Christian music rocks the desert

The desert was loud and rowdy Friday at the Rock the Desert grounds.

People from around the country came to the Christian music festival to rock out to Switchfoot, Stellar Kart, Disciple and many others.

“I’m here to see Toby Mac and Kutless because I like their songs a whole lot,” Odessan Parker Hinsley said.

“I’m here to see Stellar Kart, and I’m excited about Disciple,” concert-goer Maty Little, of Lubbock, said.

Mike Goeke with Rock the Desert media relations said final numbers aren’t in yet but RTD is expecting about 13,000 people. Advance ticket sales were up from last year and Goeke said all the area ticket outlets sold out of RTD tickets and had to be replenished.

“Usually people just trickle in on Friday, but we had a good crowd right from the start,” Goeke said.

Goeke said about 15 states were represented at last year’s concert and he expects it to be the same this year. Trailers lined the concert grounds from around Texas.

But there’s more to RTD than the music. There’s an array of fried foods and sweet drinks. Among the food offered was fried Snickers on a stick, fried Twinkies, turkey legs, funnel cakes, elephant ears, which is fried sweet bread covered in butter, sugar and honey and all the rest of the festival favorites. A popular drink was the Pineapple Pleasure which was a cored out pineapple filled with a slush drink.

Jeremy Stallings is the owner of The Pineapple Hut and he said he attends many events like RTD and serves up the drinks. He said he comes to RTD every year and he was impressed with the size of the crowd.

“I’ve never seen it this busy this early,” Stallings said.

In 2009, RTD partnered with Shoes for Orphan Souls, a humanitarian aid project of the Buckner Foundation based in Dallas. RTD encouraged people to bring shoes of all sizes to the concert to donate and they would be shipped overseas and hand delivered by a Souls volunteer. Volunteers at the concert spent time sorting shoes and preparing them for delivery.

“We’ll be playing with the children, washing their feet and putting new shoes on them,” Humanitarian Aid Manager Matt Asato said.

Asato and Souls Relationship Manager Jon Hogg said RTD is helping sponsor a community center in Honduras called the Las Brisas Community Center. Las Brisas is a needy and poverty-stricken community in the city of San Pedro Sula. The community center is a Buckner facility that strives to educate the children of Honduras and teach adults a trade to earn money and support their family. A team of volunteers with RTD have planned a trip to Honduras to deliver shoes and volunteer at the community center.

“We’re trying to expand the influence of West Texas beyond its borders,” Goeke said.