The Christian music festival Kingdom Bound 2010 was an intense, wonderful experience for me. It was four days of people, prayer, music and more. Held August 1 - 4 at Darien Lake Resort in rural Darien Center, New York (cow country), this was the festival’s 24th year, and most people I talked to agreed it was one of the best yet.
Since I stayed “on-grounds” in one of Darien Lake’s RVs, which are nice by the way, I had a lot to pack for my stay. I was up til 3am Saturday night making sure I had everything ready to go, including towels, bed sheets, blankets, pillows, flashlights, food and drinks, lots of changes of clothes, and all the other things you’d typically pack for a couple days away from home.
Sunday came, and I made the half hour drive out to the park, arriving at the campground gate around 11am. My first stop was the Lodge on the Lake where I visited with my friends who run Kingdom Bound Radio, an on-grounds station broadcasting “24-4” – just under one watt so it reaches all the people in the campground and some in the park and roads around the park. Gabe and Marcie and Mike and his daughter Meghan, along with John-Mark and a couple others, helped run this unique station.
Throughout the course of the festival, I made frequent visits to the station to talk on the radio and enjoyed it immensely. They did quite a few compelling interviews with KB artists and speakers like Michelle Bonilla and Mike Shreve, about topics like what it’s like being a woman in a male-dominated field and why yoga may or may not be a good thing for Christians.
I hung up a couple “100.3 FM” radio signs at the camp gate and then inside the park so as many people as possible would know to tune into KB’s radio station over the next couple days. Then I made my way past Darien Lake’s beautiful new row of lakefront, rentable cabins (complete with a view of the Ride of Steel coaster which looks beautiful when lit up at night), over to my RV, which was directly behind the Vendor Tent, a huge tent that looked and felt like a mini-mall with table after table of merchandise, brochures, t-shirts, jewelry, books and more.
This year I shared the RV with a couple people, including longtime volunteers Bernie and Gino. Bernie works the “Send-a-Friend” table inside the Vendor Tent, where donated books, CDs, and gifts get sold to raise money to “send-a-friend” to KB next year—the friend(s) being underprivileged or special needs people mostly from Buffalo and Rochester, who otherwise couldn’t afford the expense of coming to the amusement park and/or a big, outdoor festival. Gino, meanwhile, is a very dedicated guy who usually works with people who live at Buffalo’s “St. Luke’s Mission of Mercy.” He is KB’s sign man, making sure banners and signage is properly hung up all around, and there are A LOT of signs to hang! Over the course of the festival, two others stayed in my RV—Justin Herman, who ran KB’s Facebook and Twitter accounts throughout the festival, and John-Mark Costello, one of KB radio’s DJs. I got along fine with all of them, and the trailer was a nice respite from the humidity of the week’s hot, hot, hot weather.
After dumping my stuff in the RV, I went to lunch and then to the Park Stage where I was a judge for the KB International Talent Search. There were 25 bands/singers in a row who got up on stage and sang their one song, and the talent ranged from amateur to professional as you could imagine.  There were numerous stand-out artists who all the judges agreed were above average—their names included: Ps100 from Medina, NY; Devan Golda from Grand Island, NY; Erin Aresenault from Allegany, NY; Renewed Disciples from Woodbury, NJ: Wayne Stoddard from Margate, FL; and the winner of the competition, Jeremiah Garcia from Rochester, NY.
Other bands and singers who stood out in my opinion were: Days of Old from Buffalo, NY; Brand New Endings from Innisfil, ON; Michael B. & The Sent Forth from Fulton, NY; Unlikely Heroes from Orangeville, ON; Soul Angel from Albion, NY; and Ade Adu from Wellsville, NY. The talent search worked out well; a lot of people attended the three hour event, and now the winner, Jeremiah Garcia, goes on to compete with other Christian festival winners in Nashville this Fall, for the chance to win a Word Label development deal. I wish him all the best.
One of my fellow judges was Pastor Samme Palermo, who was recently spotlighted on The 700 Club, and he told me more than 700 people called into the show's prayer line giving their hearts to Christ after seeing his testimony. Samme got a text message from singer Rebecca St. James while at KB; I assume she wanted to say hello and wish KB well, as she has been a part of it for years-- and apparently Samme texted her that he was sitting with me, and she texted to him "Say hello to Mark for me," and when Samme told me this I was shocked, saying, "She remembers me/knows who I am?" Yes, I have met her in person and talked with her several times, BUT it floors me to think someone as famous as her, someone who meets thousands of people a year, would recognize my name! I am still not sure if Samme was making it all up; he LOVES to wind me up/get me going, and I never know if he's kidding or not. He's a character, that's for sure!
Sunday night there were a lot of things going on at Darien Lake’s Performing Arts Center, and I got a chance to catch a bunch of songs by the Newsboys. This is the band originally from Australia who essentially got their start in America playing Kingdom Bound more than two decades ago. Only one original member, the drummer, remains…and the latest line-up includes former DC Talk guy Michael Tait as the lead singer. Typically, Newsboys always ended the festival on Wednesday nights, but this year they opened the festival Sunday night, and I enjoyed them. I know some people miss the old line-up, when Peter Furler was the lead singer, but times change, and the latest version of the group certainly did a great job at getting the crowd moving, thinking and having a night to remember.
Like most rock shows, there were lots of lights and the band ended up in the middle of the crowd performing several songs. The one beef I have with these concerts (and all concerts) was “they’re too loud.” Maybe I’m getting “too old,” but I just don’t understand why concerts these days sound so loud that they’re going to damage people’s hearing. Even with earplugs in, I couldn’t take the loudness, and when I talked to others, they said the same thing: “We enjoy the music, BUT it’s too loud.”
Around 11:30pm, I was the latenight host for KB movie night, and an audience gathered to watch “Bringing Up Bobby.”
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