Canadian Tour with Christine Evans

My journey nearly across the span of Canada took the majority of ten days. I’ve traveled all the way from Toronto through Winnipeg on to the beautiful plains outside of Calgary. Various events this summer led to my band, Half Past Forever (currently consisting of Cole Edmonson on bass guitar, Ryan Siders on drums, and myself on guitar), being hired to play for Christine Evans. Christine is a Canadian singer/songwriter on Warner Music Canada. She has released two albums: “Take Me Home” & “Push" as of 2007.

The bands first outing with Christine was in late August ’07 we played at the Freedom Fest in Barrie, Ontario. The event featured such big names as Jars of Clay, Thousand Foot Krutch and Phil Keaggy to name a few. Being only our first outing, we rocked out and really worked the crowd! About a month later, me and the boys got an e-mail from Christine about a mini-tour through Canada to promote for the upcoming GMA Canada week.

The full band played 3 shows over the course of the week-end. Due to school (and other things, I guess), Cole and Ryan flew home that Sunday. I was able to stay the rest of the week until the culmination of the GMA Canada awards show!

We had the chance to perform Christine's song Surrender (which was #5 on the Christian Charts in Canada last time I checked) on Breakfast TV in Calgary. Breakfast TV is the morning show for cityTV in Canada. I love seeing the behind the scenes stuff in a TV studio and I am ecstatic to have made my major debut on Canadian television!

Christine and I visited several radio stations. Personal favorite was CKVN with Famous Shamus. Both stations were situated in cool locales. CKVN is located in Lethbridge (it's the windiest city I've ever been to!). Famous Shamus is an animated deejay (and now facebook buddy) and served us some of the best hot tea I've ever had (hot tea is awesome for the vocal chords).

A four-time nominee, Christine was poised for success. Her nominations included Female Vocalist of the Year, Pop/Contemporary Album of the Year, Song of the Year & Music Video of the Year. Being only 17, she has commanded the attention of the Christian Canadian music scene. Being a part of the GMA Canada week was full of conferences along with dinners and lunches with the who's who of GMA (US & Canada). The air was filled with excitement as awards made their way to artists and the performances were golden (my personal fav was Starfield and their song, Everything is Beautiful). After the evening was said and done, Christine came away with the Video of the Year award for "Push." This marks yet another huge success for Christine and her support crew.

This year was one event after another that ultimately led to working with Christine. I got a call in late spring from her dad, Andy. He had apparently kept up with Chris Sligh and his American Idol fame. Through visiting the Half Past Forever (Chris Sligh's) MySpace, he found out that Chris would be on tour with American Idol (since the Idol made the top 10). This prompted him to look me up and ask if the band would be interested in playing as Christine's band for the summer. One thing led to another and the rest has been history in the making.

Here are a few more photos of the trip:

Cole, Ryan, Christine, Adam