Editorial

Steve Cole

It’s great to have you on board, especially if it’s your first experience of the Artisan publication. This edition focuses on the issue of touring and being away from home.

Over the past few years I have clocked up over 70,000 miles and stayed in enough hotel rooms to be able to write a travel guide. I am usually away for four or five days at a time and I am fortunate in that I rarely travel alone.

In the film ‘Lost in Translation’ the writer and director Sofia Coppola brilliantly captured the reality of being away from home, being jetlagged and alone. I, like Bill Murray, find hotels and hotel rooms the most soulless and depressing places, where boredom and weariness make you potentially vulnerable (which is why I don’t travel alone). However, I am aware that for many of you your work gives you no choice of how long you are away for and that you also have to cope with the dynamics and pressures of this on your own.

I have spent time with musicians who have been on twelve-month world tours where they are the only Christian and so much time is spent within the pressures of a tour bus. I’ve also spent time with an actor who went straight from his honeymoon into playing the lead role in a four-month production, 200 miles away from home. The challenges spiritually, morally, mentally and physically are so extreme and also often misunderstood by people who are not involved in the industry so this issue of Artisan seeks to provide perspectives concerning “Home” and honest articles about being away. You are not alone!

On a different note - By the time you are reading this Live8 will have taken place and been broadcast to over two billion people, which makes it one of the largest and most significant music and arts gigs in history. Newspaper articles will also be reflecting on the G8summit in Scotland and hopefully reporting on the agreed measures to eradicate national debt and poverty in the world’s poorest countries. It is interesting to observe the rise of the Arts Media influencers in recent times who are, in the desire to see the history of poverty, driving the political agenda. Bono is one of these influencers and was recently described as the second most influential politician on the planet. I had the privilege of hanging out with Bono for two hours last night, which was great.

The frustrating thing was that 45,000 other people also joined me in Manchester as part of the UK leg of their Vertigo tour. I have never experienced a gig that leads you through so many diverse emotional experiences. When the famous anthem ‘Streets Have No Name’ guitar riff kicked in, the flags of the African nations rolled down the 100-foot screen and 45,000 people jumped up and down in unity. I  ooked at my mate Ed with tears in my eyes, a nonverbal acknowledgement that this moment will never be forgotten: The artist and creative in their element. Bono has set the benchmark along with Bob Geldof (another lead vocalist of a band), Richard Curtis (Working Title Films) and Chris Martin (lead singer of Coldplay). I am excited about the fusion and potential of bringing together economists and politicians with the artist/creative. It is interesting that Jeffery Sachs, leading economist and advisor to Kofi Annan, asked his student Bono to write the forward to his latest book “The End of Poverty” (which I recommend). It is also fascinating to see Tony Blair inviting Prophet Bob Geldof to Africa on governmental business with him, giving him the freedom and opportunities to speak with the kind of unction and passion that a politician can only dream of.

Chris Martin (Coldplay) went to Ghana in March with filmmaker Jeremy Higham (Artisaner) to film a documentary on the issue of fair tradeThis five-minute film is now shown before every Coldplay gig on their world tour. The biggest two bands on the planet, U2 and Coldplay, are touring with the same passionate Make Poverty History message as we speak. How great is this? We are involved in the most influential industries on the planet and together we pray that God will continue to use these industries and us to promote global awareness and justice with a heart passion to “do the right thing”. I pray that Live8 be the launch of more artist communicator revolutionaries who pick up the baton and build on this momentum.

To Chris and Bono. I want to encourage you and thank you for being the pioneers that you are. I pray that whilst both of you are on tour you would know the presence, power and protection of God Almighty and that you would remember that Grace is not just found in your home town!! This also goes for all of you who are away from home or on tour.

Wherever you are around the world, you are not alone. You are part of a growing network of thousands who are passionate about Jesus and involved at every level of these industries. There are so many things going on and God, in His way, is doing more than we will ever know or imagine. Stick in there and remain in Him (John 15). Also, know from the Bible that the God who made the heavens and the earth, the source of all creativity, is for us and not against us. He is with us always – including on the tour bus!

Love to all you revolutionaries around the world.

Steve Cole