Rock the Universe 2008 trip Report

Friday September 5, 2008

Starting extremely early in the morning around 4am, my brother and I leave south Florida and head up to Orlando and Universal Studios for Rock the Universe. On the way up the Florida Turnpike we have to deal with the harsh weather conditions dealt to us by Hurricane Hanna, which while somewhat intense are nothing compared to what the people living in Texas experienced with Hurricane Ike.

We arrive at Universal Studios earlier than necessary and have to wait about an hour not only for the gates to open but for any of the ticket booths to open so I can exchange my Rock the Universe ticket voucher for an actual ticket. Crowds in the morning are extremely small which I know will change later in the day. When the park does open we decide to go ride the Simpsons Ride but after being asked if we are employees of Universal, which we are not, being told that the far half of the park wont open until about 30 minutes later. Since only 2 attractions are open, Shrek and Jimmy Neutron, we opt to ride Jimmy Neutron's Nicktoon Blast.

After the first ride I stop and take a couple of pictures of the Yard Stage and the Rock the Universe signs in the area. Then we head for the first of many rides we will go on the Revenge of the Mummy over the three days. Next we head for the Simpsons Ride and I stop and take a picture of the Hollywood Stage and the Rock the Universe schedule sign. After riding the Simpsons we decide to head next door to Isoalnds of Adventure..

At Islands of Adventure we first head into Marvel Superhero Island wanting to ride the Hulk. The Hulk however is down for somesort of maintainance and looks like it would be a fairly rough ride in its current condition anyways. Instead we go on Spiderman and the ride is a walk on like all rides up to this point. As we are getting hungry we decide ro leave on go check into our hotel.

The check in to the hotel goes very smoothly, due in most part to being next to Wet-n-Wild and that water park having almost zero crowds due to the hurricane. Head off for lunch at a nearby Burger King and some of the bands for tonights event are also eating in there. Head back to the park and after wondering around for a bit go on E.T. After E.T. we exchange our Rock the Universe tickets for wristbands. Then after we have another ride on the Mummy we stop for a drink at Finnegan's Bar & Grill.

While we only intended to stay in Finnegan's for one or two drinks we end up eating dinner here. I had a great Guiness stew and I split an order of Scotch eggs with my brother. Finnegan's also had a pretty talented bar singer who was pretty entertaining. Left the restuarant and decided to check out the merchandise at Battery Park. Looked to find some small, cheap souvineer I was looking for guitar strap pins or buttons but did not find any for the bands I was interested in. My brother purchased a Skillet sticker for $1.

Waited around on a bench on 8th Ave. near Battery Park for the start of the concerts. As I was not familiar with either of the fist 2 groups performing I opt to say where we are near the Hollywood stage and watch Group 1 Crew, while my brother heads over to the yard stage to watch New Method. After watching Group 1 Crew, who are a type hip-hop group, for one or two songs, mybrothers comes and gets me to come watch New Method. New Method is a kind of punk rock groupp which is more more my style and we watch them until the end of there set. (After posting video of part of their set on MySpace, Doug the lead singer from the band added me as one of their friends and also posted some of my stills to their MySpace page)

After New Method, the speaker Darren Whitehead came out and addressed the crowd. His message involved a story about his daughter after she had been sick on an airplane and him picking her up and giving her a hug even with the mess she had made on her dress. He used this to illustrate that just like the love he had for his duaghter, God has the same love for us even when we are not clean, God loves us no matter what condition we may be in.

Grits was the next to get on the stage. Their musical style was a more aggressive stlye of hip-hop/ rap and was definately not my cup o tea. We did however, stay for the fisrt song just for respect, which I did for almost all the bands I watched this weekend. Then we headed over to the Hollywood Stage.

When we arrive at the Hollywod Stage, the previous group had ended and we waited for Skillet to take the stage. There was some pushing as people viied for position but overall the crowd was not yet that bad. Skillet put on a great show, filled with a lot of energy. My favorite part was when the lead told the story of how he got into Christian music. Someone had interduced to the band Petra but his mother wouldn't allow him to listen to it since she thought it was the Devil's music. When the singer found out that Petra was going to be performing in his hometown he convinced his mother to take him under the condition that they leave once Petra started praying to Satan. After the concert the singer said his mother became the biggest Petra fan he knew. Skillet was great and there concert while starting in daylight ended just after sunset.

After Skillet performed I was incredable thirsty and we headed toward the stage to a drink booth. Only after getting near the stage did we find out that Universal had completely blocked that area and would not let anyone out of the partioned area and we were told we had to go to the end of the barriers which were past the Horror Make-Up Sohw/ Youth Leader's Lounge. This was a very poorly made decision by Universal on crowd control. I would not have been as mad about it if there were signs on the barricades that said there was no exit toward the stage and only near the back of the area. After then searching for a drink stand ended up buying a Powerade from the T2-3D exit shop.

Since a lot of the crowd from the Skillet concert had left we decided to get as close as possible for the Newsboys concert. We ended up being to the right of the end of the catwalk into the crowd. Before the Newsboys came out AJ Styles from TNA Wrestling came out and gave a short motivational speech to the crowd. Then instead of the Newsboys coming out Paul Colman, gutiarist for the Newsboys came out and did a short aucoustic set.

The Newsboys come out on give one of the best performances I have seen. They have great energy and really know how to work the crowd. My favorite part was the use of the catwlak. The band came out to the middle and using only a keyboard did a medley of their older songs. Later the drum solos were awesome. Not only was there the spinning drum set on the main stage that the Newsboys have been using for years, but on the catwalk was a second drum set that was raised on a hydrolic lift about twenty feet into the air. The most explosive song of the night was of course Shine with its confetti cannons, followed by a little Breakfast and the usually throw of Captain Crunch cereal. (Those 2 songs left a lot of debris that parts of were still there in the park 2 days later).

After the Newsboys finished, we were going to the Battery Park merchandise tables where the Newsboys were signing autographs, but the line was already incredibly long, so we headed back to the Yard Stage to catch the end of the Switchfoot concert. While at every other concert over the weekend we stayed for at least 1 song, Switchfoot sounded so out of tune that we just decided to go and check out the lines for the rides.

At this point in the night, it was only a little past 10 and figured we could get in 1 or 2 rides before the park closed at 1am. The Mummy was over 2 hours wait so we kept going. Stopped in Amityville and watched other Rock the Universe guests play the carnival style games. One guest played the knock over the bottle game and succeed at least 4 times while we were watching. Continued our walk around the park, looked at the wiat for Men in Black, but even the single rider's line had extended outside the main entrace. Decided to go watch some of the My Coke Rewards Karaoke but while we saw about 1 song, that event ended at 11pm and it was about 10:45pm when we past by. As the lines were long and for the first time in my experience at Rock the Universe there were no concerts past 10:30pm wee decided to leave for the night and prepare for Night of Joy the next day.

Trip Report from Night of Joy 2007

Welcome back to everyone who went to Night of Joy 2007 (or Rock the universe 2007). Here is my trip report from my experience at Night of Joy.

I started my day by parking at the Magic Kingdom and going to Epcot. At around 2 in the afternoon, my brother and I took the monorail from Epcot to the Magic Kingdom. There were already signs for Night of Joy at the entrance saying that the event had sold out for the night. We stopped at City Hall to inquire about the wrist band exchange and to receive the concert schedule for the evening. The wristband exchange would take place at the rose garden near Cinderella's Castle anytime after 4pm.

After stopping to play for a bit at the Virtual Magic Kingdom Central on Main Street, we went and ate ice cream and get Fastpasses for the Many Adventure's of Winnie the Pooh. It was well getting the fastpasses that I found the location of the Fantasyland stage, which was near the Winnie the Pooh Attraction toward the Mad Tea Party. Still a fairly small venue.

While waiting for our Fastpass return time we went and rode the Liberty Square Riverboat. While in Frontierland we discovered that there would be an autograph session at the Golden Horseshoe Saloon at 8:30pm, sponsored by the Gospel Music Channel, but it did not say which performers it would be.

After riding Winnie the Pooh, the skies started to look threatening and we headed for Space Mountain, since it is indoors. We got Fastpasses for 3:45pm, and also got in line for what Disney had posted as a 30 minute wait. It was no where near that long and was maybe 5 minutes tops. Our first ride was without incident and we exited into the Tomorrowland Arcade. By that time the rain had become a torrential downpour and we did not leave the arcade for close to an hour. It was about 4:15 when we left the arcade and went to use our fastpasses. By this point the groups that only had Night of Joy tickets were allowed into the Magic Kingdom for the evening. The line for Space Mountain at that point extended to near the Astro Orbitor. Waiting to board our vehicle every person at was in a rocket was screaming at the top of their lungs. The group we got seated with kept screaming "black f*&#$ing metal" through the entire ride. Watching the reaction of the Cast Member operating the ride I could tell most did not enjoy the prospect of having to deal with this type of crowd for the rest of the evening.

We the went to eat dinner at the Pinocchio’s Village Haus (since Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe was incredibly busy at that point and would be for most of the evening). After dinner, we went to the restrooms behind the restaurant, and since it was nearing the official closing of the Magic Kingdom, Cast Members were not allowing anyone who did not have a Night of Joy wristband to use the facilities. This was causing a lot of frustration for the normal guests, and I was surprised that the cast members weren't used as the facilities by the people needing to use the restroom.

Since we knew that several attraction would be shut down promptly at 6pm, we decided to go and ride the Tomorrowland Transit Authority before it was turned off for the evening. Apparently, many people had the same idea, as this was the only time I have ever seen the queue for the TTA extend past the upramp. While riding, we encountered more of the screaming we experienced on Space Mountain and decided not to ride any more attractions for the evening.

After exiting the TTA, we went and got in line to see Flyleaf. There was already a substantial crowd waiting outside the Carousel of Progress to be allowed into the Galaxy Palace Theater. An interesting mix of first time concert goers, those that had been to events such as Korn's Family Values tour, and those who had been to these types of events before. When we were let in to the theater we chose a seat in the middle near the rear of the theater, since we were not entirely familiar with what type of group Flyleaf was, after only hearing their single "All Around Me" on the local alternative radio station. It seems that many other people had the same thought as the crowd seemed to be cut in half by the middle of Flyleafs set. Personally, I enjoyed Flyleaf's harder edged rock sound. They had quite a stage presence and were highly energetic, especially the bass player. It was here that I learned that my old VHS-C camcorders battery did not really hold a charge anymore and I was only able to film Flyleaf's first song.

After the concert, we went back through Fantasyland and saw the last song that Smokie Norful performed. From what I saw it seemed to be a very good show as well. We then went to the Golden Horseshoe and found out that the group doing autographs was Mary Mary. As I am not a fan of theirs we skipped it. We did find the Gospel Music Channel, was doing a Wheel of Fortune type promotion on the Liberty Square Riverboat dock, and giving away small backpacks.

Since the group we most wanted to see was RED and they were playing at Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe, we went there. Before RED came on stage we watched Rachael Hurt perform. She was rather good for a solo artist with only an acoustic guitar. The best part of her show was the small dance off she did between a boy and girl. The girl did wild gyrations, while the boy did incredibly lame dance moves like the lawnmower and the shopping cart. It was painfully obvious that the girl won that contest. Rachael was very friendly and spent time after the concert talking with fans in the cafe.

Then RED took the stage. RED's performance was electric. However, unless you were near the front of the stage, they were almost invisible to the crowd. In fact I don't think I ever saw the drummer as we were located near the back of the stage. The really needed risers so the entire audience could have seen them.

The last performance we wanted to see was the Newsboys. However, we discovered that Disney had blocked off the entire area of the hub north of the Walt and Mickey Partners statue for the VIP guests, those group ticket holders that bought tickets very early in the year. This was an okay idea, except that Disney blocked off too large of an area and it was impossible to truly get near the Castle Stage. We decided we would instead try to see Kutless on the Fantasyland stage. After finding a decent viewing location, we discovered that the area was extremely hot and my brother could not stand in the area with nothing to lean against to a back problem and we left before Kutless took the stage. We went back to the Newsboy concert.

The VIP section again caused problems. Since Disney had redesigned the central hub area, all of the trees planted are fairly new growth trees. Therefore any area behind them had nearly 100% blocked views. The older trees were tall enough that views of the stage area were available underneath them. For the Newsboys concert we stood to the left of the hub on the street. While the Newsboys sounded alright, it was clear that the lose of their bass player really affected the performance. Our location made it hard to truly get into the concert and due to that and my brother's back condition we left after about 3 songs.

Upon leaving Disney handed to every guest a sampler CD promoting the 25th anniversary of Night of Joy. While I would of personally preferred a retrospective collection of music, it was still a nice gift.

We returned to the Magic Kingdom parking lot. After riding the tram, It became clear that it was not going to where our car was parked. It turned out that we had the very last car parked in the Pluto parking area and the tram had not planned on going to that area. The tram driver did not even know where the Pluto section was.

Overall it was a very good night and I look forward to attending Night of Joy again next year.

 

Thoughts before Night of Joy 2007

Welcome to the newest edition to the Unofficial Guide to Disney's Night of Joy.  I am currently sitting here late on the night before I leave for Orlando from south Florida.  Unfortunately for me I am only able to attend the Saturday event at the Magic Kingdom.  Still I hope to have a great time there.  This is my 18th trip to either Night of Joy and/or Rock the Universe.  This year I am most looking forward to seeing the bands Red, Flyleaf, and Newsboys, although I may check out others if I have the chance. 

A note of fustration for myself is that my Canon Digital camcorder has refused to accept tapes and I will have to rely on my old VHS-C camcrder to film any of this year's concerts.  I due however still have a decent still camera and will be taking a lot of pictures.  If anyone would like to share either pictures or video of Night of Joy or Rock the Universe please e-mail me at nightofjoy@yahoo.com.

Things other than the music I am looking forward to are seeing thousands of other Christians as well as those seeking the spiritual uplifting that comes from knowing Jesus Christ as their personal saviour decending upon 2 of the greatest theme parks in the world. It will be interesting to see if Disney does anything special since this is the 25th anniversary of Night of Joy. 

What does concern me about the events is the stage set-ups this year.  At Night of Joy, there are no stages on the east side of the Magic Kingdom (Adventureland, Frontierland) and most in Tomorrowland.  The stage that is listed as Fantasyland may also be a problem if it is placed where it has been in the past since the area has very limited space.  At Rock the Universe,  all the times for each performance are presented but it does not say which stage each performer will be on.  Hopefully, Universal has not decided to place all of the performances on a single stage.

 Well, its getting very late here and I may be pretty incoherent at the moment.  Hope to see you in Orlando. 

God Bless