going in, and realizing halfway through the set that you have found a new band worth revisiting later. The Rasmus absolutely fit into that category for me.

“Creatures of Chaos” Steals the Spotlight

One of the standout moments in their set came through their performance of “Creatures of Chaos,” one of the newer songs in their now three decade long career. Even among a catalog spanning that long, the track felt fresh, energetic, and perfectly designed for a live environment. The song carried a modern rock edge while still feeling rooted in the band’s identity, and the crowd responded with enthusiasm from the very beginning.

What stood out most to me was how naturally the band blended darker atmospheric elements with infectious energy. The song had a driving momentum that kept the crowd engaged while also showcasing the group’s polished musicianship and stage chemistry. For someone completely unfamiliar with their material, “Creatures of Chaos” served as the perfect introduction.

A Performance Full of Energy

Beyond the music itself, the stage presence from The Rasmus was impossible to ignore. From the moment they walked on stage, the energy level stayed high. There was constant movement throughout the performance with members jumping around, running across the stage, and feeding off the crowd’s excitement. That kind of energy is contagious, especially for an opening band tasked with warming up the audience.

Lead singer Lauri Ylönen carried a commanding presence throughout the set as well. One thing I have always found fascinating about international artists is how dramatically their speaking voice can differ from their singing voice. In this case, despite having a very noticeable Finnish accent while speaking, that accent almost completely disappeared once the songs began. It is one of those little details that always amazes me when seeing artists from around the world perform live.

Overall, The Rasmus proved to be the perfect choice to open the evening. Their combination of high energy, catchy songs, and engaging stage presence immediately got the crowd invested and set the tone for the evening. Even walking in unfamiliar with their music, I walked away genuinely impressed and appreciative of the opportunity to discover a band I otherwise may never have given a chance.

Skepticism Turned Into Amazement

Heading into the co-headlining set from Apocalyptica, I will admit I had some doubts. A band that is primarily instrumental and only has vocals on certain songs when featured artists join them, seemed like it might struggle to fully connect live, especially during a massive rock and metal tour. I wondered whether the absence of guest vocalists would leave parts of the performance feeling empty or incomplete.

That skepticism disappeared almost immediately the second they stepped on stage.

From the opening moments of their set, Apocalyptica proved that they do not need lyrics to command an audience. The energy pouring off the stage was unreal. Somehow, this Finnish four-piece managed to make cello playing feel just as intense and exciting as a full metal band armed with guitars. It felt like watching a heavy metal symphony unfold in real time, blending classical musicianship with the aggression and power of thrash metal.

A Metal Symphony Fueled by Metallica

When people think of Apocalyptica, the connection to Metallica is unavoidable. The group originally built their reputation through classical cello interpretations of Metallica songs, even releasing two full-length albums titled Apocalyptica Plays Metallica by Four Cellos and Plays Metallica, Vol. 2. Seeing those songs brought to life on stage gave an entirely new appreciation for how timeless and versatile the music really is.

Their set leaned heavily into those Metallica roots, and honestly, that was exactly what the crowd wanted. The second the opening notes of Master of Puppets hit, the room erupted. Hearing such an iconic thrash metal anthem transformed through cellos somehow made the song feel even more dramatic and cinematic while still retaining all of its heaviness and intensity.

Later in the set, they shifted gears with Nothing Else Matters, slowing things down and allowing the emotional side of the instrumentation to shine. The song translated beautifully into a purely orchestral performance, creating one of the more memorable moments of the night.

Then, just when it felt like the energy could not climb any higher, they closed things out with Seek & Destroy. The crowd exploded one final time as the band poured every ounce of energy they had left into the song.

Perttu Kivilaakso Commands the Stage

While every member of the band brought incredible musicianship, Perttu Kivilaakso stood out as the undeniable centerpiece. Between his constant interaction with the audience, commanding stage presence, and jaw dropping solos, he naturally became the focal point throughout much of the set for myself.

What impressed me most was how effortlessly all three cellists moved around the stage while carrying instruments most people associate with sitting perfectly still in an orchestra pit. Watching them swing their cellos around, move across the stage, and perform with the intensity of seasoned metal guitarists was something I genuinely did not expect. They transformed traditionally classical instruments into weapons of heavy music.

A Surprisingly Captivating Experience

By the end of the set, I found myself completely captivated by something I honestly did not think would resonate with me as strongly as it did. Instrumental performances in the middle of a rock show are not always easy to pull off, especially when following or sharing the stage with bands built around huge vocal hooks and crowd interaction.

Yet Apocalyptica managed to hold the audience’s attention from beginning to end without ever feeling like momentum was lost. Instead, they created one of the most unique and memorable experiences of the entire night. Walking away from their performance, I was genuinely amazed at just how much fun a cello driven instrumental metal set could be.

The Main Event Arrives

Finally, it was time for the main event of the evening as The Hu took the stage. By this point, the crowd was fully energized after the performances from The Rasmus and Apocalyptica, but the atmosphere shifted entirely once the members of The Hu emerged. There was an immediate sense that this was going to be something far beyond a standard experience.

It was honestly a funny transition when you think about it. We had just gone from an instrumental set with essentially no lyrics during Apocalyptica’s performance to a headlining act where, for most of the audience, the lyrics were not understandable due to the language barrier. Yet somehow, neither performance suffered because of it. If anything, it proved how powerful music can be when emotion, energy, and artistry transcend language completely.

Even without speaking Mongolian, the spirit of The Hu and the pride they carry for their heritage came through in every single song they performed. Their aesthetic, sound, and presence all reflected deep cultural roots, and the audience embraced every second of it.

Eight Members, One Massive Sound

One of the first things that stood out when the band took the stage was simply the size of the group itself. With eight members performing together, this was easily the largest ensemble I have personally seen at a live concert. At first glance, it almost seemed overwhelming trying to keep track of everyone on stage, but as the set unfolded, it became obvious that every member served a distinct purpose in crafting the band’s signature sound.

While the band still featured familiar elements like a traditional drummer, bassist, and guitarist, what truly separates The Hu from almost every other band in modern heavy music is their incorporation of traditional Mongolian instrumentation and vocal techniques.

Their use of throat singing created an atmosphere unlike anything else heard throughout the night. On top of that, the inclusion of instruments such as the tovshuur, jaw harp, hengereg percussion, and especially the iconic Morin Khuur added layers of depth and authenticity to the performance. Seeing all of these instruments blended seamlessly with hard rock elements live was genuinely mesmerizing.

The Power of Throat Singing

As fascinating as the instrumentation was, the aspect of the performance that personally hooked me the most was the throat singing. There is something haunting, primal, and emotionally gripping about the style that immediately takes your attention. It doesn’t sound like anything you typically hear in western rock music, which made every moment feel fresh and unpredictable.

The moment that truly gave me goosebumps came when the band slowed things down for Mother Nature. The performance carried emotion that cut through the venue completely differently than the heavier, more aggressive songs earlier in the set. The layered harmonies combined with the throat singing created an almost spiritual atmosphere inside the room. Even without understanding the language, you could feel the emotion pouring out of every note.

It was one of those rare live music moments where the entire crowd seemed fully locked in, absorbing every second of the performance.

A Celebration of Culture Through Music

What made The Hu so captivating throughout the entire show was the passion behind everything they did. This was not a gimmick or a band simply borrowing cultural aesthetics for visual appeal. Their music felt deeply connected to their identity and heritage, and that authenticity radiated throughout the set.

From the harmonies and instrumentation to the stage presence and crowd interaction, every piece of the performance contributed to an unforgettable experience. The combination of traditional Mongolian culture with modern rock elements created something that felt both ancient and modern at the same time.

By the end of the night, it was impossible not to appreciate just how unique the experience truly was. This was more than just another concert stop on a tour schedule. It was a celebration of music’s ability to bridge cultures, languages, and backgrounds into one shared experience. And for everyone packed inside Myth Live that night, it turned into an absolutely epic evening.

Afterglow

Overall, this entire evening felt like far more than just another evening of live music. It was a rare collision of cultures, musical styles, and artistic expression that created one of the most captivating concert experiences I have had in quite some time. From the emotional atmosphere created by The Rasmus, to the symphonic intensity of Apocalyptica, and finally the culturally immersive performance delivered by The Hu, every part of the night carried its own unique identity while still fitting together perfectly.

What made the evening even more impactful was how emotionally driven each performance felt. None of these bands simply walked on stage and played songs. Every artist brought passion, pride, and personality into their set, allowing the audience to connect with the music regardless of language barriers or musical familiarity. Whether it was the soaring melodies from The Rasmus, the cinematic cello arrangements of Apocalyptica, or the deeply rooted cultural performances from The Hu, there was a genuine authenticity present throughout the entire show that elevated it beyond a standard concert experience.

Part of what makes tours like this feel so important is the rarity of getting to experience these bands live in the United States. International acts, especially ones so heavily tied to their own cultural identity and musical traditions, do not always make frequent stops across the country. That alone already made this show feel special, but the fact that this marks the first tour featuring both The Hu and Apocalyptica together made it feel even more unique. It is not often you get to witness two globally recognized acts from completely different musical backgrounds share the same stage and somehow complement each other so perfectly.

With the show currently sitting around the halfway point of their 18 date run, there is still plenty of opportunity for fans to experience this tour firsthand. And honestly, if this lineup is coming anywhere near your city, I cannot recommend it enough. Even if you are unfamiliar with one or all of the bands, this is the type of live performance that can genuinely surprise you and expand your appreciation for music as a whole.

Concerts like this are reminders that music does not need to fit neatly into one genre, language, or formula to resonate with people. Sometimes the best live experiences come from stepping outside your comfort zone and allowing yourself to be immersed in something completely different. This tour absolutely delivers that experience, and for anyone given the chance to attend, it is a night well worth witnessing live.

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Faith in Focus is a weekly reflection on what God has been teaching me throughout the week regarding my faith. Whether it’s personal interactions, reading, or the Sunday sermon, God speaks through it all, and I hope this helps you focus on His mission.

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Sermon Reflection

Paul closes 1 Corinthians with both tenderness and urgency. His final words call believers to courage, vigilance, and unwavering love while warning that a heart untouched by love for Christ stands under judgment.

Based on the sermon by Jonathan Land, Connection Church Sioux Falls, May 17, 2026.

Strong Hands, Gentle Hearts: Paul’s Final Charge to the Church

Sometimes the clearest truths arrive through the strangest illustrations.

Before walking through 1 Corinthians 16:13-24, Jonathan showed a clip from the animated film Ferdinand, a story about a massive bull who would rather smell flowers than destroy everything around him. The image connected immediately to one of his favorite idioms: a bull in a china shop. Strength without gentleness leaves destruction behind. Power without love crushes what is fragile.

That friction sits at the center of Paul’s closing words to the Corinthian church.

After sixteen chapters of correction, rebuke, encouragement, theology, and pastoral pleading, Paul lands the plane with a final charge. Be watchful. Stand firm. Act like men. Be strong. Yet in the same breath he commands, “Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Corinthians 16:13-14).

It is one of the clearest summaries of Christian maturity in the entire letter. Followers of Christ are not called to passive weakness, nor are they called to domineering aggression. The church is meant to embody courage wrapped in love, conviction shaped by grace, and truth carried with gentleness.

The bull must learn not to destroy the china shop.

The World Behind the Text

The church in Corinth struggled deeply with division. Throughout the letter Paul addressed factions, pride, sexual immorality, lawsuits, selfish worship practices, abuses of spiritual gifts, and confusion surrounding the resurrection. Again and again, the apostle confronted believers who were acting more like rival tribes than a united family.

This explains why Paul’s closing commands carry both military and relational language.

When Paul says, “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong” (1 Corinthians 16:13), he is drawing from the vocabulary of soldiers guarding a city wall. The commands are sharp and active. Stay awake. Do not retreat. Hold your position. Resist compromise.

Yet Paul immediately balances this with a command that transforms how strength is expressed: “Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Corinthians 16:14).

That matters because Corinth had confused spiritual maturity with self importance. Some believers prized knowledge over people. Others elevated spiritual gifts while humiliating weaker members of the church. Earlier in the letter Paul already dismantled this mindset by declaring that without love, even the most impressive spirituality amounts to nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).

Love was never optional decoration for Christian living. It was the evidence that Christ Himself was shaping the church.

In many ways, Paul spends the final lines of this letter circling back to its central theme. If it is not rooted in Christlike love, it does not reflect Christ at all.

Walking the Passage

Paul’s final instructions move quickly, but they are packed with pastoral wisdom.

First, he reminds believers to remain alert. Spiritual drift rarely happens all at once. Churches seldom collapse overnight. Compromise usually enters quietly through apathy, distraction, bitterness, or pride. To “be watchful” means remaining spiritually awake in a world constantly pulling believers away from faithfulness.

Second, Paul commands the church to “stand firm in the faith” (1 Corinthians 16:13). Notice he does not say stand firm in preferences, personalities, or traditions. The foundation is the Gospel itself. Corinth had become distracted by status and division, but Paul continually pointed them back to Christ crucified and risen.

This firmness matters today just as much as it did then. Christian conviction is not arrogance. Standing firm does not mean becoming combative for the sake of winning arguments online or humiliating opponents. It means refusing to abandon the truth of Jesus even when the surrounding culture shifts beneath our feet.

Then comes the phrase often translated “act like men” (1 Corinthians 16:13). In context, Paul is not excluding women from courage or maturity. The phrase carries the idea of spiritual bravery and steadfastness. The church must grow up. Believers are called toward maturity, not spiritual infancy.

Yet Paul refuses to let strength become harshness.

“Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Corinthians 16:14).

That sentence should stop every Christian in their tracks. Every act of correction. Every theological conviction. Every confrontation with sin. Every defense of truth. Every act of service. Every disagreement. Every sermon. Every ministry.

All of it must be done in love.

Not sentimental love that ignores evil. Not shallow niceness pretending sin is harmless. Biblical love seeks the good of others according to God’s truth. Love sometimes comforts, but love also warns. Love restores, rebukes, and protects.

That balance becomes even clearer when Paul begins speaking about Stephanas and the other believers who refreshed his spirit (1 Corinthians 16:15-18). Paul points to ordinary faithful Christians who quietly strengthened the church through service and encouragement. These were not celebrity leaders or powerful public figures. They were devoted servants.

The church thrives because of people like this.

People who encourage rather than divide. People who refresh weary souls instead of draining them. People who quietly serve Christ without demanding recognition.

Paul calls the church to honor such believers because the kingdom of God grows through humble faithfulness far more than flashy influence.

Then the letter shifts sharply.

Paul takes the pen into his own hand and writes a personal closing: “If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed. Our Lord, come!” (1 Corinthians 16:22).

These are startling words.

A Fair Counter-Reading

Some readers struggle with Paul’s language here because it sounds severe, even unloving. Modern readers often prefer a softer Christianity that avoids themes like judgment, condemnation, or divine wrath altogether.

It’s understandable why this verse creates discomfort.

Some interpret Paul’s statement as merely emotional frustration or rhetorical exaggeration. Others argue that emphasizing judgment risks pushing people away from Christ rather than drawing them toward Him.

There’s an important caution worth hearing. Christians absolutely have misused passages about judgment in cruel or manipulative ways. Churches have sometimes weaponized condemnation without reflecting the mercy and patience of Jesus.

Yet removing judgment entirely creates a different problem. A Christianity with no accountability, no holiness, and no warning ultimately empties the Gospel of its urgency.

Paul’s warning only makes sense because he genuinely believes eternity is at stake.

The Turn

What makes Paul’s warning so powerful is that it comes wrapped inside love.

The same apostle who wrote the great chapter on love in 1 Corinthians 13 also warns that those who reject Christ remain under judgment. These truths are not opposites. In Scripture, love warns because love cares.

A parent who sees danger and says nothing is not loving. A doctor who refuses to diagnose illness for fear of offending a patient is not compassionate. Likewise, the church cannot claim love while remaining silent about sin and separation from God.

Paul’s statement is sobering because eternity is sobering.

But Christians should also hear the comfort within this passage. Those who belong to Christ do not need to fear condemnation. Earlier in the letter Paul repeatedly reminded believers that they were sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be saints (1 Corinthians 1:2).

The warning exposes what is false while strengthening what is genuine.

This is why Paul ends with hope: “Our Lord, come!” (1 Corinthians 16:22).

The church lives in expectation of Christ’s return. Christians are not simply enduring history until death arrives. We are waiting for the King.

That expectation changes how believers live. We stay watchful because Christ is coming. We stand firm because Christ is victorious. We love because Christ first loved us. We reject evil because Christ is holy. We endure because Christ will return and make all things right.

Paul’s final blessing captures the heart behind the entire letter: “My love be with you all in Christ Jesus” (1 Corinthians 16:24).

Even after all the correction, all the rebukes, and all the hard truths, Paul’s final posture toward the church is love.

That is the heartbeat of Christian discipleship.

Strong hands. Gentle hearts. Truth wrapped in grace.

Carry It Into the Week

It is easy to drift toward one extreme or the other.

Some Christians emphasize truth so heavily that they become harsh, suspicious, and constantly combative. Others emphasize love in ways that avoid hard conversations or blur biblical conviction altogether.

Paul refuses both distortions.

The church is called to courageous love.

That means standing against evil without becoming consumed by anger. It means confronting sin while remembering our own need for grace. It means protecting what is fragile rather than bulldozing people in the name of righteousness.

In a culture increasingly shaped by outrage and division, the church should look different. Christians should be people marked by conviction without cruelty and gentleness without compromise.

As we close 1 Corinthians alongside Paul, his message remains deeply relevant: stay awake, stand firm, be strong, and let everything be done in love until Christ returns.

Song of the Week: Beautiful - Hulvey

I had the chance to see Hulvey when he was part of Lifelight in 2023. Lifelight has become such a unique part of the culture here in Sioux Falls because every year it brings free Christian music to the city in a huge way. It is more than just a festival full of concerts; it is an event built around worship, community, and sharing the love of Christ with anyone who shows up. No matter your age, background, or favorite style of music, there is something powerful about seeing people gather together with a common purpose centered on faith.

While I didn’t get the chance to catch Hulvey’s entire set that year, I was able to hear him perform this song live, which at the time was one of his most popular tracks. Even with only seeing part of the performance, it was enough to leave an impression on me. There was an authenticity to the way he performed that stood out immediately. It didn’t feel forced or manufactured. It simply felt real, like someone honestly sharing their heart and faith through music.

What makes that even more interesting for me personally is the fact that I don’t usually listen to a lot of hip hop. It has never really been the genre I naturally gravitate toward. However, every once in a while there are certain artists who break through those preferences because there is something deeper behind the music. Hulvey ended up being one of those artists for me. Even though I have not fully explored his entire catalog yet, this particular song continues to stand out every single time it comes on. Some songs fade over time, but others continue to carry emotions and spirituality no matter how many times you hear them, and this is definitely one of those songs for me.

The part that impacts me the most is the realness found within the chorus. There is something incredibly powerful about music that does not try to overcomplicate faith but instead points back to the simple truth that God’s presence is enough. In a world where so many people are searching for peace, purpose, identity, or fulfillment in countless different places, songs like this serve as a reminder that true satisfaction can only be found in Him. God’s love is not conditional on how successful we are, how strong our faith feels in a particular moment, or whether life is currently going well. His love remains constant through every high and every low.

That message resonates because every season of life looks different. Some seasons are full of joy, excitement, and answered prayers, while others feel heavy with uncertainty, exhaustion, disappointment, or grief. Yet through all of it, God remains faithful. His presence does not disappear when circumstances become difficult. If anything, those are often the moments where His love becomes even more evident.

My hope is that this song, whether you enjoy hip hop or not, would resonate with you in that same way. Beyond the beat, the production, or the style of music itself, I hope the message cuts through clearly: that God’s presence truly is enough, and that He freely gives His love to us no matter what season we may currently be walking through.

Week in Reflection

This week has been filled with multiple photography gigs, late nights, and the kind of exhaustion that settles deep into your bones. Between editing photos, traveling between venues, sorting through thousands of shots, and trying to balance everyday responsibilities on top of it all, it would have been easy to feel overwhelmed, and sometimes I did. Yet through every moment of tiredness, God has continued to provide the strength and energy needed to accomplish everything that was already on the calendar. Even when the schedule felt packed beyond reason, nothing had to be missed or canceled, including sitting down to write this reflection. Looking back on the week, it is hard not to see God’s hand sustaining every moment of it.

What has made this week even more encouraging is seeing a couple of amazing photography contracts get approved for Christian artists like TobyMac and Michael W. Smith. Opportunities like these feel especially meaningful right now because over the last several weeks there has been a growing conviction in my heart regarding some of the bands and environments I have been covering. While photography has opened countless doors and created incredible experiences, there has also been a deeper wrestling with whether every opportunity truly aligns with the direction God is calling me toward.

That is why seeing these new doors open feels so significant. It isn’t just about getting another contract or another show to photograph. It feels like confirmation that God hears those inner struggles and is gently guiding this journey in a direction that honors Him more fully. There is something refreshing about being able to combine creativity, passion, and faith in a way that feels spiritually uplifting rather than spiritually conflicting.

One of the most amazing things about following God is how often He provides reassurance at exactly the right time. Sometimes that reassurance comes through Scripture, sometimes through people, and sometimes through opportunities that seem to appear out of nowhere just when encouragement is needed most. These recent opportunities serve as a reminder that God is not absent from the details of our careers, hobbies, or dreams. He cares deeply about where we are being led and what influences shape our hearts along the way.

Even in the exhaustion of this busy week, there is a renewed sense of hope growing. Hope that this photography adventure is not just random chance or self made ambition, but something God can actively use for His glory. Hope that He is capable of opening the right doors while closing the wrong ones. And most importantly, hope in knowing that no matter how uncertain the future may feel at times, God continues to faithfully provide exactly what is needed for each step forward.

And always remember, God loves you, and so do I.

Connection Church in Sioux Falls is a gospel-centered community committed to helping people follow Jesus through authentic relationships, biblical teaching, and everyday mission. Rooted in historic Christian belief and aligned with gospel renewal movements, the church exists to see lives transformed by Jesus. Learn more: https://siouxfallsconnection.com/who-we-are

Intellectual Dissatisfaction is proud to present interviews with all three US Senate candidates vying for Senator Mike Rounds seat.

Each interviewee was asked different questions tailored to their stated campaign goals, their personal and professional histories, and current events. We strive to bring our audience nonpartisan coverage of the local political scene in Sioux Falls and South Dakota broadly.

We want to thank the IBEW 426 for allowing us to conduct our in-person interviews in their conference room. And we’d like to thank our viewers and readers for all your support as we’ve grown over the past 3 years.

Hopefully, you find these interviews informative.

Julian Beaudion (D)

For this installment of Intellectual Dissatisfaction, I spoke with Julian Beaudion, a Democratic candidate for the United States Senate in South Dakota. The conversation focused on his personal background, his campaign priorities, how he would approach bipartisan work in Washington, and what he believes South Dakota voters should expect from a senator.

(IND)

Brian Bengs, an independent candidate for U.S. Senate, framed his campaign around structural political reform, opposition to corporate influence, and frustration with both major parties. In an interview with Intellectual Dissatisfaction, Bengs said he is running to give South Dakota voters an alternative to what he described as a “stupendously broken” political system.

Justin McNeal (R)

McNeal is challenging Senator Mike Rounds in the Republican primary. During the interview, we covered his personal background, the national debt, campaign finance, Social Security, health care, defense spending, energy policy, foreign policy, eminent domain, and the role of government in private industry.

I recently sat down with Justin McNeal, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in South Dakota, for a conversation about his campaign, his background, and where he stands on some of the major issues facing the country.

McNeal is challenging Senator Mike Rounds in the Republican primary. During the interview, we covered his personal background, the national debt, campaign finance, Social Security, health care, defense spending, energy policy, foreign policy, eminent domain, and the role of government in private industry.

Background

McNeal started by talking about his family’s South Dakota roots, his upbringing in Texas, and his time in the Navy.

After high school, he joined the military and trained as a nuclear engineer on submarines. He served aboard the USS Key West out of Pearl Harbor and spent several years at sea. After leaving the military, he went into financial services and helped build a company that grew into multiple offices across several states.

More recently, McNeal returned to South Dakota and started Dakota Biochar, a company focused on using waste wood from the Black Hills National Forest to generate power and produce biochar. He described biochar as a carbon-based product that can help soil retain water and nutrients, with the goal of improving farmland and addressing waste wood buildup in the forest.

Why He’s Running

McNeal said the main reason he is running is the federal debt.

He argued that the national debt is not a Democrat or Republican issue, but an American issue. His view is that Washington has avoided making hard decisions for too long, and that the country needs a serious plan to deal with spending, deficits, and long-term obligations.

He said the debt problem is “a simple math problem” in the sense that the government is spending more than it brings in. The hard part, in his view, is whether elected officials are willing to make the decisions needed to change course.

Campaign Finance and Transparency

We also discussed McNeal’s criticism of Washington, D.C., and what he has described as the influence of special interests, lobbyists, and career politicians.

McNeal argued that businesses and industries that depend heavily on government spending have an incentive to support politicians who can help direct federal money. He said this creates a system where incumbents and special interests benefit from keeping the same people in power.

He also talked about his own campaign spending and said he has been trying to run a very lean campaign. He contrasted that with the amount of money available to the incumbent campaign.

One of the specific commitments McNeal made was on transparency. He said that, if elected, he would publish explanations for his votes so constituents could see why he voted the way he did. He also said he would make his Senate office spending public.

The National Debt: Social Security, Health Care, and Defense

When asked what specific reforms he would support to address the national debt, McNeal identified three major areas: Social Security, health care, and defense spending.

On Social Security, he said the program’s formula is outdated and that the country needs an honest conversation about what changes may be necessary. He argued that doing nothing is still a decision, and that if the system is not addressed, benefit cuts or other consequences will come later.

On health care, McNeal focused on administrative costs and the role of insurance. He said that, in his experience, the cost of administering care has increased significantly, and that too much money is going into the system around health care rather than directly to the people providing and receiving care.

On defense spending, McNeal talked about his time in the military and described the “use it or lose it” budget culture that can happen near the end of the fiscal year. He said he supports making sure the military has the resources it needs, but wants a more efficient and accountable budgeting process.

Grants, Subsidies, and Dakota Biochar

We also talked about corporate welfare, subsidies, economic development, and McNeal’s own company.

McNeal described himself as a free-market person and criticized situations where government uses taxpayer money to pick winners and losers. He specifically discussed tax increment financing, development incentives, and subsidies for private companies.

I asked him whether Dakota Biochar had received, applied for, or benefited from any public grants, tax credits, or development incentives.

McNeal said Dakota Biochar had applied for a $25,000 proof-of-concept grant through South Dakota’s Governor’s Office of Economic Development. He also said the company had applied for a private grant and a USDA Wood Innovations grant.

When asked how he squares criticism of subsidies with applying for grants, McNeal said he sees a distinction between grants and subsidies. He described grants as programs tied to a specific public problem or proof of concept, while describing subsidies more as tax breaks or benefits given to specific companies.

Energy Policy

McNeal also talked about energy policy, including nuclear power, wind, solar, and biomass.

Because of his Navy nuclear background, nuclear energy was part of the conversation. McNeal said he supports using the best energy source for the specific need rather than letting subsidies drive the market.

He said the country does not really have a clear energy plan, and that much of the energy market is shaped by government incentives. He did not reject wind or solar, but described different energy sources as different tools in a toolbox.

His position was that energy policy should be based on what works for the situation, not just what receives the most favorable subsidy treatment.

Foreign Policy and Military Force

We discussed McNeal’s views on foreign policy, especially regarding Iran and the use of military force.

McNeal said his first question before supporting military action would be: what is the threat to the United States?

He said he does not currently see how Iran poses a direct threat to the American mainland, while also acknowledging that he no longer has a top-secret clearance and may not have access to all the information available to national security officials.

He said leaders should be willing to explain the threat and the objective before involving the United States in military action.

We also talked about the Strait of Hormuz and the argument that Iran can threaten global trade and energy markets. McNeal said that if the United States is going to talk about controlling that area militarily, it should be honest about what that could require.

Trump, Party Pressure, and the Constitution

I asked McNeal when he would break with President Trump or Senate Republicans.

McNeal said he would represent the people of South Dakota, not a party or a president. He said he wants the president to succeed, but also believes Congress has a role in checking the executive branch.

He argued that the executive branch has gained too much power over time because Congress has not done its job effectively. He said the federal government works best when the legislative, executive, and judicial branches each stay within their proper roles.

When asked for an example of where he might break with party leadership, he pointed again to questions around Iran and military action. More broadly, he said he would break with party leadership if he believed something went beyond the proper constitutional role of the federal government.

Eminent Domain and 45Q

The final major topic was eminent domain, carbon capture, and the 45Q tax credit.

McNeal said he supports eminent domain for public uses such as highways, airports, hospitals, schools, power lines, and other infrastructure that serves the public.

However, he said he does not support eminent domain for private corporate gain. He discussed carbon dioxide pipelines and said private companies should negotiate directly with landowners rather than using government power when they cannot get the easements they want.

He also criticized the 45Q carbon capture tax credit. His argument was that if carbon dioxide is being used for enhanced oil recovery, then companies and policymakers should be direct about that with the public.

Closing

Overall, the interview covered a lot of ground.

McNeal presented his campaign as focused heavily on the national debt, government transparency, constitutional limits, and reducing the influence of special interests in politics. He also discussed his background in the Navy, his business experience, and how those experiences shape the way he thinks about spending, energy, and government accountability.

The goal of the conversation was to give voters a better sense of where he stands and how he thinks through these issues.

You can watch the full interview for the complete conversation.

There are certain venues that feel less like buildings and more like living things. The kind of places where the walls absorb decades of music until the room itself begins to hum before the first note is even played. The Ryman Auditorium has always carried that reputation. The “Mother Church” nickname is earned honestly. You feel it the second you walk through those doors.

And on this particular Thursday night in Nashville, that church was preparing for a sermon delivered through stacks of Wylde Audio amps, Sabbath riffs thick as black smoke, and the unmistakable howl of Zakk Wylde bending strings like they owed him money.

This show had been circled on the calendar for months. Ever since catching Zakk and company down in Memphis last December, anticipation had been building like pressure under a boiler. So myself, Susan, Carson, and Lannah loaded up and made the four-hour run north on I-65 for a triple-header featuring Dark Chapel, Zakk Sabbath, and Black Label Society.

The drive itself felt easy. Spring weather hung perfectly over the highway, traffic stayed mostly civilized until Nashville reminded us it was still Nashville, and the whole ride carried that loose road-trip energy where conversation drifts from music to memories to absolute nonsense without warning. Those rides matter. They become part of the concert long before the first ticket gets scanned.

This was Susan,Carson and Lannah’s first trip to the Ryman, and honestly, introducing people to a place like that is almost as satisfying as the concert itself. Sharing music is one thing. Sharing first experiences is something deeper. That is where memories harden into permanent fixtures.

By the time we rolled into downtown Nashville, the city already felt electric.

And the night had not even started yet.

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Porch Songs Before the Apocalypse

One of the newer additions outside the Ryman Auditorium is a small outdoor stage near the front entrance and gift shop area. It turned the pre-show atmosphere into its own little festival pocket. A local band kept the growing crowd entertained while lines wrapped around the block and fans swapped stories, patches, and predictions about the setlists waiting inside.

Then came the walk through those historic doors.

The Ryman still refuses to let you forget what it originally was. Those famous church pew seats are beautiful for history and questionable for lower back support, but somehow that discomfort becomes part of the charm. Built in 1842, the venue carries ghosts in the best possible way. Country legends, gospel giants, folk storytellers, and rock rebels have all stood under those lights.

There was a time heavy metal would have felt completely unwelcome there.

Now Sabbath riffs echo through stained wood like they belong.

And honestly, they do.

No Sunshine on This Dark Night

At exactly 7:30, Dark Chapel walked onstage and immediately erased any lingering “opening act” energy from the room.

This was not filler. This was not a warmup.

This was a band arriving.

Led by guitarist and vocalist Dario Lorina, the group tore into “Afterglow” with the kind of precision that only comes from musicians genuinely locked into each other. Every movement felt connected. Every transition landed clean. The chemistry inside this lineup has clearly evolved since the last time we saw them, because this set absolutely steamrolled their previous performance.

Then came “Hollow Smile.”

That song hit differently inside the Ryman.

There is something about the contrast between the haunting lyrical themes and the warmth of that old room that amplified the emotional weight behind it. A song about internal struggle can easily drift into cliché territory in lesser hands, but Dark Chapel gave it teeth. The performance carried genuine tension beneath the melody, like a person trying to keep themselves stitched together in public while quietly unraveling underneath.

The room felt that.

Dario later traded his guitar for the keyboard during “Sign of Life,” adding another layer to the band’s already expanding sonic palette before sliding into a chilling cover of Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine.” The choice could have felt risky in a lineup built around doom, sludge, and riff worship, but instead it became one of the night’s most memorable moments. The song floated through the auditorium like candle smoke.

By the time “We Are Remade” closed their set, Dark Chapel had accomplished the hardest thing an opener can do.

They made people forget they were waiting for somebody else.

Classic Riffs for the Faithful

Then the lights dimmed again.

And suddenly it was time for Zakk Sabbath.

If Dark Chapel felt like entering the cathedral, Zakk Sabbath felt like descending into the crypt underneath it.

“Children of the Grave” exploded through the room first, instantly transforming the atmosphere from anticipation into full-blown worship. Zakk Wylde, bassist JD Deservio, and drummer Jeff Fabb moved like three musicians sharing one nervous system. There is no hesitation between them anymore. No visible communication needed. Entire transitions happened through instinct alone.

That is what years of playing together looks like.

“Snowblind” rolled through the Ryman with monstrous weight before the band powered into “Fairies Wear Boots,” every riff landing like collapsing concrete. JD’s bass solo during “Bassically” became its own event entirely, eventually morphing into “N.I.B.” with the kind of accuracy that made it genuinely difficult at times to separate tribute from resurrection.

And that is really the secret behind Zakk Sabbath.

They do not treat Black Sabbath material like museum pieces.

They play it like living music.

Then came “War Pigs.”

The moment those sirens began, the entire room shifted. Heads lifted. Voices rose. Even people trying to stay seated in those old church pews gave up and stood anyway. The Ryman transformed into a thunder chamber while Zakk unleashed one impossible solo after another, fingers moving across the fretboard with that familiar combination of violence and absurd technical control that somehow never loses emotional punch.

It was loud enough to rattle your chest cavity.

Exactly as it should be.

The Fine-Tuned Engine of Black Label Society

By this point, the entire evening had already justified the drive.

Then Black Label Society took the stage and somehow elevated everything even further.

This was my first time finally catching a full BLS set live after years of near misses and bad routing luck, and seeing how this tour is constructed makes the whole thing even more impressive. Dario Lorina opens with Dark Chapel. Zakk, JD, and Jeff dominate the middle portion with Zakk Sabbath. Then everybody returns together for the Black Label Society finale.

The entire evening becomes one giant interconnected machine.

And that machine absolutely roared inside the Ryman.

The opening “Whole Lotta Sabbath” mashup immediately set the tone, twisting Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” together with Sabbath motifs before launching directly into “Funeral Bell.” From there the band rolled straight into “Lord Humungus” and then the newer anthem “Name in Blood” from Engines of Demolition.

You could already tell which songs the crowd had adopted as sacred texts.

“Name in Blood” hit especially hard. Loyalty, brotherhood, honor, resilience. Those themes have always been embedded deeply into the DNA of Black Label Society, and hearing thousands of voices shouting those lyrics back at the stage made it feel less like a performance and more like a gathering.

A tribe recognizing itself.

Midway through the set came one of the night’s most devastating transitions.

“Heart of Darkness” gradually gave way into the solo section of Ozzy Osbourne’s “No More Tears,” and the room practically levitated during the buildup. The crescendo landed like a tidal wave, guitars screaming while the crowd completely surrendered to it.

That section alone was worth the price of admission.

Rivers of Memory

Eventually the chaos paused.

Zakk sat down behind the Baldwin piano and began introducing the band one by one, turning every introduction into another excuse for humor. Nobody escaped the jokes. According to Zakk, every member apparently hated Nashville, then Tennessee, then basically humanity itself.

Each time his response stayed the same.

“I love Nashville. I love Tennessee. I love everybody here tonight.”

Classic Zakk Wylde.

Crude humor one second. Genuine sincerity the next.

Then the mood shifted entirely.

Images of Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul Abbott appeared towering behind the band while the opening notes of “In This River” filled the room.

And suddenly the concert stopped feeling like a concert.

It became remembrance.

There are songs that audiences sing along with. Then there are songs audiences carry with them. “In This River” belongs to the second category now. You could feel collective grief and gratitude mixing together throughout the room while people held phones aloft, wrapped arms around friends, or simply stood still absorbing it.

For a few minutes the Mother Church became exactly that again.

A sanctuary.

Eighteen Strings and the Final Benediction

Then came the double-neck guitar.

And the entire room knew what was coming.

“The Blessed Hellride” arrived like a freight train before the band bulldozed through “Fire It Up” and “Suicide Messiah” with absolutely no intention of conserving energy for the finish line.

But the emotional centerpiece of the final stretch became “Ozzy’s Song.”

I had already read reports from earlier tour stops describing how silent crowds became during this section, and Nashville reacted the same way. Thousands of people suddenly stopped shouting, stopped recording, stopped moving. The song unfolded under a giant backdrop image of Ozzy Osbourne while the room collectively processed decades of influence, memories, and gratitude tied to one voice that helped create heavy metal itself.

It was genuinely moving.

Not performative.

Not forced.

Just real.

Then came the closer.

“Stillborn.”

And good lord, what a way to end a night.

The riffs felt physically violent inside the Ryman. Zakk emptied the tank completely, throwing every ounce of energy left into the performance while the band behind him thundered like an engine trying to shake itself apart. It was the perfect closer because it left no room for subtlety.

Just pure release.

The final exhale after hours of volume, emotion, and memory.

Afterglow

Walking out of the Ryman afterward felt strange, like stepping back into ordinary life too quickly after being somewhere else entirely for several hours. You could hear it in the crowd around us too. Everybody carried that same buzz in their voices, replaying moments in real time before the memories even had a chance to cool.

Then came the parking garage adventure.

Apparently modern Nashville has embraced the “scan this QR code or remain trapped forever” philosophy. The SiriusXM garage system worked wonderfully right up until my phone battery decided it had spiritually departed this world. No battery meant no QR code. No QR code meant no exit. No visible override existed either, which feels like a design flaw straight from a dystopian concept album.

Eventually, through teamwork, screenshots, stubbornness, and what felt like divine intervention from Saint Tony Iommi himself, we escaped.

Barely.

Still, even that became part of the story.

Because that is what nights like this become over time. Not just songs or setlists, but entire chains of moments stitched together. The drive. The laughter. The pew seats. The thunder of “War Pigs.” The silence during “Ozzy’s Song.” The absurd panic of a dying phone battery in a parking garage prison.

All of it matters.

One thing became painfully clear by the end though.

These Nashville turn-and-burn trips are officially on borrowed time. Four hours there and four hours back might work when adrenaline is carrying the load, but the body starts filing complaints eventually. Future Nashville runs may require hotel rooms and recovery plans.

Worth it though.

Absolutely worth it.

And one final note before we go:

Dear Ryman staff, section 2 row L seats 5 and 6 have an oil drip situation happening overhead.

Even the Mother Church occasionally needs maintenance.

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When people ask me why I keep going back to Electric Forest, I usually struggle to answer it quickly.

Because the honest answer is complicated.

At first, it was just my first festival.

Now it’s tied to my marriage, my friendships, my favorite music memories, and some of the most meaningful moments of my adult life.

Somewhere along the way, Forest stopped feeling like an event I attended and started feeling like a place I returned to.

A home.

My first Forest changed everything

Before Electric Forest, I had never experienced festival culture before. No camping festivals. No giant stages. No all-night wandering through glowing woods while music echoed through the trees.

Our Editor-in-Chief, Jeremy Mercier, was the one who originally introduced me to Forest. At the time, I had no idea how much that recommendation would end up changing my life.

I still remember my first year vividly.

One of the moments permanently burned into my memory was watching Alison Wonderland close out a night with absolute perfection. There’s something about your first truly massive festival set that rewires your brain a little bit. Standing there in the middle of Sherwood Forest surrounded by thousands of people, it felt less like watching a concert and more like stepping into another world entirely.

And once Forest gets its hooks into you, it tends to stay there.

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My second Forest became my wedding

The second time I returned to Electric Forest, I got married there.

My wife Hope — now one of our photo and writing correspondents at Intellectual Dissatisfaction — experienced her first-ever festival as our wedding weekend.

We got married inside the chapel in the Forest surrounded by close friends, chosen family, and people who traveled incredible distances to be there with us. We had people come from South Dakota, California, and all over the country just to celebrate with us beneath the trees.

One of the moments I’ll never forget was my dad working 14-hour days flipping burgers just to make it to my wedding. That sacrifice means more to me than I can properly explain in words. When I think about that weekend, I don’t just think about lights or music or production. I think about effort. Love. Showing up for people.

Jeremy stood beside me as my best man, which made the entire thing feel even more full circle considering he was the one who first brought me into the Forest community to begin with.

As a thank-you, I bought Jeremy and his wife the Golden Hour Tour during our wedding year as my best man gift to them. It felt right to create another shared memory inside a place that had already given us so many.

Now every time Hope and I return to Electric Forest, it doubles as our anniversary trip.

That’s not something I ever expected to say about a music festival.

The loyalty becomes part of you

This year marks my fifth loyalty year attending Forest, Last year marked my “4 in the Forest” loyalty tier through the festival’s Loyalty Program. Jeremy, our Editor in Chief, and his wife have already hit the “6 in the Forest” level.

And honestly, I understand now why people keep returning year after year.

Forest changes for you as you grow older.

At first, you go for the lineup.

Then you go for the people.

Then eventually, you realize the place itself has become emotionally attached to major parts of your life.

VIP camping changes the rhythm of Forest

One thing that surprised me over the years was how much your camping setup can completely change the way you experience Electric Forest.

We’ve done VIP camping before, and honestly, after surviving enough rough campsite mornings at festivals in general, stepping into a fully set-up space already waiting for you felt borderline life changing.

People hear “VIP camping” and immediately think luxury. And sure, there’s some of that. Better accommodations. More breathing room. Easier access to certain areas. Actual places to cool down for a minute when Michigan heat starts swinging haymakers at you by noon.

But what really stood out to me was how much it changed the energy of the weekend.

Instead of spending hours fighting with gear, setting up camp exhausted, or trying to recover from terrible sleep every night, we actually had time to slow down and enjoy where we were. The campsite itself became part of the experience instead of just the place you crashed between sets.

I still laugh looking back at those moments inside the tent because it somehow became its own tiny little world during the weekend. At one point we jokingly referred to our setup as “the massage center” because everybody kept ending up there trying to recover from walking miles through the Forest every day. Fans humming. Shoes kicked off everywhere. Random conversations at 4AM while somebody tried to untangle chargers or find missing festival wristbands.

One minute you feel like you have your life together. The next minute you’re digging through grocery bags looking for sunscreen while somebody’s portable fan dies in the background.

And somehow those moments become some of your favorite memories.

Because even in VIP camping, Electric Forest still feels communal. People wander campsite rows making friends with neighbors. You share supplies. You help people set things up. You end up hanging out with strangers while everyone collectively tries to survive heat, dust, exhaustion, and the beautiful chaos that comes with four straight days of music and wandering through Sherwood Forest.

That’s another reason Forest keeps pulling me back.

Even when the setup improves, the heart of the experience never really changes.

Certain sets stop feeling like performances

Music becomes memory at Electric Forest in a way I’ve never experienced anywhere else.

Our wedding year, GRiZ played one of the most unforgettable sets I’ve ever witnessed. We were staying in the AC VIP area that year, which meant we also got access to an additional GRiZ performance inside the VIP section.

So somehow, during the same weekend I got married, one of my favorite artists ended up soundtracking the entire experience twice.

And now this year, GRiZ returns to the official Electric Forest 2026 lineup again.

Even crazier, the festival falls on my birthday this year — just like it did during our wedding year.

Forest has this weird habit of making moments rhyme.

The magic lives between the stages

One of my favorite Electric Forest memories actually has almost nothing to do with a set itself.

One year, T-Pain was performing during brutally hot weather and joked on stage about how hot it was. Some dude in the crowd literally took off his shorts and threw them onto the stage for T-Pain to wear.

That alone already felt like the most Electric Forest thing imaginable.

But later that same night, I ended up inside one of the hidden bars you can gain access to through Forest’s scavenger hunt culture. I was cooling off and hanging out when T-Pain walked in with his crew.

And the coolest part?

He just wanted to exist like everyone else.

He politely told people he was there to enjoy himself and asked everyone not to overwhelm him with photo requests. Then he stayed there for hours singing along with the lounge singer like it was some weird hidden Tiny Desk concert buried in the middle of the woods.

That’s the kind of thing that makes Forest different.

Artists aren’t separated from the experience there. Everyone feels part of the same strange little universe together.
This year T-Pain returns with a back2back set with DJ Diesel.

Forest creates connections you never expect

Another memory that sticks with me was spending part of a night talking with a bartender working one of the hidden bars. Outside of festival life, she trained horses and worked as a vet tech. Since I’ve got experience around veterinary work and animals too, we ended up spending hours talking about horses.

That’s such a random sentence to write in an article about a music festival.

But that’s exactly my point.

Electric Forest creates interactions that feel deeply human in ways most events simply don’t. Conversations happen naturally there. People open up easier there. Strangers become memorable parts of your story there.

The community is what keeps people coming back

During our wedding year, my dad started overheating badly in the summer heat. I flagged down staff and they immediately helped get him water and a ride back to camp.

That mattered to me.

People talk all the time about the stages and production at Forest — and deservedly so — but what really separates it for me is the feeling that people genuinely care about each other there.

You feel it constantly.

You see strangers helping strangers.

You see people checking on each other.

You see random gifting culture moments.

You see hidden art installations built entirely around connection instead of attention.

Electric Forest feels slower than most modern festivals. More intentional. More human.

And honestly, in today’s world, that feeling becomes more valuable every year.

Why I keep coming back

As Electric Forest prepares to return to Rothbury from June 25–28, I’ve realized the reason I keep going back has very little to do with escaping reality.

Forest became part of my reality a long time ago.

It’s where I got married.

It’s where some of my favorite memories live.

It’s where friendships deepened.

It’s where music attached itself permanently to moments in my life.

And every year when the gates open again beneath those Michigan trees, it doesn’t feel like I’m attending another festival.

It feels like I’m going home.

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A Night of Escapism Inside The Ascension Program

In 2025 Bring Me The Horizon’s Ascension Program Tour didn’t come to a city near me, so when they announced that The Ascension Program 2 Tour would be making a stop in Saint Paul, I jumped on the opportunity immediately. For a band that has spent the better part of two decades reinventing themselves while continuing to push the boundaries of modern heavy music, missing this tour felt irresponsible. The anticipation surrounding this run had been building for months, especially considering the theatrical presentation and immersive production elements that fans across social media had been raving about since the first dates kicked off.

Taking place at Grand Casino Arena, typically known as the home of the Minnesota Wild, the venue was transformed into something entirely different for the evening. Instead of a hockey arena, it became a massive escape for rock and metal fans looking to disconnect from reality for a few hours and fully immerse themselves in the world that Bring Me The Horizon created on stage. Giant screens, dramatic lighting, and the constant pulse of anticipation throughout the crowd made the arena feel less like a sports venue and more like stepping into a sci-fi experience.

Of course, with the Stanley Cup Playoffs in full swing, the arena still carried traces of its hockey identity throughout the night. Between sets, clusters of fans could be seen huddled around cell phone screens keeping tabs on the Wild playoff game, creating a uniquely Minnesota atmosphere that blended sports culture with the excitement of a massive rock show. It was honestly fascinating to watch the two worlds collide. One moment fans were passionately discussing line changes and power plays, and the next they were sprinting back toward their seats as the house lights dimmed and the next band prepared to take the stage.

That contrast somehow added to the experience rather than distracting from it. The arena became a shared gathering place for thousands of people escaping into two different forms of entertainment at the same time: playoff hockey and live music. But once the lights dropped for each band, every lingering distraction disappeared instantly as the entire building shifted its attention toward the stage.

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A Short but Memorable Opening Set

Newer to the scene and already finding herself on an arena tour, Amira Elfeky took the stage first to kick off the evening. Even though doors had only recently opened and she was the first of four bands scheduled to perform, the crowd inside Grand Casino Arena was surprisingly respectable for a 6 PM start time. The lower bowl still had noticeable gaps and the concourse remained busy with people filtering in from merch lines and concession stands, but there were already plenty of fans gathered near the stage ready to give the night an energetic beginning.

An Atmosphere That Instantly Pulled You In

From the moment her set began, Elfeky brought a completely different atmosphere than what many may have expected from an arena opener. Her music carried an ethereal quality that floated throughout the venue, blending haunting melodies with a modern heavy edge that felt both emotional and cinematic. There was something strangely calming about the performance despite the heaviness woven throughout the instrumentals. It is difficult to accurately explain, but her sound created a mood that slowly wrapped itself around the audience rather than immediately demanding attention through aggression alone.

Her vocals were easily the centerpiece of the set. Powerful without feeling overdone, she controlled the stage with a confidence that felt impressive for an artist still relatively early in her career. Even in a shortened opening slot where many fans are still finding their seats, she managed to gain attention and establish a strong emotional tone for the remainder of the night. In many ways, her performance served as the perfect foundation for what would become an evening filled with massive production, heavy music, and emotionally charged performances.

Gone Before the Crowd Was Ready

One of the most surprising aspects of the set was just how little downtime there was between songs. There was very minimal stage banter, with Elfeky seemingly choosing to let the music speak for itself rather than interrupting the atmosphere she was building. The result was a performance that felt incredibly fluid, but it also made the set feel unbelievably short.

Before it even felt like the audience had fully settled into the experience, she was already thanking the crowd and walking off stage. That feeling was not imagined either, as her opening slot clocked in at only around twenty minutes total. For a performer capable of creating that strong of an impression in such a limited amount of time, it honestly felt like we were robbed a little. Just as the crowd seemed fully locked into her performance, it was suddenly over, leaving us wanting far more than the brief glimpse we received.

Turning the Arena Into Their Stage

The last time I saw The Plot In You they were opening for Beartooth in a venue that could probably fit inside Grand Casino Arena thirty times over with room to spare. Even though they were still in an opening slot, this no longer felt like a band simply trying to win over a crowd. This felt like a band fully confident in their place on a major tour.

And to their credit, they absolutely used every inch of the arena setup available to them. The energy inside the building escalated almost immediately the moment their set began. Coming off the more atmospheric and restrained performance from Amira Elfeky, The Plot In You brought a dramatic shift in intensity that could physically be felt throughout the crowd.

The production value jumped noticeably as well. What started earlier in the night with a smaller lighting setup suddenly exploded into a full-scale presentation. Video boards lit up the stage with visuals synced to the music while sweeping lights cut through the darkness in that classic concert style that instantly makes everything feel bigger. It was the kind of setup that transformed the performance from simply “an opening set” into a legitimate spectacle.

More importantly, though, the band knew how to use it. They carried themselves like the seasoned veterans they are, who belonged on a stage of this size, balancing emotional heaviness with explosive moments that kept the crowd fully engaged from start to finish.

Minnesota Understood the Assignment

As the set moved toward its conclusion, vocalist Landon Tewers asked the crowd where the surfers were at, and Minnesota absolutely answered the call. During the final two songs, crowd surfers started pouring over the barricade in waves. Security barely had time to reset before another person came flying toward the front.

Honestly, it may have been one of the most concentrated bursts of crowd surfing I have personally seen in such a short period of time. Every heavy breakdown seemed to launch another wave of people into the air, adding even more energy to an already electric performance. You could feel the momentum of the night fully shifting at that point as the crowd became increasingly louder, more animated, and more invested with every passing song.

The Perfect Bridge to the Main Event

By the time their set ended, The Plot In You had accomplished exactly what a great support act is supposed to do. They raised the energy in the room, pulled more people fully into the experience, and perfectly prepared the audience for the final two bands still waiting in the wings.

What impressed me most was how natural the transition felt. They did not simply “fill time” before the headliners. They made their portion of the night feel important. For longtime fans who remember seeing them grind through much smaller venues, watching them thrive in an arena environment felt rewarding. And for anyone unfamiliar with them walking into the show, it is hard to imagine many people left the arena without at least becoming curious enough to dive deeper into their catalog afterward.

A Familiar Band That Never Gets Old

This was my fourth time seeing Motionless in White live, and somehow the excitement still felt just as strong as the very first time. There are some bands where repeated performances can start to blend together over the years, but Motionless in White continue to find ways to make every set feel massive, theatrical, and emotional. Going into the night, they were easily one of the performances I was anticipating the most, especially with their newer emotional track “Afraid of the Dark” having just been released earlier this February.

The song has already connected strongly with fans in a short amount of time, and hearing it in a live setting added even more life to its emotional atmosphere. In the middle of a tour filled with giant visuals, heavy breakdowns, and arena-sized madness, the track provided a reminder of just how well the band balances heaviness with vulnerability.

Chris Motionless Continues to Be One of the Best Frontmen in Heavy Music

One of the most impressive aspects of any Motionless in White performance, to me, continues to be vocalist Chris Motionless himself. The vocal range and control he displays live is honestly incredible to witness in person. The way he can transition from absolutely vicious screams into smooth melodic choruses without losing intensity is something that few vocalists in modern heavy music can truly master.

And let’s be honest, the man delivers one of the best bleghs in the business.

Every harsh vocal hit with force throughout the venue, yet he still managed to bring emotional depth during the more melodic moments. Songs that leaned heavier ignited the crowd, while the more atmospheric choruses created massive singalong moments that echoed throughout Grand Casino Arena. It created a perfect balance that kept the set fresh from beginning to end.

The Perfect Setup for The Main Event

What stood out most during their performance was how perfectly they fit into this specific tour package. If there was ever a band built to play directly before Bring Me The Horizon, it might honestly be Motionless in White. Their blend of theatrical imagery, crushing heaviness, electronic elements, and emotionally driven songwriting created the ideal hand off between the earlier support acts and the massive production waiting for the headlining set.

The crowd clearly felt the same way.

By this point in the evening, the crowd had fully transformed. Seats were packed, the floor was alive with movement, and every song seemed to pull louder reactions than the one before it. Fans screamed lyrics back at the stage, hands filled the air throughout breakdowns, and the energy inside the building felt like it was constantly climbing higher with every passing minute.

Motionless in White did more than simply support the tour. They helped solidify the atmosphere of the night and made the transition into the headlining performance feel seamless. By the time they walked off stage, the crowd was completely primed for the spectacle that Bring Me The Horizon was about to unleash.

The Bucket List Band Finally Takes the Stage

The main event, Bring Me The Horizon, has been a bucket list band of mine for quite some time now. There are certain bands you build up in your head over the years because of the stories you hear about their live performances, the production value, and the connection fans seem to have with them. Bring Me The Horizon was absolutely one of those bands for me. By the time the lights dimmed one final time, my excitement was honestly indescribable.

The band entered St. Paul carrying a lot of momentum behind them as well. They had just come off a sold out performance at Madison Square Garden, one of the most iconic venues in the world, but they had also recently dealt with an unfortunate incident where vocalist Oli Sykes was hit by a phone thrown from the crowd at another stop on the tour. During this show, Sykes was still sporting a bandage from where he had been struck, making it hard not to wonder how much lingering pain he may still have been dealing with while preparing to perform at the level fans expect from Bring Me The Horizon.

Thankfully, the energy from the St. Paul crowd seemed to completely outweigh any negativity surrounding that previous incident.

A Concert Turned Into a Video Game Experience

Before the band even appeared on stage, the audience was already being pulled into the world of The Ascension Program. Rather than immediately jumping into music, the show opened with a cinematic setup that mimicked the introduction to a video game rather than a traditional concert.

The arena speakers suddenly blasted the unmistakable boot-up sound of the original PlayStation, instantly triggering a wave of nostalgia throughout the building. The massive video boards lit up with visuals styled like a PlayStation 1 era game menu, complete with grainy graphics, menu selections, and small gameplay previews teasing what we were supposedly about to experience together. It framed the entire concert as if the audience itself was entering a game and becoming participants in the Ascension Program storyline unfolding throughout the night.

Then came one of the coolest stage reveals I have ever personally witnessed.

Normally, the tarp covering the stage setup simply drops to the ground when the show begins, and you get to watch crew members franticly roll it up and carry it out of view. Instead, this one suddenly shot upward into the ceiling as if it had been vacuumed away instantly. The entire arena erupted the second it happened. It was such a simple change to a familiar concert trope, but it felt incredibly cinematic and immediately made the night stand out from countless other arena shows I’ve attended.

The Stage Design Was on Another Level

Once the stage was finally revealed, it became obvious that Bring Me The Horizon were not interested in simply playing songs back-to-back for two hours. The stage itself appeared designed to resemble some kind of futuristic church or cathedral, fitting perfectly into the themes of ascension, control, and dystopian storytelling that unfolded throughout the set.

Massive video boards surrounded the band and constantly evolved throughout the performance, guiding the audience level-by-level through the fictional Ascension Program narrative. Rather than random visuals playing in the background, every animation seemed intentional and connected to the larger story being told during the show.

The standout moment of the entire visual presentation came when the story introduced a villain breaking free from containment. The screens suddenly shifted as the arena effects made it appear like a gigantic creature was stomping toward the audience. The way the screens shook and simulated movement honestly felt reminiscent of the iconic T-Rex attack scene from Jurassic Park. Eventually, the creature appeared to smash directly through the church walls displayed on the screens, creating one of the most immersive concert visuals I have ever seen.

Throughout the night, sections of the video boards would also move toward the crowd and toward individual band members, warping their appearances in real time. One particularly creepy section morphed fans’ faces and even Oli himself, into distorted zombie-like versions of themselves, adding another layer of unsettling sci-fi atmosphere to the experience.

A Crowd That Knew Every Single Word

As impressive as the production was, the crowd may have been equally unforgettable.

Not a single song went by without thousands of fans screaming every lyric back toward the stage. From the opening notes onward, the audience became part of the performance itself. Whether it was massive singalongs during melodic choruses or deafening screams during heavier moments, the energy inside the arena never once dipped.

Several songs stood out above the rest during the performance. “Shadow Moses” predictably turned the arena into complete chaos, with the crowd erupting from the very first note. “Follow You” provided one of the night’s more emotional moments as thousands of voices sang together throughout the venue.

But the performance of “Drowned” may have been my personal favorite moment of the evening. During the song, Oli grabbed a handheld camera and walked along the barricade, leaning directly into the crowd while singing alongside fans face-to-face. Seeing those moments displayed live on the giant screens created a feeling of intimacy that is difficult to achieve in an arena setting, yet Bring Me The Horizon somehow managed to make a massive venue feel personal.

The Nine-Year-Old Who Stole the Show

Of course, it would be impossible to talk about the St. Paul show without mentioning one of the defining moments of this entire night.

Throughout The Ascension Program II Tour, Bring Me The Horizon have been bringing fans on stage to perform “Antivist.” Not alongside the band either. The selected fan essentially takes over lead vocals for the complete song in front of an entire arena.

In St. Paul, the honor went to a nine-year-old girl.

And she absolutely crushed it.

The moment instantly became one of the loudest crowd reactions of the night. The entire arena rallied behind her as she confidently screamed lyrics back at the crowd with an confidence that felt fearless. It was one of those live music moments that perfectly captures why concerts can feel so special and unpredictable. You could tell everyone in the building realized they were witnessing something memorable in real time.

Ending the Game in Spectacular Fashion

To close out the evening, Bring Me The Horizon launched into “Throne,” sending the crowd into one final eruption of energy. As the song reached its climax, confetti blasted throughout the arena, covering the audience while thousands of fans screamed every word one last time.

Then, once the house lights finally came back on, the video screens displayed rolling credits confirming that the “game” we had all entered together at the beginning of the night had officially been completed.

It was the perfect ending to one of the most immersive and creatively ambitious live performances I have ever witnessed.

Words genuinely cannot describe how thoroughly Bring Me The Horizon destroyed every expectation I had for what their live show would be. I expected a great concert. What I experienced instead felt like a full-scale multimedia event that blurred the lines between live music, theater, and cinematic storytelling. It was not just a concert anymore. It was an experience.

Afterglow

Overall, this night has officially risen to the top as my favorite show of the year so far, and that is saying a lot considering how incredible some of 2025’s tours have already been. As much as I loved seeing Bad Omens back in March, The Ascension Program II Tour managed to slightly edge it out simply because of how complete the entire experience felt from beginning to end.

What made this night truly special was the way every single performance built naturally into the next. There was never a lull in energy or a moment where the momentum dipped. Amira Elfeky set the emotional and atmospheric tone early, The Plot In You injected the first real wave of energy and crowd movement, and Motionless in White escalated the theatricality and intensity to another level entirely before finally handing things off to Bring Me The Horizon for one of the most immersive live productions I have ever witnessed.

It genuinely felt like each band was carefully positioned to escalate the experience rather than simply fill a slot on the lineup. By the time the house lights finally came on at the end of the night, it felt less like leaving a concert and more like stepping back into reality after being pulled into another world for several hours.

That is ultimately what made this tour stand out so much. It was escapism in the purest form. For a few hours, thousands of people inside Grand Casino Arena forgot about everything happening outside those walls and became completely immersed in the music, visuals, and shared energy of the people around them.

If you got the opportunity to catch this tour, I would genuinely love to hear about your experience because it feels like one of those shows where every city probably developed its own memorable moments. And if you didn’t get the chance to see it, hopefully this review gives you at least a small glimpse into what made the night feel so special and gets you excited for the next time Bring Me The Horizon comes around. Because after finally experiencing them live, I can confidently say the hype surrounding their concerts is absolutely deserved.

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The South Dakota Democratic Party will welcome former President Joe Biden as the keynote speaker for its 2026 McGovern Day Dinner on Friday, June 5, in Sioux Falls.

The annual dinner will be held at the Best Western Plus Ramkota Exhibit Hall, located at 3200 W. Maple St. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., with dinner beginning at 7 p.m. A VIP reception is scheduled for 5:30 p.m., followed by a presidential meet-and-greet and photo opportunity at 6 p.m.

The evening’s speaker lineup also includes U.S. Senate candidate Julian Beaudion, U.S. House candidate Nikki Gronli, and gubernatorial candidate Dan Ahlers.

Individual tickets are $125, with a purchase deadline of May 25.

McGovern Day is named in honor of the late George McGovern, the longtime South Dakota senator and 1972 Democratic presidential nominee. The event remains one of the state party’s marquee annual gatherings, bringing together Democratic candidates, activists, donors, and supporters from across South Dakota.

This year’s dinner is likely to draw heightened attention with Biden’s appearance, as South Dakota Democrats look ahead to a major election cycle and seek to energize supporters across the state.

Faith in Focus is a weekly reflection on what God has been teaching me throughout the week regarding my faith. Whether it’s personal interactions, reading, or the Sunday sermon, God speaks through it all, and I hope this helps you focus on His mission.

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Sermon Reflection

At first glance, 1 Corinthians 16:1-12 can feel like housekeeping at the end of Paul’s letter. But beneath the travel plans and financial instructions sits a deeply practical vision of resurrection hope shaping our generosity, priorities, and relationships.

Based on the sermon by Jonathan Land, Connection Church Sioux Falls, May 10, 2026.

The Gospel in Your Wallet, Schedule, and Relationships

Some passages feel electric the moment you read them. 1 Corinthians 15 is one of those chapters. Resurrection. Victory over death. The promise that Christ will return and mortality will put on immortality. It is theology with thunder in its lungs.

Then we arrive at 1 Corinthians 16:1-12.

Offerings. Travel plans. Timothy. Apollos. Logistics.

If we are honest, it can feel anticlimactic. Like the cinematic ending already happened and now the credits are rolling. Yet Scripture has a way of exposing our shallow assumptions about what matters. The same Spirit who inspired the soaring theology of resurrection also inspired these seemingly ordinary instructions.

And that is precisely the point.

Paul refuses to separate glorious theology from everyday life. Resurrection hope is not merely a doctrine to celebrate on Easter Sunday. It is a reality that changes bank accounts, calendars, open doors, and relationships. The Corinthians were not meant to admire resurrection from a distance. They were meant to embody it in their ordinary rhythms.

In many ways, this passage becomes a diagnostic tool. If the resurrection is truly our hope, then it should become visible in how we steward money, how we hold our plans, and how we treat people.

The World Behind the Text

Paul wrote 1 Corinthians to a fractured church living inside one of the most influential cities in the Roman Empire. Corinth was wealthy, competitive, status-driven, and spiritually confused. The church itself reflected many of those same cultural instincts. Throughout the letter Paul addresses division, sexual immorality, pride, abuse of spiritual gifts, and confusion about the resurrection.

By chapter 16, Paul begins landing the proverbial plane. But he does not conclude with abstract theology alone. Instead, he turns toward practical faithfulness.

The collection mentioned in 1 Corinthians 16:1-4 was likely tied to financial relief for struggling believers in Jerusalem. This was not a side project. It was an expression of gospel unity between Jewish and Gentile Christians across regions and cultures. Paul viewed generosity as evidence that the church truly understood grace.

Then come the travel plans in verses 5-9. Paul discusses Macedonia, Ephesus, and future hopes while acknowledging opposition. Ministry opportunity and adversity exist side by side.

Finally, Paul speaks about Timothy and Apollos in verses 10-12. Earlier in the letter, the Corinthians had divided themselves into factions around Christian leaders. Some claimed Paul. Others claimed Apollos. Paul dismantled that tribalism by reminding them that leaders are merely servants of Christ. Now, near the end of the letter, he circles back to relational unity in deeply practical language.

What appears random is actually connected. Paul is showing what resurrection-shaped community looks like in real life.

Walking the Passage

Paul begins with money.

“On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper” (1 Corinthians 16:2 ESV).

Notice how universal the instruction is. Paul does not limit generosity to the wealthy. Every believer is called to participate according to what God has provided. Biblical generosity is not measured by comparison with others. It is measured through faithful stewardship.

One of the most striking ideas from this week’s message was the reminder that our income is not ultimately a wage. It is an inheritance.

Psalm 24:1 declares that the earth and everything in it belongs to the Lord. Our resources are not truly ours in an ultimate sense. They are entrusted to us by God. The Christian posture toward money is not ownership but stewardship, which challenges both greed and fear.

Greed says accumulation is life. Fear says generosity will leave us empty. Resurrection hope speaks against both lies. If Christ defeated death itself, then we are freed from clinging desperately to temporary security. Generosity becomes an act of trust. We give because we believe God is faithful.

Interpretation matters here. Paul is not prescribing a simplistic prosperity formula where generous people automatically become financially wealthy. Rather, he is showing that grace transforms how believers relate to possessions.

The resurrection loosens our grip on material things because eternity has already interrupted the present.

A Fair Counter-Reading

Some Christians read passages about generosity primarily through the lens of obligation. Others react against that by avoiding structured giving altogether, emphasizing spontaneity instead.

Both instincts can miss the balance of Paul’s teaching.

Paul clearly encourages intentional and regular generosity. “On the first day of every week” implies planning and consistency. Yet his language also avoids coercion. Elsewhere, Paul says God loves a cheerful giver in 2 Corinthians 9:7.

Christian generosity is neither transactional nor performative. It is worshipful. The same balance appears in how Paul discusses plans.

Verses 5-7 reveal that Paul has desires and intentions regarding future ministry. Christianity is not anti-planning. Wisdom often requires preparation, structure, and discipline. Yet Paul also leaves room for God’s sovereignty.

Modern life often swings between two extremes. Some people drift through life without intentionality. Others attempt to control every second with exhausting precision. Paul models something different. He plans faithfully while remaining flexible before the Lord.

“For a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries” (1 Corinthians 16:9 ESV).

That verse disrupts many shallow assumptions about God’s will.

We often assume open doors should lead to comfort. If resistance appears, we may wonder whether we misunderstood God entirely. But Paul experienced both opportunity and opposition simultaneously.

The presence of adversity does not automatically mean God is absent.

Sometimes the clearest evidence of meaningful kingdom work is the existence of resistance against it. The world remains broken. Spiritual opposition is real. Faithfulness does not guarantee ease.

That truth is deeply important for weary believers. Parents discipling children. Church members serving quietly. Christians pursuing integrity in hostile workplaces. Faithfulness can involve friction.

Resurrection hope does not promise an easy road. It promises that suffering and opposition will not have the final word.

Paul then turns toward relationships.

“When Timothy comes, see that you put him at ease among you” (1 Corinthians 16:10 ESV).

That phrase carries warmth. Paul is not merely asking the Corinthians to tolerate Timothy. He is calling them to create an atmosphere of peace and welcome.

Make him feel at home.

In a divided church, that command becomes profound. Earlier in Corinthians, people weaponized spiritual leaders to create factions and status groups. Now Paul reminds them that gospel community should produce unity rather than rivalry.

Apollos appears again in verse 12. Earlier, the Corinthians elevated him into a competing banner against Paul. Yet there is no bitterness between these leaders. No celebrity warfare. No territorial insecurity.

Only partnership in Christ.

That vision feels desperately relevant today. Churches can still drift into camps built around personalities, preferences, and tribes. Paul reminds believers that resurrection hope should produce humility and hospitality instead.

Because Jesus rose from the dead, Christians do not need to treat one another like competitors.

The Turn

What makes this passage beautiful is that Paul refuses to separate theology from ordinary life. The resurrection is not merely future hope. It is present foundation.

It shapes how we spend money when nobody is watching. It shapes whether our schedules leave room for interruption and obedience. It shapes whether people experience peace in our presence or tension when we enter the room.

That last part hit especially hard this week.

What kind of atmosphere do we create around us?

Paul wanted Timothy to be “at ease” among the Corinthians. Imagine if churches became known for that kind of culture. A place where anxious people could breathe. A place without constant drama, suspicion, or performance. A people shaped by grace rather than ego.

Resurrection people should carry resurrection peace. Not because life is easy, but because Christ is alive.

The empty tomb means we no longer need to live from scarcity, fear, or tribalism. Christ has already secured our future. That frees us to become radically generous, deeply hospitable, and courageously faithful.

Even in ordinary things. Especially in ordinary things.

Carry It Into the Week

Most of life is not lived in dramatic spiritual moments.

It is lived in schedules, conversations, grocery budgets, text messages, meetings, and interrupted plans. 1 Corinthians 16 reminds us that discipleship happens there too.

So ask yourself:

Does my relationship with money reflect trust in God or fear of losing control?

Do my plans leave room for obedience, interruptions, and people?

Do others feel at ease around me?

The resurrection is not only something we believe. It is something we practice. And sometimes the clearest evidence of eternal hope is found in the ordinary faithfulness of everyday life.

Song of the Week: All Around Me - Flyleaf

I’ve realized lately that most of my song choices have lived in a very specific lane of worship music. The polished, radio friendly, soft instrumental style that most people immediately think of when they hear the phrase “Christian music.” But worship has never really been a cookie cutter experience. The beauty of music centered around faith is that it can exist in so many different sounds, styles, and emotions while still pointing directly back to God. Sometimes worship sounds like a quiet piano ballad. Other times it sounds like distorted guitars, heavy drums, and raw emotion pouring out through every lyric. That is where bands like Flyleaf come in.

Formed in 2002, Flyleaf carved out a unique space in music by blending hard rock and alternative metal sounds with deeply spiritual and emotional themes. They were one of the few bands that could comfortably exist on Christian rock charts while also finding massive success in mainstream secular rock spaces. For a lot of listeners, especially younger Christians trying to find music that reflected both their faith and their struggles, Flyleaf became something entirely different than the traditional worship bands of the time. Their music was honest. It was messy. It wrestled with pain, identity, hopelessness, healing, and redemption in ways that felt real instead of polished.

The song this week, “All Around Me,” may honestly be one of the clearest examples of that balance. On the surface, it sounds like a passionate love song. But underneath every lyric is a longing for connection with God and the overwhelming experience of being consumed by His presence. Lead singer Lacey Sturm has openly confirmed that the song is about experiencing the love and presence of God in an intimate and transformative way.

Knowing Lacey’s testimony gives the song even more weight. Before finding faith, she struggled deeply with depression, hopelessness, and suicidal thoughts during her teenage years. She has shared how her grandmother brought her to church during one of the darkest moments of her life, and that encounter with God completely changed the direction she was heading. Instead of finding an ending, she found hope. Instead of silence, she found purpose. And you can hear pieces of that journey all throughout Flyleaf’s music.

That is part of what makes “All Around Me” so impactful. It doesn’t feel theoretical or manufactured. It feels lived in. The lyrics sound like someone who has genuinely experienced healing after being completely broken.

The chorus especially captures that feeling perfectly:

“I can feel You all around me
Thickening the air I’m breathing
Holding on to what I’m feeling
Savoring this heart that’s healing.”

Even if someone is not religious, those words carry an undeniable emotion. The imagery alone is incredible. God’s presence is described as something so overwhelming it changes the very air around us. Not distant. Not detached. Completely surrounding us. Filling every space we occupy. There is something beautiful about the idea that God is not merely watching from afar, but actively sustaining us with every breath we take while slowly healing the broken places in our hearts.

I think that is why this song continues to resonate with so many people years later. It does not hide pain, but it also does not leave you there. It acknowledges wounds while reminding listeners that healing is possible. And sometimes worship music needs to sound exactly like that. Not polished perfection, but honest surrender.

For me, songs like this are an important reminder that faith centered music does not have to fit into one sound or one formula to point people toward God. Sometimes the message hits hardest through screaming vocals, crashing cymbals, and emotional transparency. Worship can be quiet reflection, but it can also be desperation, intensity, and raw gratitude for being pulled out of darkness.

And honestly, that may be what Flyleaf does best.

Week in Reflection

This week was filled with incredible moments of fellowship with other Godly men. Not just during the weekly men’s group I attend every Friday morning, but also through Connection’s Men’s Summit, which centered around the challenge Paul gives in 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 to be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong, and let everything we do be done in love. It perfectly connected with our current walk through 1 Corinthians during Sunday services, making the entire week feel intentionally woven together by God.

There is something powerful about being in a room full of men who are genuinely seeking Jesus. In a world that often tells men to suppress emotion, pursue selfish ambition, or define strength through dominance, gatherings like this remind us what Biblical manhood actually looks like. Real strength is found in surrender to Christ. Real courage is standing firm in faith when culture pushes against it. Real leadership is serving others with humility and love.

What stood out most throughout the summit was the camaraderie. The conversations, the laughter, the honesty, and even the vulnerability created an atmosphere that is difficult to put into words. Men from different backgrounds, different seasons of life, and different struggles all came together with one common focus: learning how to better follow Jesus and lead lives that honor Him. There is encouragement that comes from realizing you are not fighting alone. Every discussion held served as a reminder that God designed us for community, not isolation.

One of the most impactful parts of the week was seeing how openly men were willing to challenge and encourage one another. Iron sharpens iron is more than just a catchy phrase; it is something you can actually feel when surrounded by brothers in Christ who genuinely want to see each other grow spiritually. There was no competition, no pretending to have life perfectly together, just men pursuing God and helping one another stay centered on Him.

The summit also reinforced how important it is for men to lead spiritually in every area of life. Whether as husbands, fathers, friends, coworkers, or simply representatives of Christ in everyday interactions, we are called to reflect Jesus through both strength and love. That balance can sometimes feel difficult, but Scripture never separates the two. Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians remind us that standing firm and being strong should always be paired with love. Without love, strength becomes pride. Without strength, love becomes passive. Christ demonstrated both perfectly.

Walking away from this week, I feel encouraged, challenged, and grateful. Encouraged by the brotherhood that was built, challenged to continue growing into the man God calls me to be, and grateful for a church community that invests so intentionally into men pursuing Jesus together. Weeks like this are reminders that faith was never meant to be lived alone. God uses fellowship, accountability, and shared worship to strengthen us in ways we often do not realize until we experience it firsthand.

And remember, God loves you and so do I.

Connection Church in Sioux Falls is a gospel-centered community committed to helping people follow Jesus through authentic relationships, biblical teaching, and everyday mission. Rooted in historic Christian belief and aligned with gospel renewal movements, the church exists to see lives transformed by Jesus. Learn more: https://siouxfallsconnection.com/who-we-are

The Detour That Saved the Day

Some days don’t ask for much. They just ask for somewhere to land.

This one had been full of unnecessary BS, the kind of day that wears on your nerves until all you want is a familiar face, a cold drink, some loud music, and enough distance from the mess to breathe again. I didn’t have a real plan. I had been going back and forth all week about whether I was going to catch Dash Rip Rock or just go hang with my boys in Leather Rose and the musical family that has become a staple in my life.

At first, Leather Rose won.

So off to The Bend at Lucky Tap in Amory I went, not really to work, not really to chase a story, just to chill out and let the day burn off. The guys were finishing up their first set when my phone lit up. It was Cid Gardner, owner of Backline Music Hall in Tupelo, checking in to see what I was doing and telling me about the Dash show happening that night.

Cid wasn’t exactly subtle.

Come up. Rock out. Don’t miss this.

That was enough. I said my farewells to the guys and the family in Amory, pointed myself toward Tupelo, and made one very important stop first.

I had to grab my camera.

Yes, I have a bad habit of leaving it at home too often. Yes, I know better. No, I have not learned.

Backline Bleeding Through the Walls

I pulled up to Backline just before 9 p.m., and before I even made it inside, I could hear the rock pouring out of the building.

That will always get my attention.

Some rooms make you wait until you get through the door. Backline was already giving the night away from the sidewalk. Dash Rip Rock was deep into their set by the time I stepped inside, already running hot, already locked in, already past the point of introductions.

I had heard about Dash Rip Rock for years, especially from back when the Tupelo music scene was really happening. They were regulars around town back then, playing places people still talk about like old battlefields. The old SOB place. Jefferson Place. Rooms where bands either proved something or got eaten alive.

Dash brought those old Tupelo nights up more than once during the last part of the set. It gave the show a little extra weight. This wasn’t just another stop on the map. There was history in the room, even if some of us had only heard the stories secondhand. They also mentioned they were heading to Elvis’ birthplace the next morning, which felt right. If you are going to bring Louisiana cowpunk thunder into Tupelo, you might as well go pay respects while you are in town.

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A Little History With the Amp Still Humming

For anyone who needs the crash course, Dash Rip Rock formed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1984 and helped carve out the Southern cowpunk lane, mixing punk rock, rockabilly, country, roots rock, humor, grit, and barroom volume into something that always sounded like it might get kicked out before last call.

Led by guitarist and vocalist Bill Davis, the band built its name the hard way: touring, sweating through clubs, making loud records, and finding the kind of underground following that sticks because it was earned. The current lineup has Davis on guitar and vocals, Wade Hymel on drums and vocals, and Izzy Grisoli on bass and vocals. As a three-piece, there is nowhere to hide. Every part has to pull weight.

The band’s catalog runs through albums like Ace of Clubs, Tiger Town, Hee Haw Hell, Black Liquor, Cowpunk, and the 2026 release A Song In Everyone. The newer material showed up heavily in the set, and it fit right in beside the older chaos. Nothing felt like a museum piece. Dash Rip Rock still sounds like a band that would rather floor it than explain itself.

Funny? Absolutely.

Loose? When they want to be.

Sloppy? Not a chance.

There is craft under the grin. You do not last this long on jokes alone.

“Let’s Go Smoke Some Pot” and Other Sacred Nonsense

When I walked in, Dash was tearing through “Let’s Go Smoke Some Pot”, probably one of their most famous songs and one of the fastest ways to understand what this band does. It takes the old “Let’s Go to the Hop” bounce, straps a bad idea to it, and sends it flying through a Southern barroom.

It is ridiculous in exactly the right way.

The song works because the band commits to it. They know it is funny. They also play it like it matters. That balance is harder than people think. A lot of bands can be goofy. A lot of bands can be tight. Dash Rip Rock can be both at the same time without killing either side.

The set moved fast. I only caught the back half, but that was enough to feel the room snap into their rhythm. They leaned into the current release without turning the night into a nostalgia act, but the old Dash DNA was still all over it. Dirty guitar bite. Bass that kept the floor moving. Drums that pushed everything forward like a truck with weak brakes. Davis worked the room like someone who has played every kind of crowd and still believes the next song can flip the whole place.

And because this was Tupelo, Elvis eventually had to show up.

There are very few bands that come through Tupelo without tipping a hat toward Elvis Presley at some point. Dash Rip Rock was no exception. They blasted through “Little Sister”, and instead of treating it like some museum-glass tribute, they roughed it up, sped it along, and gave it some barroom teeth. Davis even slipped into a little Elvis movement at the end, just enough to let the room know he knew exactly where he was.

It landed.

Not because it was polished. Because it was fun, loose, and smart enough not to overstay its welcome.

The Old Scene, the New Room, and the Same Fire

Part of what made the night hit was how connected it all felt.

I started the evening in Amory with Leather Rose and the people who have become a real part of my life. Then Cid’s message pulled me across the highway to Backline, where a band with deep Southern road miles was already shaking the walls. It didn’t feel like two separate nights. It felt like one long thread running through the local scene.

That is what keeps music alive around here. Not just the bands. Not just the venues. The people who show up. The people who book the rooms. The people who send the text. The people who say, “You need to be here tonight.”

Backline has become one of those places where the night can still surprise you. It is not pretending to be something it isn’t. It is a live music room with a pulse, and when a band like Dash Rip Rock gets loose in there, the place makes sense.

I got there late.

I am glad I got there at all.

The Conversation After the Noise

After the show, I hung around long enough to talk with Dash. I told him they sounded great and that I was glad I caught at least part of the set. I also told him I had been undecided about coming and had started the night with my Leather Rose guys.

I told him a little about them.

His reply stuck with me. He wished us luck with the band and said maybe when Dash Rip Rock came back around, we could work together and have the guys open for them.

That was a cool moment. No ego. No acting above anybody. Just a veteran musician giving a little encouragement and leaving the door cracked open.

I told him that would be fantastic.

Then, of course, I had to add that if these boys keep building a following the way they are, we might need Dash to open for us.

HaHa.

That is how these nights should end. Half joking. Half dreaming. Fully meaning it.

Afterglow

The night did not start as a review. It started as an escape route.

A rough day. No plan. A stop in Amory. A message from Cid. A camera rescued from the house at the last minute. A drive to Tupelo. Then Dash Rip Rock rattling Backline Music Hall with enough cowpunk grit, Elvis swagger, and road-worn muscle to make the day feel a little less heavy.

Sometimes the show you almost skip is the one you needed.

I spent a few more minutes talking with Brent and Cid before heading home. Cid was already telling me about the next night, another good one coming through with Joe Austin & The Tallahatchies.

So yeah, there is more to come.

See ya soon.

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The nearly sold-out Omaha stop of Alter Bridge’s What Lies Within Tour had the kind of electricity that does not politely announce itself. It was already moving through Steelhouse Omaha before the first full band hit landed, bouncing off the floor, climbing the walls, and making its way up to the Lounge like voltage looking for somewhere to live.

Watching from upstairs changed the whole night. Down on the floor, a rock show can swallow you in bodies, volume, and instinct. From the balcony, the machinery reveals itself. The massive circular LED rigs were not just big glowing ornaments. They had geometry. The vertical light pillars were not just there to blast color at people’s faces. They gave the stage a frame, a kind of cathedral math. From above, you could see how intentional the whole production was, how the circles and columns kept shifting the eye back toward the band without ever letting the room feel still. It was arena thinking inside a room tight enough that you could still catch the human details.

And the best human detail of the night happened before the show really began.

A crew guy named Mike met a fan who had brought a photo of herself as a 9-year-old from the band’s very early days. That kind of thing can easily become another “sorry, we can’t” moment in the machinery of a concert night. Mike made it something else. He took the photo backstage and got the band to sign it for her. Before Tim Montana had kicked into gear, before Filter turned the room blue and white, before Alter Bridge’s lights started moving like planets, that fan had already gotten the memory she came for. Maybe better than the one she came for.

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The Room Before the Riff

Steelhouse Omaha has a way of looking calm before it gets loud. Before the sold-out room packed itself tight for Alter Bridge, the venue felt almost surgical in its design: polished concrete floors, dark metal lines, long ceiling lights, and bars glowing red and purple like the building was warming up from the inside. It is a clean, modern space, but not sterile. The place has angles. It has sheen. It has that new-venue feeling where every surface looks intentional, from the lobby wall to the upstairs lounge to the outdoor patio wrapped in glass and city light.

The night kept playing with perspective. From the lounge and patio areas, Steelhouse felt less like a holding pen for concertgoers and more like part of the production’s slow build. You could step outside and catch the venue’s exterior glow against the Omaha night, then move back inside to the bar and see the crowd starting to gather in pockets, drinks in hand, anticipation doing its usual quiet work. Even the emptier moments before the surge had their own atmosphere, the kind of pre-show hush where you can feel the building waiting for the first amp to bite.

The merch area leaned into that same clean industrial look, only louder. The orange Steelhouse Omaha wall made the black tour shirts pop hard, with Alter Bridge, Filter, and Tim Montana gear lined up in a way that felt sharp rather than chaotic. There were tables stacked with shirts, racks hanging above them, and a steady path roped out for fans ready to grab something before the floor filled in. It looked organized, easy to navigate, and visually on-theme with the rest of the venue: black shirts, hard edges, orange wall, polished floor, no wasted clutter.

For a show built around heavy guitars and arena-scale lighting, Steelhouse gave the night a smart frame before anyone stepped onstage. The venue did not compete with the bands. It set the table, dimmed the edges, lit the bar, pointed people toward the room, and let the noise do the rest.

Gravel Before Steel

Tim Montana opened with a set that knew exactly what job it had. He did not try to pretend he was the heaviest thing on the bill, and he did not soften himself into a warm-up act either. His lane sat somewhere between southern rock, hard rock, and a barroom dare, which made him a smart bridge into the rest of the night. The songs had grit, but the delivery had lift. He played like a guy who knows how to win over a room that may not have arrived for him.

The moment that cut through was not only musical. Montana took time to talk about the years of hustle it took to finally make something stick, and he said it with the kind of directness that does not feel polished for applause. Right before 40, he told the crowd, he finally felt like he had made it. There was no fake mythology in it, no overnight-success fantasy. Just mileage. You could hear the grind in the way he framed it, and then you could hear it again in the way he sang.

His cover of “Brown Sugar” fit him cleanly because it did not sound like a borrowed costume. It landed in his raw vocal grain, all smoke and bite, and gave the room something familiar without letting the set drift into karaoke territory. It was a good opening-set trick: give the crowd a door they recognize, then kick it open hard enough that they remember who did it.

Blue Light, White Noise

Then Filter pulled the room into a colder place.

The lighting changed the temperature before the songs even had to. Sharp blue and white washed the stage, keeping the band mostly in silhouette. Where Montana felt like dust, sweat, and amplifier heat, Filter felt clinical. Industrial. The kind of music that looks better when the performers are half-swallowed by light instead of presented plainly. It made the stage feel less like a platform and more like a lab where something had already gone wrong.

Richard Patrick knows what hangs in the air before “Hey Man, Nice Shot”. He also knows everybody else knows. That pause before the biggest hit can be dead space in the wrong hands, but he turned it into the night’s strangest little mirror. Before going into it, he pulled out his phone and snapped a photo of the packed room. He said he wanted to actually “remember” the night.

It was funny, but not cheap. A wink, but not a bit. The crowd was waiting for the line, waiting for the release, and he slid the idea of memory right into the moment before the song did what everyone knew it would do. From upstairs, it played almost like stage direction: man photographs crowd before singing song everybody remembers him for. The room got the joke and the point at the same time.

Filter’s set did not need warmth. It worked because it refused it. The silhouettes, the blue-white glare, the hard edges of the songs — all of it sharpened the middle of the night before Alter Bridge came in with something bigger, wider, and more emotionally open.

Circles, Pillars, and the Big Room Brain

Alter Bridge came on like a band fully aware of scale. Not just volume, not just lights, not just the usual “big rock show” posture. Scale. Their set had the architecture of a headliner that understands how to make a room feel larger than it is without losing the faces inside it.

From the Lounge, that design mattered. The circular LED rigs became a kind of orbit around the performance, while the vertical pillars gave songs a spine. It was the sort of production that would be easy to miss from the floor, where the crowd’s movement becomes its own weather. From above, you could watch the lighting carve the stage into shapes, then dissolve them and build something new. The show was heavy, but it was also cleanly drawn.

Mark Tremonti stepping up for lead vocals on “Burn It Down” gave the set one of its darker turns. His voice sits differently than Myles Kennedy’s — heavier in the corners, less skyward, more shadowed. It brought out another shade in the band without making the night feel interrupted. That is not always easy when a band is built around a frontman as vocally recognizable as Kennedy, but Tremonti’s moment had its own gravity.

Kennedy, meanwhile, gave one of the night’s prettiest pivots when he opened the encore with Blackbird.

The buzz upstairs really changed, though, when the band broke out “Tested and Able.” You could feel the day-one fans clock it before everyone else did. The Lounge had its own little ripple of disbelief, the kind that starts with a few heads snapping up and spreads through whispered confirmation. Fans around me were saying it had not surfaced on a setlist in six years. I’m leaving that as the room told it, because that was the point of the moment anyway. It was not just a song selection. It was a private door opening in public.

Later, I saw a fan who had managed to snag a setlist. Protective is the word. Not rude, not performative, just careful with it. Some souvenirs are trophies. This one looked more like evidence. Proof that the thing everyone had just freaked out about had actually happened.

Afterglow

The obvious story of the night is that Alter Bridge brought a polished, arena-level rock show to Omaha and made Steelhouse feel built for it. That is true. The circles, the light pillars, the balcony view, the heavy lift of the production — all of that gave the night its shape.

But the thing that stayed with me was smaller.

It was Mike taking a fan’s childhood photo backstage before the music started. It was Richard Patrick taking a photo so he could “remember” the room before singing the song everyone came ready to remember. It was Tim Montana talking about the grind before 40 without dressing it up. It was the day-one fans losing their minds over “Tested and Able” like a secret had been handed back to them.

From the Lounge, the machine looked beautiful. The lights had geometry. The show had muscle. But the night worked because the human moments kept slipping through the steel.

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