What an incredible show! Definitely my favorite concert ever. I'll get to the clinching reason...
Underestimating the time it would take to get to the show, I ended up being 25 minutes late because of INSANE traffic. I thought two hours would be enough to get there on time. I passed some of the time in the car by listening to Switchfoot, eating a hoagie, and by phone making two trades in my fantasy football league whose midnight trade deadline was looming. To my surprise, I did not miss all of Ruth's set. I could hear Dustin Ruth belting out the lyrics of "Work it Out" as I walked into the arena. They played a couple more, including "Here to New York", and sounded great.
Relient K started off strong with “I So Hate Consequences.” The crowd went nuts, as people were obviously excited to see them, not just Switchfoot. Is it just me, or is it really rare to see two bands of this caliber on the same tour, with both playing sets of substantial length? RK continued with “Devastation and Reform”, and “Be My Escape”, which got a loud reaction when they started playing it. Matt admitted that he had not been feeling well, but refused to take a sick day because he loved playing so much in Pennsylvania. He played a little ditty he wrote about the smash TV show “The Office”, which is of course based in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The band brought out Christmas/winter items such as snowmen, an igloo, penguin, etc, and rained fake snow on the mass of fans on the floor in front of the stage to promote their new Christmas album. They accompanied this display by playing “Sleighride.” They performed “In Love With the 80’s”, which is one of my favorite songs they do. Xylophones rock people. They also did their hit single “Must Have Done Something Right”, and “Forgiven”, both from their latest disc “Five Score and Seven Years Ago.” Matt brought up two audience members to play chords on “Sadie Hawkins Dance”, much to the delight of all in attendance. They ended with “Who I Am Hates Who I’ve Been” from the “MMHMM” album. I had never seen RK live before, and thought their set was awesome. I was hoping to hear “Plead the Fifth”, the harmony-infested intro track from the Five Score album. But hey, with so many great songs, they can’t play ‘em all right?
Switchfoot took the stage to thunderous applause and screams, and started off with “Oh! Gravity!” from their latest disc with the same title. Jon Foreman was sporting a black fadora, which looked pretty cool. They played their hit single “Stars” from the “Nothing Is Sound” disc, and “This Is Your Life” from “The Beautiful Letdown.” They also played "Dirty Second Hands", another one of my favorites from "Oh! Gravity!" The setlist also included “The Shadow Proves the Sunshine“, “Gone”, “We Are One”, and “American Dream”, during which the band froze for a long time to build up suspense before they jumped back into the song with fans cheering wildly. Jon did a lot of interacting with the fans at the edge of the stage and did some crowd surfing as well.
Ok, here’s my clinching highlight. At one point, Jon came off the stage, and walked over to the wall below my section which was near the stage to the right. Then he proceeded to scale the wall, climb over the railing and make his way straight at me! I was in the third row from the railing. He was helped past me to the next row where he grabbed a lucky fan’s camera and took some footage himself! Or should I say some “Switchfootage”!? My camera had since run out of battery power so I pulled out my cell phone and started snapping pictures of Jon, and took a couple videos! He then started going into the song “Awakening”, my favorite song off the “Oh Gravity!” disc! I’ve never had anything like this happen at any concert I’ve been to, and I couldn’t believe my luck this time! So for me, this event made the show not just awesome, but incredibly awesome! And I found out after the fact that one of my peeps, Kyal, was just a couple rows behind me and actually held Jon’s hand to support him for a good amount of time while he sang! So needless to say my section was rocking hard as Jon returned to the stage to rock out “Awakening.” Another friend of mine was also at the show at the foot of the stage to the left, and enjoyed having Jon hand over the mic stand, and surf around the area. The band finished with “Meant To Live”, but naturally came out for an encore. They brought out Relient K and Dustin Ruth to play their special song dedicated to Habitat For Humanity. It was very cool seeing all these guys onstage together. I also should say the light effects were great during the evening.
After the show I hung around for a bit and chatted with the guys from Ruth. They were great guys, and very humble. And with their talent I think their days as an opening act are probably numbered.
I also want to again applaud Jon Foreman for his crowd interaction, which makes the show more exciting for a lot of people. He doesn't have to climb all over the arena, crowd surf, and trust fans to keep him safe while he does it. Imagine the bummer if he got hurt somehow? But he chooses to go to lengths to engage the fans, and that kind of effort is one thing that I love about the band. I saw them in March at a smaller venue, where Jon walked out onto the bar to greet the fans. The band also made a bootleg available of the first six songs of the set for only 5 bucks, so you could have a cd of part of the show to listen to on the way home. Switchfoot truly reaches out to their fans.
Well, that was certainly a show for the ages! I’m thrilled to have been there! Pics are up! Thanks for reading!
