I didn't really expect to be mogging about these subjects, religious music festivals and kids concerts but I guess these things happen when you get to 35...I escorted my wife and daughter mainly out of duty to the New Wine Christian festival in Shepton Mallet and apart from attending the odd seminar on green issues my experience was mainly as a by-stander, chef, and baby-sitter. It was just like Glastonbury from the mud, toilets and facilities point of view though. However I decided it was time to take the plunge on the penultimate day and go and see what the evening worship was all about. Well it started with over 5000 people in a huge tent, a huge band and a buzzing atmosphere. I slipped into an anonymous corner of the crowd and started to observe.The band are a collection of amateur musicians who play in local churches every week. They were surprisingly tight and accomplished and the sound-men had done a great job making a clear bright sound in the packed tent. There were two keyboards, a guitarist (Greg Farmer), a drummer (the only professional on stage who I recognised from a Great Big God DVD), two backing singers (Mum's from church), and the lead singer/worship leader (Ed Pask) - basically a glorified covers band. The sound was given an extra lift by a small mixed gospel choir from the Ealing Christian Center (at the end of my road back home).I'm not sure if it was the sound of the choir, the atmosphere, or my expectations but it was incredibly moving; the people around me singing their hearts out, the gospel choir floating ethereally in the mix but when they launched into Matt Redman's Blessed Be Your Name it just tore me apart and I was reduced to floods of tears.Fortunately, I was well out of the way and managed to recover by the end of the song. I knew some of his material from my sporadic attendance of our local church and because my wife sometimes made me listen to them in the car (and Matt Redman is probably one of the best songwriters of his genre).The sound was still ebbing away from Blessed Be Your Name and then I was hit again by the swirling, almost sinister intro to Facedown - another Matt Redman track (which I think Ed performs better than the original it's much more edgy). I'm sure I must have disturbed the neighbours in my row as I bent down and clasped my head in my hands as Ed sung the first few lines - I felt like the music had torn everything out of me, I was open, empty and I guess expecting a hand on my shoulder at any second (it didn't of course). Of course I tried praying but after a while and after the hand didn't appear I kind of just got on with it.No live music experience had ever moved me so much and I breathed a sigh of relief as I managed to pull it together, and the band moved on to a rousing gospel version of Tim Hugh's Here I Am to Worship. They'd done a fantastic job.So the (rhetorical) question is... was it the atmosphere and quality of the music + something psychological inside me, or was I touched by God... Has anyone else ever experienced this kind of thing from non-religious music?