Tuesday, April 24, 2012

The Rise, Fall, and Return From Death of Five Iron Frenzy

Hello friends.  Mr. Jake here.

Everyone has THAT band.  That band who, no matter how much you have changed, will always be your favorite band.  You might not have listened to any of their albums in months (or maybe even years), but if you heard one of their songs playing you could sing every single word.  If someone even utters part of their name, you would freak out and start talking about them for hours on end.  They are that band who affected you so deeply they are more than simply a band to you.  They are more like a mentor - navigating you through the trials and pitfalls of life, giving you the exact advice and words of wisdom you need for the phase of life you are dealing with.  THAT band.

Five Iron Frenzy is that band to me.  They were the first outspokenly Christian band I really got in to.  I had never heard anyone sing about Jesus so passionately, or even talk about Jesus so passionately before.  It made me yearn for something like that.  I remember laying on the floor of my room while in high school, and listening to the song "Every New Day" by them.  After it was over and the last note rang out and slowly faded away, I continued to lay there and think about what it means to truly worship and love God.  That deep, spiritual, and life-changing moment quickly went away when "The Godzilla Song" started blaring through my speakers.

That's another thing I love about this band.  They can be so deep and passionate, but they can also be insane, off the wall, and goofy.  They don't take themselves so seriously they seem unattainable, or that their level of faith and devotion can't be reached by us "normal" people.  Plus, if you know me at all you know I have a slight crazy side, so I loved it when they would just be completely ridiculous.  Their live album is a great example of how nuts it can get.

I can sit here and talk about how much they mean to me all day, but I always regret never seeing them live.  They broke up during my senior year of high school, and I was pretty upset about it for a while.  I mourned the loss of FIF for quite some time.  Eight years later, they've returned from the dead, and now I'm going with one of my best friends who I went to high school with (and just as avid of a Five Iron Frenzy fan as me) to Colorado to see their reunion show.  I wouldn't want my first time seeing them to be any other way.  I just hope I get a chance at some point in my life to tell them what kind of impact they had on me.  I can't wait to see what God has in store for them next.  They are going to do some great things.

Now, I leave you with a video of "Every New Day" by Five Iron Frenzy.  The very last song they played live eight years ago.  God bless.


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