I Love Free Concerts

Especially when it's a free Andrew Peterson concert!!

One of the local churches hosted a free concert last night with one of my very favorite music artists. I don't listen to much music anymore, but if I had an iPod, this guy would be in it. Anyway, I have been planning for weeks to go to this concert, strategizing so we would get good seats and everything because I knew it would be packed. The plan was to leave really early, get a $5 pizza at Little Caesar's, and sit in front of the church until the doors opened so we could get the best seats. We had a little hang up with our plan... Our babysitter forgot. We called him Thursday night to make sure everything was good and he had forgotten. He had to work until 6:00, drive 20 minutes to our house, and then we had to drive 20 minutes back to town for the concert (doors opened at 6:30, it started at 7:00). I was absolutely panicking thinking that we weren't going to make it in time.

Somehow though, it all worked out. He was able to switch with someone else for closing duties, and get to our house in time for us to get there at 6:45. I'm glad we weren't any later!! It was packed already but we found two seats on the far side, in the middle of the auditorium. When it was done and we were leaving, we saw that there had been people sitting outside the auditorium! There were SO many people that they had to set up a dozen rows of chairs out there! So we were very blessed to get there when we did.

The concert was AMAZING!!! It was a one man show, just Andrew with his guitars, a piano and a mic. He sang all of the songs from his brand new album, plus a few old favorites. It was cool to hear all the stories behind the songs. Andrew is a very talented songwriter and each song touched the heart and moved the soul. My favorite was "Hosanna". He talked about how misused and misunderstood the word "Hosanna" is. It is not a name for God, and in the original usage, it was not a word of praise. It's meaning is "Save us" or "Save us now!" It became a word of praise because of the triumphal entry, but the people that day were crying out for salvation! There is so much wrapped up in that one word... a cry for salvation and praise because He has saved us!! Anyway, it was great. All the songs were great, the stories were great, yeah...

At the end of the concert, the crowd gave him such a rousing ovation that he came out and did an encore of 3 more songs! He was pretty funny. He said that he doesn't plan an encore and didn't know what to sing! Apparently, he's not used to playing for people who know who he is, so he usually just gets polite applause and that's about it. But our local Christian radio plays his songs, so he's very popular here, and the audience couldn't get enough. He said we were his favorite audience ever. LOL

I wish I could have bought a CD, or all of them... They had a great deal, 2 for $15, but we couldn't do it. So, if anyone needs birthday or Christmas ideas for me, go here and buy me an Andrew Peterson CD! I will listen to it over and over, I promise.

The best part of the night was getting to be alone with my hubby. It doesn't happen very often, and it was wonderful. He did enjoy the concert, even though music isn't really his thing. And afterward we got cappucino and cookies at the gas station, which is how this family started in the first place... cappucino late at night from Kwik Trip almost 13 years ago....