Lancaster show review, photos and videos

So at the last minute I decided to go to Lancaster to see the show (Steinman Hall at the Ware Center). Karen's voice has strengthened since the last tour. After having an illness which affected her voice, it would seem that it's better than ever. Hopefully there will be some longer shows later this spring to announce. From what I understand, the seating capacity of 350 had filled up and some people had to wait outside until seats were made available.

Here was the setlist:

Brotherhood of Man
God Is Love
Tom on the Boulevard
Happy Birthday
Delware (Don Peris/Mike Bitts)
North American Field Song
Lakes of Canada
Beautiful Change

For the encore:

500 Miles
Bright As Yellow.

After the show, I met up with Don and Karen and there may be news to come regarding the demos from 1988-1996. Don shared this photo on Facebook with the caption: "Phase 1 of organizing and archiving. Cassettes! DATs are next."

He did not say for sure that the demos would be officially released, but he didn't give me a flat out no. So, fingers crossed, better quality versions of these may be in our future.

Photos from the show can be found here:

Here is a video of the entire show courtesy of Ray Reiff:

And here are scans from the festival magazine:

WXPN "Key Studio Sessions" performance

The Innocence Mission traveled to WXPN recently to record a handful of songs live for The Key Studio Sessions all of which are available for download and streaming at SoundCloud.

Check out the story at WXPN here. (There's also a link to the recordings on their page)
or check out the 4 recordings directly at SoundCloud here or listen below.

Songs recorded include, "Tom On The Boulevard," "Blue And Yellow," "Brotherhood Of Man" and "When The One - Flowered Suitcase."

Surprise performance sighting

On November 22nd, Karen and Don Peris performed during the encore of the Ocean Blue's show at the Chameleon Club in Lancaster, PA. The song performed was a cover of "I'll Be Your Mirror" by The Velvet Underground. You can see the clip below.

Here are several Instagram photos from the performance.

#TheOceanBlue AND #TheInnocenceMission -- this is what Heaven will be like

A photo posted by Ned Bustard (@nedbustard) on Nov 22, 2015 at 7:44pm PST

#theoceanblue #chameleonclub #bestbandsever #theinnocencemission #love #sublime #hersheypa #thisreallyhappened #livemusicisbetter

A photo posted by @glamourandgrace15 on Nov 23, 2015 at 5:51pm PST

Amazing end to the #sirerecords vinyl shows last eve in Lancaster! Thanks Don and Karen of @theinnocencemission !

A photo posted by THE OCEAN BLUE (@theeoceanblue) on Nov 23, 2015 at 5:08pm PST

Source : Marlon Hart, Facebook

Super Genius photos added to the gallery

Tim Kwiat's old Super Genius web page has vanished from the internet, along with all of the photos. You can see them again in our Super Genius gallery.

For those that may not be familiar with Super Genius, it's a project that formed in the early 90's with Innocence Mission band members, Steve Brown and Mike Bitts with guitarist and singer Tim Kwiat. Their album, Painting In the Rain, was released in 1995.

Harvest Rock Syndicate article

Another rare photo of the band has turned up in the Harvest Rock Syndicate.

The article itself is more centered around Karen's personality and songwriting than any of the other band members, but it's an interesting read.

Notebored Nov/Dec1989 Article

I peruse Ebay every now and then for items that may be of interest to fans like myself. This week has turned up several new items that hadn't been widely seen. Today turned up a rare live photo of Karen Peris from Christian music magazine Notebored.

Their Nov/Dec 1980 issue featured an article with two photos. A debut album promo shoot photo was used along side the photo shown above.

Once the magazine arrives, I'll see if there are any interesting highlights worth posting as well as do a proper scan of the photo (the above picture is a photo of the photo) and update this news item.

"Wonder of Birds" photo shoot

I've been holding onto this story for several months, but it would seem now is good a time as any to highlight two unpublished photos that have turned up on the net.

During the making of the "Wonder of Birds" music video, Valerie Gates (Gates Studios) took photos for A&M Records. Many professional and personal photos were taken of the band during this time, and Valerie's husband, who worked for A&M Records at the time, become friends with both Karen and Don.

You can visit her two web sites to view the images in their entirety. One image is hosted at Gates Studios, and the other is hosted at her site at Behance Network.

Source: Valerie Gates, Gates Studio.

Mike Bitts and Hunter Johnson with Hiram Ring

Mike Bitts and Hunter Johnson performed with Lancaster resident Hiram Ring yesterday evening. Unfortunately, I just received this information early this morning. Unfortunately, this was a one-time performance with Mike and Hunter.

Hiram and Mike met at a local open mic in Lancaster, and Mike played upright bass on two of the songs from his new album, "One Girl for Me" and the title track "Breathe Deep". These two songs were recorded live with Sam Frantz engineering - other musicians on those two recordings are Aaron Walker (drums) and Matthew Monticchio (piano), as well as other local musicians and friends.

When Hiram was putting together a group for his CD-release, Mike was available, and since Aaron Walker was not, he suggested Hunter Johnson. So the three and Matthew Monticchio became the core musicians for the CD release. For those who may not be familiar with Hunter Johnson, he performed drums with Don Peris and Mike Bitts on Don's 2006 mini-tour.

Below is a video from the CD release party. The song is called "Eternity".

Hiram Ring: Eternity from Timothy Rezendes on Vimeo.

Source: Heather & Hiram Ring

1991 Max's on Broadway Photo Set

Thanks to a new printer that scans negatives, I've updated the images previously uploaded to the photos section (backstage) for the 9/12/91 Max's on Broadway show in Baltimore, MD. Want to submit an Innocence Mission photo? Send an email using the contact graphic to the left.

1986 Pennsylania Musician Magazine - Part 4

In the final part of our Musician Magazine feature, we reprint two live photos taken at the Metron in 1986.

1986 Pennsylania Musician Magazine - Part 3

In part three of our Musician Magazine feature, we reprint the second half of the article, Originality Isn't A Four Letter Word which was written by John Lewis in December of 1986.

One particularly interesting note from the article, the song "Giants" which had been included on pre-debut album setlist is actually, "Giants and Windmills". If anyone
runs across a recording of this song, please let us know.

Next week's final update will include several photos from the magazine. Below is the December issue cover.

Courtyard Café photo set

On February 16, 1996, Flickr member ¡Sam! snapped off 3 images from the Courtyard Café performance in Urbana, IL. Here are those photos:

Source: ¡Sam!

1986 Pennsylania Musician Magazine - Part 2

In part two of our Musician Magazine feature, we reprint the first half of the article, Originality Isn't A Four Letter Word which was written by John Lewis in December of 1986.

Next week, we'll feature part two of that article.

Also below is the same photo used on the Tending The Rose Garden EP minus the pink squiggly lines, but of course in black and white.

1986 Pennsylania Musician Magazine - Part 1

Over the next month, we'll be publishing several updates in regardings to a purchase I recently made of a 1986 issue of Pennsylvania Musician Magazine.

The first update includes a tour schedule advert using the same photography used on the Tending The Rose Garden album cover.

Visit the Photos gallery for the full size version.

Lancaster in 2007

Here's my own personal music video for "Spinning" which was filmed entirely in Lancaster this past weekend. Available via Vimeo...

I'm back from my first real trip to Lancaster, PA - home of The Innocence Mission. I had a blast. My wife and I saw "the Police" perform in Hershey (waited an hour and a half to get out of the parking lot jam). I thought it was an amazing show. We also visited Hershey Park (which I highly recommend) and took in the Lancaster countryside. Be sure to stay away from Rt. 30 East on a summer weekend as it's traffic jam central. The commercialism over the Amish isn't necessarily a suprise, but it's a bit more overwhelming than I expected. It's a bit distressing actually.

Did you know that Lancaster also has a baseball team? The Barnstormers of the independent Atlantic League got slaughtered last night, but they kept it close most of the game despite the one bad inning. I learned that Virginians like myself are a bit more vocal for the hometeam than the typical Lancaster folk.

We also took in a visit to Lily's on Main to experience the reason why Steve Brown left the band. Let me tell you, Steve is just as good as a chef and owner than he is a drummer, and that's not a knock on his drumming either. He runs a fantastic restaurant and it's well worth the 20-30 minute drive from Lancaster.

If there's good news to report, it's that despite Steve's extremely busy schedule..he's willing to perform with the band on a future album. That bit of information made the trip all the more exciting.

2003 Chameleon Club photo set #6

Once again thanks to Bob Rousseau, Here is the set 6 of 7 of the new photos from the Lancaster 2003 Chamelon Club performance. Unfortunately these last few sets didn't come out as well as the earlier sets:

2003 Chameleon Club photo set #5

Once again thanks to Bob Rousseau, Here is the 5th set of 7 new photos from the Lancaster 2003 Chamelon Club performance. Unfortunately these last few sets didn't come out as well as the earlier sets: