Front and Center with Third Day!

Here I am with Sandy, a new friend. Her kids got her tickets to a concert for Mother’s day. As she’s gotten to know me, she’s found a quiet, reserved girl who doesn’t know how to enjoy life. Which makes the perfect concert-going companion. 😉

When I arrived at her house, like the typical date, she wasn’t quite ready. We went to Subway for dinner and drove the back way to Rolling Hills, the venue where I last saw Anita Renfroe. (Incidentally, it’s also were I first saw Anita Renfroe.) The parking lot was packed, which upped our excitement, but that was nothing compared with what happened next …

Because of the crowd and in case we got separated, Sandy handed me my ticket. I looked at the price, I looked at the seats, and something jumped of the page at me: VIP!!! We started jumping up and down.

The usher pointed us to the SECOND row, off to the right. We meandered down to the right spot and counted the seats as they weren’t numbered and ours were the 13th and 14th. There were only twelve seats in the row. What? Yep, our seats didn’t exist. Even though Revive was just taking the stage, the usher sent us out to Will Call to be reassigned.

Sandy and I decided that the least they could do after giving us nonexistent seats was to let us meet-and-greet with the bands after the show. Other people were gathered around the event coordinator saying their seats, too, weren’t there. She reassigned a few, giving them T-shirts to make up for the hassle. When she took our tickets, however, she broke into a smile. “I was able to get you better seats!”

Oh, yeah! She took us front and center. Turns out that the speakers were larger than they had anticipated, so the seats that were off to the side were brought up to the front and tucked into the strip of walkway in front of the stage.

The camera guy getting a good shot …
Revive rocks out … Billboard magazine named them 1 of 15 “Faces to Watch for 2009”

And, coming from Australia, where they first toured with Third Day, they had great accents.

Brandon Heath takes the stage …

He won THREE Dove awards last week …

Just to show you how close we were, here’s pic of the mic …

And the stand …

Third Day’s pastor. What a cool job that would be to travel around with the band and speak truth into their lives! If any of you were there and heard him say, “I’ll take you!” to a screaming fan after discussing do a World Vision trip with only Third Day fans … that was ME. 😉

THE Mac Powell, who Sandy thinks is totally cute. I had to hold her back, but that’s why I was there–to chaperon. 😉

Time of audience participation …

Guitar solo …

Look, we’re so close you can see the whites of his eyes!

And the whites of his teeth!

In the middle of the show, they went out into the center of the crowd for Third Day karaoke. Fans of all ages got to go up, request their favorite song, and sing with the band.

Even with as much entertainment as there was, the spiritual content was delicious. at one point, they had us put our hand on the person to our left and pray for them. Some of the lyrics brought me to tears, but the music and energy was a balm to my heart.

I’m so grateful to Sandy for taking me. I feel like God has put her in my life as a role model of a strong, content single woman. Plus, we have a lot of fun together!

I have some great video, but my connection won’t let me load it 🙁 But wait, how can I have all these flash photos and videos. Have I crossed over to the dark side of lawlessness? Calm your beating hearts. One of the coolest thing about the nights was them saying they encouraged pictures and videos–as long as we posted them all over the internet!