I took a group of youth to Universal Studios in Orlando this weekend for Rock the Universe. For those of you who don't know, Rock the Universe is a weekend of Christian Bands that perform at the theme park. Just to make it interesting, Disney does the same thing, but it is called Night of Joy. For the record, Night of Joy came first... I know, because I used to attend when I was in high school. Well, I suppose that Universal wanted in on the action, and came up with RTU, and, alas, they have way better rides than Disney, thanks to Islands of Adventure...which is host to the HULK ride, and that is quite possibly the best ride in the southern states.
Anyway, back to the point. I brought a group of youth from my church and let me tell you, I am quite the lucky guy. I know I might be "getting old" as my wife likes to remind me, but the youth from my church are sooo different from those from the rest of Florida, Georgia, and Alabama.... apparently. I am almost positive that any employee of Universal Studios that was not a Christian, will definitely not be converting any time soon. I was rather appalled at the behavior of these "Christian" youth groups. From cursing, to making out, girls wearing little to no clothing, destruction of Universal property, trying to sneak into the staff areas; these are only the things I saw while waiting in line for the first ride. It made me sad to realize that I was getting angry at these youth, how much harder was it for the Universal employees who had to put up with us "Christians." Then there were the concerts.
While the bands were great and definitely had their focus right, the audience was not as forgiving. There were rain delays and so it got to be quite unruly down in the front. Myself and one of the guys in my youth group stood for over 4 hours so that we could be in the front for Reliant K. Granted, there were bands that we listened to that filled the four hours, but there were also a lot of sound checks that had been delayed due to weather. Well, after all this waiting, we were "blessed" to have a 14 year old singer in the slot before Reliant K. I will give the kid credit for being brave, but a crowd waiting for Reliant K was hardly ready to listen to a squeeky-voiced young man that couldn't play an instrument... although he did play the whistle on one song. After he began the crowd just died, everyone had blank dumb expressions on their face, like this was some kind of joke. Eventually, this "Christian" crowd just started chanting for Reliant K while this young man was performing. It was really awkard and I felt awful for the kid. I mean, he probably didn't ask for that time slot, and he was trying, it just wasn't his day. BUT... Reliant K was awesome. There was only one problem: Dehydration. Yep, some of us less intelligent type forgot to bring a bottle of water 4 hours before the concert started and to get water meant losing our spot, so Jared and I endured. Well, after Jared had to sit several times and I stopped sweating, I decided it was time to rehydrate. I only missed the last 3 songs of the concert, but it was frustrating to have waited that long and realize that I would rather walk away and miss some songs than to be carried out. Needless to say, I learned an important lesson about concerts and the value of water. I need to bring a camelbak next time and I would be covered. So that was our adventure at Rock the Universe...maybe next year it will be different.
