So now, the truth can be told: blue sky nine has left the stage… for the last time.

Laura, our vocalist extraordinaire, is getting married and moving on in a new direction with her life, and we couldn’t be happier for her. For the rest of us, it just seemed like a good time to move on and work on new projects. For example, Ethan and Scott will tour India this fall with a new band called the gap theory – click the link to follow us on Twitter.

But that brings blue sky nine, pretty much, to the end of the road.

We’ve had a great run these last 7 years. I’ve lost count of how many gigs we’ve done; hundreds upon hundreds. Air and road miles? Tens of thousands over again. We’ve been in hundreds of campuses and military bases and clubs and concert halls and prisons and we’ve gotten to tour 6 or 7 different countries in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

In every show along the way, we got to connect with people and take a few steps along with them on their spiritual journeys. And more often than not, those steps were filled with laughter, clapping, singing or dancing. Not a bad thought at all.

Ethan, Dan and I (Scott) were reflecting back about these last few years and about our ceremonious ‘last show’. It’s pretty gratifying – if you saw us play (whether we were playing our own songs or borrowing the material from someone else), you definitely knew you’d just heard blue sky nine. And now that we’re done, that’s a wonderful thing – lots of bands never evolve to a point that they have a sound they can uniquely call their own.

We’re blessed to have gotten to do that, and we’re blessed that you were part of it with us. So, one final time, a heartfelt ‘thanks’ to anyone who laughed, clapped, sang or danced along their spiritual journey with us. We’re praying that you continue to walk that path. To borrow a phrase from the Apostle Paul, we thank God upon every remembrance of you.

- Scott,
for the members of blue sky nine.

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Was it something we said?

March 22, 2011

These last few weeks, we played shows in an inner-city outreach to homeless people, a show for a residential at-risk youth facility, and a few prisons. At many such shows, we’re able to openly share what we believe about our faith, and about 50 or so people in those shows indicated the desire to grow more in their knowledge of God and spiritual things, which we think is great. We LOVE to see results like that. But…

Not every event results in such keen spiritual interest. And of course, we completely understand that not everyone agrees with us. Since we openly invite commentary, we often get it. Of course, we’d never publish any such feedback if it contained anyone’s personal information, but as you can see, this was submitted anonymously.

So, without further ado, here it is – the strangest comment card we’ve ever received. The transcript is below:

“You believe in what you do not see. What is nothing more than a child’s story. Yet, you do not believe in the man next to you. You show no compassion and you shun and condemn him without understanding his side. You place yourself as righteous because you believe a big blue sky will cover all your dirty little secrets and all is forgiven. I don’t forgive you. In fact, I believe you should pay for your sins as I pay for mine. No one can protect you from me. And I promise that I will come for you. You will pay one way or the other.

I am an extension of your greed, pain, hatred, lust, soul. I am DEATH and your time… is almost up.

Enjoy what I have allowed for you to enjoy. It won’t be long now.”

Can’t please everyone, I guess.

Honestly, I’d have really liked to have talked to this person. I’d have liked to have given them opportunity to feel like they were heard. Something tells me that may not always feel that way.

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Just got out of prison…

February 17, 2011

We just got back from our first tour of the year, doing a bunch of shows in prisons in Florida – here’s an update. blue sky nine February 2011 tour update Author: blueskynine Provided by YouTube We’re home for a bit, but we’ll be back out on the road in March!

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So, it’s 2011…

January 18, 2011

… and it’s been a while since we checked in. After winding down the 2010 touring with our trip to Romania, and after ducking into the studios to record ‘Macho Grande’, we finally took a bit of a break. Dan and Laura were in Arizona (seperately) visiting friends and family. Adam and Lindsay got married [...]

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‘Macho Grande’, and our year-in-review…

November 24, 2010

So, here’s a quick ‘year-in-review’ video with our new instrumental, ‘Macho Grande’. We’ve been doing this song on tour, and we now that we’re home, we ducked into a studio at Ball State University to record it. Thanks TONS to Keynote Summer Project veterans Trevor Junga and Nathan Shew, who helped out immensely with the [...]

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Romanian tour wrap-up

October 28, 2010

We’re back from Romania, and that wraps the touring year for us. Maybe at some point I’ll get some stats for the entire 2010 tour, but for the Romania tour, here’s what we did: – Played 11 shows (plus one ‘unplugged’ session for college students) – Saw 8 cities – Drove over 1200 road miles [...]

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The Romanian tour

October 18, 2010

So, we’re past the halfway point of the Romanian tour. The people here have been extremely gracious and accomodating, and this is simply a beautiful country. And yeah… Dracula’s from here too, but he wasn’t a vampire. That whole thing is Bram Stoker’s fault. We’ve played in Bucharest, Brasov, Bacau, Iasi, Suceava, and just finished [...]

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not to toot our own horn, but…

October 1, 2010

we’ve been getting some press lately. The Westfield Current, the local newspaper for the town where we’re based outside of Indianapolis, ran a cover story about us. That’s the cover (click to enlarge it); here’s a link to a PDF file of the article: Westfield Current Article Also, last month, a magazine called ‘Worldwide Challenge’ [...]

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Mid-tour update and Romanian tour details

September 26, 2010

Right now we’re on I-70 coming home from doing some shows in prisons in Kansas – tons of love to chaplains Bailey, Harris and Drake for getting us in… and out. Also, to all of our friends on the inside at Ellsworth Correctional (Cedric, Randall, Scott, Allen, Tyler, Randy, Joseph, and others), thanks! You’re free [...]

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getting our kicks on route 66

September 16, 2010

We just got back home from 3 weeks on tour out west. We played a big back-to-school BBQ at Iowa State; we played a bunch of colleges in Colorado and Arizona, and played as part of an outreach at a women’s homeless shelter in Phoenix. Making homeless women laugh, smile, dance and sing is always [...]

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