Tenth Avenue North Returns To Boca Raton For Two Nights
By: Pedro Heizer
After the success of last year’s tour that came to Spanish River Church on November 16, local band, Tenth Avenue North is back and this time they are bringing friends.
With three different legs to the tour, “From Islands to Cathedrals” has had the likes of Matt Maher, Phil Wickam, Royal Taylor and KB as opening acts.
GRAMMY-nominated band, Royal Taylor, and Florida-native artist KB will also bring their talents to Boca Raton for a two-night show at Spanish River Church on Thursday, November 20, and Friday, November 21.
Royal Taylor released their self-titled sophomore album on October 22 and it’s an electrifying step forward for the GRAMMY-nominated band.
KB released his first full-length album in 2012, Weight and Glory, and has been touring around the world since the release of his debut album.
“The whole opening section of the night is going to be a party and a celebration it going to be a fun night. If you don’t like to have a good time and trying to be bored, just stay at home because it’s going to be very entertaining for sure.” Tenth Avenue North’s drummer Jason Jamison jokes.
For Tenth Avenue North, this is their second time returning to South Florida in as many years. “It’s a hometown show,” says Jamison. “If we were to ever claim a city or location in the tour as our hometown, it would have to be Boca Raton and South Florida.”
The band, which was formed in West Palm Beach while the members were students at Palm Beach Atlantic University, began their latest tour on October 3rd in Pennsylvania and will close out the 30-city tour on December 7th in Kentucky.
Before all the tours and worldwide fame, the group led worship at Christ Fellowship in West Palm Beach and also led worship in other churches in the area.
“I remember us going around to local churches in a Palm Beach Atlantic van that the school graciously lend to us,” remembers Jamison, who’s been a part of the band since its creation. “And now they are sponsoring our nationwide Tour, so that’s neat.”
“When you start a band, you never really expect it for the band to explode the way we did,” said guitarist Jeff Owen who has been with the band for seven years. “It’s a blessing to be able to do what we are doing right now.
“When I moved down to go to school at Palm Beach Atlantic I had a friend who said ‘Hey man, I have a friend who plays guitar, and since you play drums you two should get together and jam’,” recalls Jamison of his first encounter with Mike Donehey.
“When we started leading worship at camps and conferences around Florida, we never intended on making this a full-time job,” joked Jamison. “But we stayed busy and kept saying yes, and we kept getting more and more invitations and that’s when we realized, ‘wow we could do this full time.’”
In the span of their 14-year career, the band has released four albums, with the fourth being released November 10th.
The Dove Award-winning band’s fourth studio album, fittingly titled Cathedrals, is a collection of well-crafted songs that inspire community, encourage accountability and celebrate the fact we are not alone.
“So many of us live in isolation and we really don’t have to,” says Donehey. “So the idea is: ‘Hey get in the boat with us, sail by the stars of God’s promises and reach the shore of community.’ We realize that when we start to live together, we become the cathedrals on earth. We are the place where the sprit resides. It no longer dwells in buildings but in each of us.”
It seems only fitting that in making an album that celebrates community the members of Tenth Avenue North worked more closely together than ever as a tight-knit creative unit. “This is the first record that we actually wrote completely together as a band,” says Donehey. “We had outside writers on all the other albums and this is the first time we just did the whole thing together.”
The band began writing songs for the record when they were on the Winter Jam tour. “We knew going into that tour that we were going to have a lot of downtime and that we had a mission to write a record,” says Jamison. “So we locked ourselves away in dressing rooms, buses and hallways. If the sun was shining, we would go outside and we would just try to write as much as we could. That was our life for four or five months and we came out with about 20-25 songs.”
