10:23pm - Things are still buzzing a bit back here but it's beginning to wind down. I'm going to sign off, but thanks for reading along with our experience of the 39th GMA Dove Awards! We're heading to Rocketown in Nashville for the Rock'N'Relief event there... g'night everybody!
9:24pm - The credits are rolling! And so ends the 39th Dove Awards! Switchfoot just walked in the press room to talk to us.
9:07pm - Ah, show's back on -- Sandi Patty and Mark Lowry are at the mic. I guess the show's running a bit overtime (not a surprise considering the 5,000 artists who were billed to play tonight. Ah, they're presenting Artist of the Year. Good deal. And the winner is... TobyMac! That's a huge surprise but deserved! (duh, we're "Jesus Freak" Hideout). Chris Tomlin took it the past two years, but now it's Toby time. Congrats to him!
8:48pm - Short Form Video of the Year is up now. Kind of surprised it's being left for so late. But should be a good one. The Family Force 5 video is my pick, but I love the Switchfoot video for "Awakening" and even TobyMac's "Boomin"... but TFK's "Falls Apart" is just plain too creepy, ha! Winner is..... TobyMac! I'll take it. Definitely dig that song and, although I don't think it's the best video of the bunch, it's still a good one.
7:59pm - Having connection issues, so if I disappear - it's been fun! But Natalie's still back here. It's cool to hear her reflections on her career. The sound was off on the live performance, but it looks like they had a pretty big entourage of performers - from Michael W. Smith to Tomlin and Chapman - which marks the debut of the first Compassionart recording!
7:32pm - Female Vocalist of the Year?? Natalie Grant! Natalie looks quite surprised, but it's not the first time. This marks Natalie's third consecutive win! Wynonna offers a heartfelt "You go girl!" from the press room stage... Up next, Casting Crowns is performing.
7:18pm - Skillet is presenting along with Jolisa (spelling?) for Male Vocalist of the Year. Should be interesting. Here's hoping for Jon Foreman or Toby... but there's indeed stiff competition. And the Dove Award goes to... Chris Tomlin! Surprised?
7:05pm - Wish we had sound in here. Aaron Shust and Jeremy Camp are the first presenters, while Ricky Skaggs and friends are still back here in the press room. Apparently, Camp and Shust are presenting New Artist of the Year right off the bat... so it should be interesting to see who it is. And the winner? Suprisingly Brandon Heath!! I would have been unpleasantly not surprised if it was Rush Of Fools, but I'll take Brandon. Would have liked to see Group 1 Crew take it home though... Meanwhile, comedian Nazareth is now back here talking about his comedy.
6:49pm - Cindy Morgan is now back here. She won for country song and songwriter! Definitely huge. Cindy was just asked about her new indie record. She's got a digital record called Beautiful Bird dropping on May 20th.
6:42pm - T-Bone who won for rap song and Mark Stuart from AudioA just came back here... great to see Stuart again. Mark just announced that the Hands and Feet Project will be starting an orphanage in Nicaragua. Awesome. Definitely support these guys! www.handsandfeetproject.org. Stuart's voice sounds a lot better. Mark just said if his voice continues to improve, he and T-Bone just might collaborate sometime. That'd be pretty interesting to see happen.
6:28pm - Disciple is back here now. Awesome to hear they won for Rock Album with Scars Remain. Front man Kevin Young just shared his appreciation for classic Christian rock bands (like White Heart, Petra, Stryper) and that they're honored to win for it.
6:22pm - Looks like Cindy Morgan snagged a win! Nice to see some classic CCM talent still winning some awards. Ian Eskelin is back in the press room now. About time he won for producer. He just told us that he plans to work on the next All Star United album next month. ....Music to our ears! Eskelin was asked about encouragement for new artists and it was cool to hear him encourage to not be afraid to sing about Jesus.
6:15pm - Just asked G1C about their second record coming out this summer. They shared a bit about the project - titled Ordinary Dreamer, coming out July 22.
6:08pm - Producer of the Year is up and we finally get to hear it (if the audio sustains)... and IAN ESKELIN finally wins!! He's definitely earned it! Meanwhile, Group 1 Crew who won for Hip Hop album just came back here. Glad to see these guys get props in the industry.
6:01pm - Comedian/singer Mark Lowry's up talking to us, after winning for his hymns project. First time I'm hearing Mark in the flesh. Definitely a pleasure. Leeland is presenting at the show as he speaks.
5:52pm - Smitty is back now for winning for his Christmas project. Would love to have seen Jars of Clay be recognized for their Christmas Songs record, but Smitty's third effort was definitely a strong production nonetheless. On the show, Phil Wickham is performing right now.
5:47pm - Some VeggieTales folks are here now... Mike "Larry the Cucumber" Nawrocki and a producer who won for their Christian Hits project. Amy asked a question about their Christian Hits cover project... Hopefully we can get the snippet up here sometime. We definitely wish there were more Christian entertainment media like them. As a side note - we don't have sound back here, but Disciple just accepted an award. Glad to see the guys get recognized for something.
5:40pm - Newcomers Tenth Avenue North are in the press room now talking about their live performance and upcoming record... The group cited musical influences and dropped names like Jars and Justin McRoberts and Jon Foreman. Very cool.
5:33pm - SCC just joined Mac and Nasser and admitted he accepted a Dove Award he didn't win for the SCORE for the film Amazing Grace which he had nothing to do with. Just another reason to love Steven Curtis.
5:25pm - Mr. Mac Powell (of Third Day for the shameful few who don't know who that is) and author David Nasser just came in to talk about their project Glory Revealed. Skillet was in here for a crazy long time but it will most likely be a press room highlight for the night. On the prompter, we can see the pre-show continuing (we don't have sound), and PureNRG, The Rubyz, and Bible Man (?!) are presenting awards for the childrens categories (and it looks like VeggieTales won something) Mac and Nasser are still talking about Glory Revealed and have mentioned that a second Glory Revealed is coming.... hmm.
5:13pm - Skillet's back here answering questions in the press room and it's fantastic to see the band finally winning something after about 20 tries. The guys definitely have earned it!
5:03pm - Long Form video is up, being announced by singer Warren Barfield. You all know I would love to see Audio Adrenaline take this one home.... AND THEY DID! Woohoo! Definitely great to see the guys take something home for their final project. Sadly, the band wasn't here to accept it but someone from the label did. Oh, and for Hip-Hop Song, T-Bone won the popular vote for "Name-Droppin'." It's a cool song -- but would love to see John Reuben get recognized some time... oh well. Glory Revealed just won its second award for the project, this time winning for Collaboration. Definitely entertaining watching the presenters (which included Barfield) reading a ridiculous list of names for each project.
4:57pm - Reunion's newcomers Tenth Avenue North are performing right now live. It's a little strange to have a new act without a single record officially out yet to be performing for the Doves (especially when they won't be up for New Artist til NEXT year), but they fit fine with the radio pop friendly crowds. It'll be interesting to see where these guys go from here... Skillet won Rock Song with "Comatose" and John and Korie Cooper accepted the award. Absolutely ridiculously funny. Cooper jested about their losing streak at the Doves before pretending to accept a phone call during his acceptance speech and crying out "That was GOD and He wanted me to tell you to buy the Skillet record!!!" Fabulous. Comedian Nazareth is MCing tonight and doing a hit and miss job, but he's still knocked a few of the jokes out of the park.
HEY GUYS! - John here in Nashville, TN reporting live from the Dove Awards press room. The pre-show is going on right now since the awards are being shown live this year, they've split some nominations off into the pre-show and reserved the biggest categories for the actual show.
Being in the press room has its ups and downs - we won't get to hear the whole event as it happens because of the sound being dropped when a presenter or award winner comes in to speak to us and answer questions. But so far, we've heard the winners for Recorded Packaging, Rock Song of the Year, and Hip Hop Song. David Crowder snagged the Dove for Recorded Packaging with Remedy and with all the Tooth & Nail Record projects with wicked designs like Project 86's Rival Factions, Anberlin's Cities or even The Fold's Secrets Keep You Sick (among others), Remedy was not the best pick but probably just the popular pick. Would have loved to have seen Project 86 get that one. (And it's sad to think some day we probably won't even have that category with everything going digital, but that's a whole nother topic).