Dove Awards Update...

New Artist of the Year: Brandon Heath (beat Mandisa!)
Performance: Natalie Grant (duet w/ Wynnona)
Male Vocalist of the Year: Chris Tomlin (I think there were better singers in the category, but this award tends to be more of a "best Christian male solo artist" type of thing and Chris is definitely up there.)
Performance: Trinitee 5-7 (did a Zydeco thing. Kristen loved their dresses.)
Commercial: http://www.christianflowernetowork.com/ (Struck me as funny)
Female Vocalist Of the Year: Natalie Grant
Performance: Casting Crowns, "East To West."
Performance: Clark Sisters...absolutely amazing.
Group of the Year: Casting Crowns (I think there were better groups in the category...)
Performance: Compassionart - new songwriting/recording effort started by Martin Smith of Delirious. New song by MWS, Israel Houghton, Paul Baloche, Christy Nockels, SCC and Chris Tomlin. Song was good. (I didn't enjoy that much the first go around, but caught it on a re-run and gave it a better listen. I think the recorded version will probably be pretty good.)
Performance: David Crowder Band (Without a doubt, the most creative stage performance of the night. They did "Everything Glorious" and did some great stuff with the stage...check it out.)
Song of the Year: "East to West," Casting Crowns. (Disagree big time with this one...)
Performance: Switchfoot. (This was odd - I like Switchfoot, but Jon Foreman never sounds
quite as good live to me. Who does, though? He did this weird walking down the aisle on the first verse. Probably was cool in real life.)
Performance: Marvin Sapp. (O golly. This was amazing. This was church right there at the Dove Awards.)
Best Short Form Video: "Boomin," by TobyMac.
Career Award(?): They recognized Michael W. Smith. Amy Grant and MWS at the piano singing some. Then they brough Mandisa, Chris Sligh(sp?) and Phil Stacey(sp?) sang some songs. Mandisa is pure gold.
Artist of the Year: TobyMac. (His acceptance speech was really pretty cool.)
Southern Gospel Finale: Ricky Scaggs and The Whites; The Hoppers, Easters and New River; The Isaacs, Charlie Daniels and Mac Powell. I was raised listening to Southern Gospel and I won't lie - I loved this thing. (Excpet for Charlie Daniels and Mac Powell? What the heck? They're sharing the stage with Ricky Scaggs and the Isaacs? Mac Powell has always sounded like Travis Tritt to me, though. Maybe GMA felt the same way.)

Closing Thoughts: It's interesting to me that the most solid, pitch perfect, seemingly sincerest performances came from either Southern Gospel or Black Gospel groups. I'm not saying that CCM is insincere, but there was something different about the performance from these musical styles that seem to be more "fringe" and never played on Christian radio.

I enjoyed watching the show. Wasn't quite as exciting as I had hoped, but there were some pretty cool moments.

By the way, this guy and this gal were actually AT the Dove Awards and have some great perspectives.