Before the sun gets to rise

So at the beginning of the week I was reminded of the existence of Ichthus Festival in Wilmore, KY. It is an annual Christian music festival that is held in mid June from Wednesday to Sunday. Portia’s friend Jonny was headed up to a festival to run a photobooth right after all his stuff got stolen at Bonnaroo. He needed a computer, so I let him borrow my old one for the weekend. I asked what festival he was going to and when he said, “Ichthus” I was blasted back to 2006 when all I wanted was to be able to go to Ichthus and hang out with bands and meet other fans I had known on the internet. However, from the ages 13-18 I was always at Blue Ridge Leaders School in North Carolina during the week of Ichthus. This year was the first year that I was actually staying in Nashville and had the free time and ability to travel to Ichthus—so I went! Plus, the drive was only 3.5 hours, so not bad at all.

The only bands I really cared about seeing were Eleventyseven and Fireflight, but a big reason/incentive to even go was to surprise Jonny, one of Portia’s best friends. It worked out because she was able to hang out with him while I went to see the bands I wanted to see. The amazing thing was that a different friend had already gone to Ichthus earlier in the week and had a wristband that he gave us, plus Jonny was able to get us backstage wristbands. We were able to go into the “artist” areas and we had access to meal tickets. The best part? Our whole trip, apart from gas, was completely free.

I must mention…Our plan was to drive back that night and just get back to Nashville around 1 or 2am. I don’t know how or why he thought we deserved such kindness or special treatment, but Jonny bought us a hotel room for the night. I’ve never known anyone to do something that nice/selfless. Our being in Wilmore was completely thrust upon Jonny without any notice whatsoever. So if you see this Jonny (which I’m kind of doubting you will, but one never knows) THANK YOU, SERIOUSLY. Overall, the trip was just a huge success, despite that it was planned super last minute. [Notice that I said “trip” and not “Ichthus”…but that is another blog post entirely]

I think I’ll put up some pictures and talk about the rest of the night in another post so that this one doesn’t get too long! :)