The Dove Awards...Or, I'm Glad My Butt's Good for Something.

May 4, 2007 - Friday
Current mood: pleased

I'm glad my butt is good for something...

GMA Music Week, or Gospel Music Association Music Week (its ridiculously absurd formal name) is a convention of sorts held in downtown Nashville during mid-April. The week is a gathering of all the names in Gospel music: artists, radio personalities, producers, Christian retailers, managers, record label executives and groupies come together to learn, to celebrate, to get attention, to "network" (whatever that means), and to commemorate the common bond that brings them all together: music. The week culminates with the Christian music equivalent of the Grammy's. The GMA Dove Awards.

I had heard of this wondrous event in my previous career as a Christian music buyer in Illinois, but I had only ever dreamed of being able to partake in the glory of it all. Until one fateful day in February, I logged onto the Gospel Music Association's website to find that they were looking for volunteers for GMA Week 2007 and also for the GMA Dove Awards. I filled out my volunteer applications for both events, faxed them in to their respective overseers, and eagerly waited by my computer for their response. Phew, fortunately I made both cuts and registered as a volunteer for both GMA Music Week (again Gospel Music Association Music Week) and the 38th Annual GMA Dove Awards.

I'll bypass the GMA Music Week stuff because it was rather boring and mundane compared to the rest of this story.

As a seat-filler, a person is actually required to stand at the back of the auditorium along the wall in a line, similar to the water fountain line in grade school. You wait in this line, until someone from the production team comes and asks you to follow them. The production person then points you to a seat and you literally fill the seat, until the person comes back. The person you are filling a seat for may be accepting an award, presenting an award, performing, or they may simply be visiting the ladies' room or the concession stand. When the person returns to his or her seat you get up and walk back to the back of the line to begin the whole process again. Not as glamorous or fun as I had anticipated.

The seat-fillers were told to arrive no later than 4:00 pm for the Dove Awards. We were instructed to wear dark, solid colors and clothing ranging in formality from "church" to "prom". That's a pretty big gap, if you ask me. I chose a lovely little black number which I purchased for only $24.99 from the fabulous discount boutique known as Target. I paired it with a bright red camisole (only slightly bending the rules), black heels, a huge gaudy red plastic bracelet , red earrings, a black necklace, the dramatic makeup of a showgirl or Tammy Faye Bakker, and my hair loosely up in some sort of twisted pattern, affixed just so with a conglomeration of bobby pins and hair spray. If you, my reader, will kindly indulge me for a brief moment of vanity…I looked p.d. good*. I approached the front doors of the Opry House at the Opryland convention center and showed my ID, just as we were instructed. Now, I know I have lived in Tennessee for over eight months now, but I still have not made my way to the Tennessee Department of Motor Vehicles to obtain a new Driver's License and/or tags for my car. But as I handed my driver's license over to the kid who was checking ID's, he said, in his best valley girl voice, "Oh. I am like so glad to finally see someone from Illinois. Decatur is so………(long pause)………isolated." What? What is that supposed to mean? Decatur happens to have many surrounding towns and even a couple major cities within a two-hour radius. It is my estimation that the ID kid did not understand the meaning of the word "isolated". But I didn't have time for a grammar lesson, I had an important role to fill at the 38th Annual GMA Dove Awards…so I shrugged him off and walked inside.

The seat-fillers were all told to fill a section of the upper balcony of the auditorium and to await further instruction. After sitting there for approximately one hour and fifteen minutes, we were told to leave our seats in the upper balcony and head down to the lobby for snacks or whatever we needed, to take our purses, jackets, etc. back to our cars so we didn't have to fight with them all evening, and to reconvene in the lobby at 6:45. At 6:45, I promptly reunited with my group (after having met a very creepy young man who was freely giving out high fives for no apparent reason and preferred lingering, piercing stares to the more traditional, and more widely accepted occasional break from eye contact in conversation). My group consisted of a friend from church, my roommate, three of her friends from college and myself. So there were six of us in all. We continued to stand in the lobby for the better part of an hour until we were finally told to reclaim our seats in the upper balcony until someone from production would come and collect us, small groups at a time, to perform our duties of filling seats. The Awards show began taping at 8:00, and immediately four members of my group were whisked away to fill the seats of the greatest heroes of Christian music the world has ever known. My friend Jennifer and I were still stuck in the balcony, watching the performance on a screen.

Probably half an hour had passed when a production team member (who happened to be the ID kid from earlier who told me my home town was "isolated") asked us to follow him. We were instructed to walk over and stand outside of the huge double doors and to wait for someone to retrieve us.

Twenty minutes passed and nobody came, so my friend Jennifer and I, in our rebellious spirits, decided to head back up to the balcony where we could at least see the show, rather than standing outside the doors.

As we sustained our former positions in the balcony, we were rejoined by my roommate Katie and her friend Claire. Just when we had all gotten settled, the ID kid came back and, once again, asked us to go to the lobby and await further instruction. We walked inside and stood along the wall with all of the other seat-fillers. One by one, each seat filler was escorted to a seat in need of filling, and finally, after about 25 minutes of waiting (standing in stilettos), it was finally our turn. Claire was taken away to fill a seat, and Katie would be next, followed by myself and then Jennifer. Jennifer and I had resolved that if we hadn't been placed in seats by the next commercial break, we were going to sneak back up to the upper balcony, but sit in a different location so the ID kid couldn't find us.

Just as we had made our decision, the producer came up to us and said she needed three people. Katie, Myself and Jennifer followed her, like baby ducklings following their mother across a busy street. We were walking through the auditorium, with all the bright lights, cameras rolling, the show in progress. Katie was placed in a seat near the back on the aisle, and Jennifer was taken by another producer to the opposite side of the auditorium. I was still following the original producer….through the middle of the auditorium…..in the midst of filming the show, when she turned and said to me, "I'm sorry. We don't have a spot for you after all. I'm really sorry." She then instructed me to remain right where I was and not to move, that she would be right back. So there I was, standing in the middle of the aisle, I felt like all the lights in the room were shining on me as I waited for an eternity for her to come back. I was blocking people behind me. I stood there, rocked back and forth on my heels a little, pursed my lips, looked to my left, looked to my right, continued holding my purse in front of me (once again feeling rebellious, I had refused to return it to my car…it was only a little clutch. It wasn't going to ruin the Dove Awards).

Finally, my agony came to an end when the producer returned and said, "Ok. We had a seat open up in the front row. So can you just go down there and sit for a minute?" She must have understood my "Woman, you have GOT to be crazy if you think I'm about to walk down to the front row of this thing all by myself and start looking for a vacant seat when I have no idea where it is" look because then she grabbed my arm and said, "Come on. I'll show you where it is."

As I took my seat, I noticed to my left, a VERY handsome young man. I recognized him, but I couldn't quite figure out who he was. He gently leaned over and quietly said, "Hey. How are you?" "I'm fine," I coolly and eloquently replied, "How are you?"

And before he had the chance to respond, a tall, beautiful Brazilian woman was standing in front of me and the handsome man said, "Oh. Here she is."

"Great," I thought to myself, "My seat-filling experience lasted a grand total of three seconds." And as I began to stand up and walk away, the Brazilian woman said to me, "Oh. That's okay. We make room for you."

Now, I know that my responsibility as a seat-filler was to fill the empty seats as their normal fillers vacated them. I understand that was the premise of my receiving complimentary admittance to the Awards ceremony.

BUT I WAS SITTING ON THE STINKING FRONT ROW AND THEY HAD PLENTY OF ROOM FOR ME AND SHE OFFERED!

So I thought about it for a second, and sat back down in my spot. I figured the Brazilian woman was with the couple sitting to my right, and perhaps I could continue my conversation with Mr. Incredible to my left.

A couple minutes passed, and the Brazilian woman retrieved a half-eaten Milky Way Candy Bar from her purse. She reached over me and tapped the gorgeous man on his arm, "Here. Are you hungry?" She said.

"Yeah. Thanks. I was wondering if you went out there and got something to eat." He reached over me and grabbed the candy bar from her.

"Well, they didn't have much out there. So I went to the ladies' room and then bought this." She said.

"Yeah. They never have very much good food at these things," was his reply.
It was then that I determined I had just invaded this happy couple's date. Had I been on top of my game that night, I would have turned to him and said, "Excuse me, why don't we switch spots?" thus enabling him to sit next to his beautiful Brazilian date, while also allowing me to continue in our deep and meaningful conversation which had so far consisted of "How are you?"

But instead, I turned to the Brazilian girl and told her that we should switch spots. ARGH. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say. And I knew I would still enjoy my front-row seat at the 38th Annual GMA Dove Awards. I looked around to take in the whole experience.

Sitting on the same bench with me was Watermark, also known as the dynamic duo of Nathan and Christy Nockels, who recently announced that they are leaving the music business in order to focus more on raising their family. Ahead of me and to my left were Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife. Directly behind them were Jeremy Camp and his wife Adie, followed by Aaron Shust and his wife and Mark Schultz and his wife. Behind them was Third Day in its entirety and a little further back were David Crowder and his wife. Surprisingly, his wife does not have hair that stands straight up, nor does she sport a long goatee. Directly behind me was Natalie Grant's entourage, followed by Nichole Nordeman. And behind me to my right was the band Leeland. I had faired pretty well at my first venture as a seat-filler at the Doves.

There was about an hour and a half left of taping, so I got comfortable and proceeded to listen in on the conversation of the couple sitting next to me. Please allow me to give you a mental picture of what was unfolding before my eyes. The man I had been talking to earlier was wearing faded jeans, brown shoes, a patterned button-down shirt and a vintage semi-fitted jacket. He had an unshaven face and blonde, spiky hair, and he was probably about 5'10 or 5'11…average height…not that I really noticed him or anything. The Brazilian woman was approximately 6 feet tall. She was beautiful. She looked as if she could have hailed from an Asian country, although she had very light blue eyes. She was wearing the latest trend in lipstick…bright red (I'm not planning to fall into that trend anytime soon). She was wearing a raisin colored ball gown (not prom dress, mind you….but a full-on ball gown), with a gold shawl. She had on leopard print lacy shoes and a small tiara. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail with a faded black scrunchie…I suppose she didn't want to go overboard with the hair as she was wearing such a fancy dress. And I'm not blaming her for overdressing. She probably had no idea what to wear…..and I am convinced that she was a mail-order date.

We've all heard of a mail-order bride. A middle-aged man becomes tired of the single life, but can't seem to find someone he loves in his own culture, so he calls the Philippines or Nicaragua and orders up a woman who will be subservient, quiet, demure, beautiful, and desiring of him. She won't talk back because she won't be able to speak his language, and she will treat him like a king because she is so grateful to have come out of poverty in her home country and to live in the land of opportunity in the United States. It is a truly barbaric and racist process, if you ask me…but that soapbox is for a different time and place.

I am being slightly facetious here. I don't really believe this Brazilian woman was a mail-order date…but I do believe that this handsome young man, who had previously engaged me in such a meaningful and deep conversation (remember, "hey. How are you?"), I believe that he had not ever met this woman prior to the Dove Awards. Perhaps a mutual friend set them up. Perhaps he called an escort service. Perhaps he found her at the mall working at the Gap and asked her to join him. Whatever the case….I'm certain he had never spent time with her before that fateful night.

Now I have already explained to you her attire for the evening….a little much. And her look, paired with her behavior was enough to make me sympathize for this kind, gentle young Casanova to my left. This woman repeatedly pulled her tiny pink Sony Cybershot camera from her little purse (I'm surprised she was not carrying a Hello Kitty or Bratz purse). She took pictures of everything. She snapped people in the audience, performers, presenters, award winners…there is no possible way she knew who most of these people were…but still, she snapped pictures of them. The Dove Awards are a big event in Christian music.

As with any Awards show, audience members are asked not to use cameras or cell phones of any kind. Particularly if you are sitting in the front row of the freaking auditorium.

As if the pink camera were not enough, the woman also uttered phrases such as, "Oh. That's so cool." Or "Awesome" to everything that took place.

And then Bob and Larry came out. You know, the tomato and the cucumber (respectively) from Big Idea's VeggieTales. This woman went nuts. There was clapping, jumping in her seat, incessant laughter, pink cameras lighting flashes into the atmosphere and exclamations of awe and wonder. I was surprised every eye in the auditorium didn't turn to watch the outburst that was occurring next to me. I guess she must be a huge VeggieTale fan.

I was severely annoyed, and I was certain that my handsome friend on the other side of her was grateful during that brief moment I had sat down next to him. He probably enjoyed conversing with someone who was a little more…how shall I say….down to earth.

The remainder of the evening included more picture taking, more amazement, more "that's so cool," and even the periodical checking of the email via her sidekick phone.

I was entertained by her, and very grateful that she had provided me with a place to sit for the rest of the evening….but I'm positive this handsome man could have found someone else to go with.

Incidentally, you may see me on TV when the show is televised. I know the camera was pointing in my direction when Aaron Shust accepted his award for song of the year, and also when Chris Tomlin accepted his award for Artist of the Year.

Check here for when the Doves will be showing in your area:
http://www.gmamusicawards.com/pdf/38th_DoveAwards_SyndList.pdf

Despite the distraction sitting to my immediate left, I still managed to ascertain a few important lessons from the 38th Annual GMA Dove Awards:
Chris Tomlin is the new Steven Curtis Chapman in that he will win in EVERY category for which he is nominated.
Aaron Shust is the new Chris Tomlin in that he will win in every category for which he is nominated except when he's up against the real Chris Tomlin.
The Gospel Music Association uses the term "Of the Year" very loosely:
Aaron Shust won for New Artist of the Year…his album was released in August of 2005.
Natalie Grant won for Female Vocalist of the Year…her album came out in early 2005.
Chris Tomlin's "Holy is the Lord" took home a Dove for Worship Song of the Year…this song was released on Tomlin's Arriving project, which streeted in 2004! Chris has since released a plethora of singles and a new full-length album.
The Gospel Music Association members who select the winners are rather stale. They are not wiling or able to expand their horizons and select winners who are making ripples in the industry. There is no room for innovation (i.e. Leeland and Mat Kearney).
Regardless of my discrepancies with the Gospel Music Association, I still had an amazing time. Hopefully one year I'll be able to attend as an artist manager or something equally as involved.

*p.d. good – Pretty Darn Good, for those who are not up to speed with the teenage slang language of our day.
Currently listening : Sound of Melodies By Leeland Release date: 15 August, 2006