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Diverse Cornerstone makes music, builds memories |
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Written by JON SINGER / Photos by TRILISA M. PERRINE
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Wednesday, 15 June 2005 |
Back in 1997, ska was reigning, and during my July 4 week at Cornerstone in Bushnell, Ill., I had to make an escape. So I hopped in the back of my parent's navy blue Toyota Corolla wagon, turned on a cassette of the Beatles' White Album loud enough to drown out most of the O.C. Supertones concert bleeding in from a quarter mile away, and closed my eyes.
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Cornerstone
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1-773-989-2087
www.cornerstonefestival.com
Tickets:
Adults: Four days, $110; one day, $45
Youth (Ages 6-11): Four days, $32; one day, $20
Children (5 and younger): Free
Group rates are available.
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I had left my girlfriend, Stef, at the concert, but that didn't make me a jerk. Cornerstone is four days of mixups, miscommunications, getting lost, finding new friends, taking freezing cold showers, but, most of all, having a time of your life.
Cornerstone is a Christian festival started in 1984 by the Chicago Jesus People USA. It has moved and grown but settled in a break in Bushnell, Ill., cornfields, bordering Lake Wildwood and hills perfect for a main stage. The festival features more than 200 bands on 14 stages and draws visitors young and old. It's a Christian Woodstock, and with limited corporate intrusion. Sure, several tents are named for record labels, but when you're listening to Over the Rhine play a midnight outdoor show with 500 people under the big top, it doesn't get any better. This year, headliners include P.O.D., Switchfoot, Blindside, Over the Rhine, the Newsboys Project 86 and Pedro the Lion. Past performers include Third Day, Sixpence None the Richer, DC Talk, Jennifer Knapp, and just about any major Christian artist you can think of. Cornerstone is an event any music lover should not miss in their lifetime – Christian or not.
As is obvious from the bands above, the music at Cornerstone is second to none. While other tours like Lollapalooza or Warped Tour hit some of the same crowd, only Cornerstone is stationary and lasts four days. And there are so many different kinds of music represented; punk to pop; folk to techno.
Camping is essential to Cornerstone. If you're clean, you're out. You also can count as essential an individualized haircut and outfit, whether it be a 60-year-old, 85-pound hippie with a scraggly beard, pretty long blond hair and tie dye wifebeater, or a spiked green mohawk on a kid wearing a vintage Edward Scissorhands outfit that hides during daylight. The crowd is even more diverse than the music. You're as likely to meet someone from California as from Illinois, and see many types you've never seen before.
Cornerstone has more than just music. There are open press conferences with the bands, two merchandise tents, a food court with many options and volleyball courts in the middle, seminars featuring artists, pastors and others, games, children's activities and countless footbag circles you can hop into. And it's more than likely you can meet any given band up close, either at their table in the merch tent, at a press conference, or simply walking around checking out all the other goings on.
I returned to Cornerstone in 2002, this time with my pregnant wife, Stef. Not much had changed. It was 120-plus degrees, though, so every 10 feet of walking required spraying down with a mist bottle. Not much relief came, even in the supposedly cooler nights. I ran into a half-dozen friends while there, and ran into the same new faces several times. I counted one guy who I saw 11 times in less than three days. I swear he wasn't stalking me – we passed by head-on most every time. I also saw one of the nastiest objects ever in a men's shower stall, but I'll spare you the details.
The sights and memories of Cornerstone live well past the day you return to your home and reality. You'll reminisce about the four days when you saw handwritten band posters everywhere, 2-year-old punks, and 60-old crazies. You'll wish you were back at Cornerstone getting bitten by mosquitoes and getting lost on a dirt path on your way to a great concert.
FUN CORNERSTONE TIPS
• Find the portable toilet you like best and promptly place an "out of order" sign on it. Do NOT prepare the sign beforehand so that it "looks professional." No one at Cornerstone has a computer or a semblance of looking professional.
• Bring friends. You'll lose them anyway, and you need someone to tell y our Cornerstone stories to, during and after the festival.
• Camp on angled ground. Those crampy backaches make more memories.
• Play the "lovechild" game. When you see that looks like the offspring of both Ted Danson and Tom Selleck, be the first of your group of friends to say, "Ted Danson and Tom Selleck."
• Check out the merchandise tents. Look at everything. It's stuff you don't see everyday.
• Eat an elephant ear or an ostrich burger.
• Bring sandals. Unless you like stepping on chewed gum and the stuff that's on the floor in portable toilets.
• Attend a seminar. If you're a Christian, attend one you'd never go to normally. If you're not a Christian, and you made it all the way to Cornerstone, take your interest a step further and see what these "Jesus People" are about. I don't think they require a fish symbol on your car when you leave.Powered by AkoComment 2.0! |
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