So Saturday, April 3, 2010 was one of the best days of 2010 BY FAR!!!! My sister and I went on a road trip to Jackson, MS to see Skillet and tobyMac on the Awake Tonight Tour, one of Christian Music’s BIGGEST tours!! I’m gonna try to have this note be as descriptive as the one I wrote for the Awake & Alive show I went to at Minglewood Hall in Memphis, TN on October 8, 2009, but there was only 2 acts here that I really paid attention to, so this one will be significantly shorter. So I’m gonna go through basically every little detail of the day, starting with when I left to pick Wesley up all the way until I got home and crashed on the bed. lol
I left the house at about 11:45 to go pick her up from her house- for those of you who don’t know, Wesley and I are not blood siblings, but we might as well be because we literally grew up together since we were born. Well, I got to her house and she was just about ready, so I just stood around while she finished her hair, having small talk, until she was finally ready to go, which was like 2 minutes. We left her house and went into Millington, where we went to Kroger to fill up with gas, then we went to McDonald’s to grab something to eat before the LONG drive to Jackson.
So she calls her fiancé and he tells us an easier way to get to Jackson without having to go through Downtown Memphis, which happened to be the same way the GPS my mom let me borrow took us, so it all worked out. So when we finally got out of Memphis and on the straight shot towards Jackson, I called my girlfriend up to talk to her for a minute, then I wanted her and Wes to talk for a little bit, which went pretty good. =) So for some weird reason, I only took 2 cds with me- the mixes I made of the setlists for Skillet and tobyMac (which I happened to know thanks to the Skillet Message Boards and some friends who had already gone. Hehe), so our music selection was sort of limited, to say the least. So we’re driving down towards Jackson, MS listening to the setlist mixes, rocking out to them, laughing, enjoying each others’ company because we haven’t seen each other in a few weeks, maybe a month or so, so this was good. We get halfway to Jackson, she finally decides “let’s listen to the radio. Save our voices for the concert”, so we switch over to the radio, but I get bored easily, so I put Skillet back on. lol So after like 3 hours of NOTHING BUT STRAIGHT SHOT, we FINALLY get into Jackson!!! After like 20 minutes, we finally find the Mississippi Coliseum, where we find a line of people standing outside to get in: the line for the VIP people. We’re like 2 hours early, so we decide to go to Shoney’s to eat. That was the WORST Shoney’s we’ve ever been to! >.<>
So we go up to the Coliseum, park, and go up to the doors and wait in line, which is like a 30 minute wait. While standing in line, I see ScottyRock (Skillet’s backing bassist whenever John sings holding the mic on Hero, Those Nights, and Monster, the guy in charge of security, and their road/tour manager) and I was like “Wes, there’s ScottyRock!”, and she was like “Who?”. I told her and she goes “oh, cool!”. Well, after 30 minutes of waiting, they finally open the doors and let us in. They scan our tickets and we go over to the merch table, where I bought Allie a poster and me a hat and a sticker. Then Wesley and I go find our seats, to discover we are LITERALLY sitting with a straight look at the stage, probably 30 feet away from the stage, so we’re happy. Lol after she gets off the phone with her fiancé, letting him know we made it, she decides she wants to go look at the merch table and see what she wants to buy. So we go back and she finds an Awake Tonight Tour shirt and buys it (I wanted one, but they only go up to 2XL. GR!!). I see the dog tags and im like “I want one”, so I bought that and we went back upstairs, she went to the bathroom, then we went back to our seats. Where we’re sitting, there’s like no one around us and we’re 4 rows up from the rails. I told Wesley if no one comes in 5 minutes, im going down to the rails. Sure enough, as soon as I said that, the people came rolling in: like 3 sets of parents with their kids, the oldest kid I saw easily 12ish, the youngest about 4, are seated in the 3 rows IN FRONT OF US!! I look at Wesley and I go “are you serious?!” and she just laughs. For like 20 minutes, we’re just sitting there, watching people come in and filling up the Coliseum, listening to all of the kids around us go “I wanna hear Monster!”, “When are they gonna play Monster?”, just desperate to hear Monster when finally the lights go out and the crowd goes crazy.
House of Heroes started the night, and quite frankly I didn’t care for them too much. Like at all. So I’m just sitting there, waiting for their set, which I knew was going to be short, to be done with. Finally, after like 15-20 minutes, they get off the stage and I start getting really excited because I knew that Skillet was next. I kept in mind I had 2 phone calls to make during their set: my girlfriend Allie wanted me to call her when they played Awake & Alive and my friend Liz wanted me to call her when they played The Last Night. So I’m sitting there, excitement growing with each second that passes, until finally the lights go out.
Here’s where I go in major detail with what goes on….SKILLET’S TIME ON STAGE!!
The music slowly begins to play, a somewhat orchestra-type intro before you see Ben Kasica and Jen Ledger and Korey Cooper and ScottyRock walk onto the stage, Jen seating herself at the drum set, Ben standing at his usual spot on the left side of the stage, Korey on the right by the keyboard, Scotty standing behind her. As they begin playing Hero, John Cooper comes running out on stage, yelling at the crowd, getting them rowdy just as Hero gets intense as flames start shooting up. The Pyros were going off during the chorus of Hero, which ended in darkness, the crowd going crazy. The band then proceeds to play an intro they use at Summer Festivals before the soft piano intro begins to be played, signaling it’s time for Whispers In The Dark, which is epic as always, John screaming before the intro solo begins, pyro going off throughout the song. The song ends and more darkness and the crowd screams more. As the lights come back on, Scotty is seen with the bass in his hand as Jen begins playing the new intro for Those Nights. John walks around and gets the crowd ready to sing along with him, doing the traditional “oh! OH!” before the band launches into the song, the crowd singing along really loudly. Near the end of the song, someone walks out on stage and brings John a little crowd cam and starts running along the end of the stage, filming the crowd in the VIP section and in the floor section. As the lights go down and the music ends, the room goes quiet for a minute after the crowd dies down. After a minute, Jonathan Chu- the violinist, and Tate Olsen- the cello player, come out and stand on the risers, playing a familiar intro from the Comatose Comes Alive dvd/cd. As the solo ends and the lights come on, the band begins to play Comatose, which drives the crowd insane. After Comatose ends, John takes the mic out of the mic stand and, while the band plays a nice little intro for the upcoming song, starts walking back and forth, talking about there being a war not for our country but for our souls, talking about not being ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which has the crowd going CRAZY in agreement, then as he walks back over to the mic stand and puts the mic back, he goes “Because of Jesus, we are Awake and we are Alive!” and the band starts playing Awake & Alive, which was totally EPIC, with all the pyro going off during the chorus and the amazing lighting and the crowd singing almost over John, it was amazing! =) I had called Allie during the first verse and chorus of the song, hanging up right as they went into the 2nd verse. Then the lights went out and all of the band members left the stage except for John, who was standing in the center of the stage, holding an acoustic guitar, which told the crowd (well, those who knew anything about Skillet) that it was POWER BALLAD TIME!! John talks to the audience a little bit more about Jesus and how we should not be ashamed to know Him, which is amazing to hear from him, and he goes into an acoustic cover of the chorus to Jesus Freak, to which everyone in the audience sings along with. He laughs and says “I guess you people know that one”, which brought some laughter. He then proceeded to talk about how he keeps having people walk up to him saying stuff along the lines of “I love your music, but why do you have to sing so loud?” and “How long do you plan on singing?”, which made the audience laugh even more. John then said “So, in light of such questions, I’m gonna shut everyone up about that and play a soft song for ya right now. If you don’t like it and prefer the heavier stuff, hold your horses, it’s coming”, which caused the audience to laugh even harder. Then John goes into an acoustic version of Sarah McLachlan’s song Angel, the one song Skillet has EVER DONE that I don’t know the words to (epic FAIL!!). After the song was over, the rest of the band came out, Tate sitting in a chair behind Ben and Jon standing between Korey and Scotty, who came out on the bass. John then talks about how they write songs about all kinds of things- Jesus, things everyone goes through, depression, then he goes into writing love songs and dedicated the next song, Believe, to his wife Korey, which got all kinds of aws from the audience. They played Believe, which was really good live with the new intro they gave it with more keyboard sound in it. As the song ended, the lights faded out, the crowd roaring for more. After a minute, the lights came back on John, who now had his bass in his hands, a sign for more rock to come. Before the song started, he told the story of why he wrote the song, which was a story that every Skillet fan knew, so they knew what song they were about to play. He finished talking and the lights dimmed real quick as Korey began playing the intro for The Last Night, at which point I called my friend Liz, who REALLY wanted to hear it. The song was just amazing, John having the crowd singing some of the 1st chorus, which you could hear perfectly. After the song was over, Jen did a little drum solo, which was wicked. After the solo, the band came back out, letting the crowd die down for a minute, before going into Savior, which was EPIC AS ALWAYS!!! This was personally my favorite part of the show because 1- it’s my favorite song and 2- John saw me throw up the rock sign at him and he grinned and threw one up at well, so acknowledgement from my favorite band’s lead singer is always nice. Lol ;) so after rocking out to that, Ben did a little guitar tease for the next song, but everyone knew what time it was because John was like “do you guys feel like getting loud?!”. He said this a couple of times before finally going “do you guys feel like a MONSTER?!?!?”, at which point they started playing Monster, which is always a fun one. =) The kids standing around me were in their chair singing along, laughing. They especially went crazy when the distorted growl sounded. The song was great because they used some pyro in it too, so that made it even greater. After it was over, the lights dimmed and the audience got quiet as Korey started playing a slow beautiful tune from the keyboard as kind of an intro for the next song: Lucy, which was beautiful as always. I preferred it this time over the last time I saw Lucy live because then he didn’t sing the final chorus like on the cd, but a little lower. This time, he went for the high notes in the last chorus, and it was amazing! Tate and Chu had a little violin and cello solo, which was amazing. Those 2 guys are the ONLY ones I know who can make a cello and violin rock! Then the band ended with a fireworks thing set up and lots of pyro for a finisher of Rebirthing, which was epic with all of the pyro, fireworks, and lighting. The band prolonged the outro for Rebirthing, making it longer than usual, which made it all the more epic, until they finally ended with a loud bang, the pyro and fireworks finally dying down as Skillet left the stage.
I had done what I came to achieve tonight: I had hurt my voice and my neck on Skillet’s portion of the show. Wesley did to a little bit, as she was like “I need water!!!”. So we went up to the concession stand and each bought a bottle of water, mine being gone before we got to the door to our seats. Lol so we sit down and I converse with some of the people around me about Christian Rock and Christian Metal and tobyMac and Skillet and stuff like that. I got a family interested in Disciple (Liz, be proud! They said they REALLY wanted to check them out!) So we’re talking for a few minutes until the lights go out, and it’s time for the 2nd headliner of the Awake Tonight Tour: tobyMac.
It starts with music playing in the darkness, music that Wesley looks at me and says “They’re starting with Crazy?!”. I didn’t know what she was talking about until she told me. Then Tonight started playing, but tobyMac wasn’t on the stage with his Diverse City band singing: John Cooper was, and I was going nuts! I looked over, knowing he’d be there because I’m a cheat like that, and found tobyMac standing on a little stage in the back of the coliseum. Through half of the song, John and Toby are focused on each other, singing back and forth, putting on an epic start for Toby’s set. The funniest part about this was when John wasn’t singing, he was dancing with the Diverse City band, which made me laugh. Finally Toby crowd-surfed towards the stage, where he and John sang head to head the final bits of Tonight, which was longer as John did an amazing job getting the crowd riled up for Toby to get the “Funky Jesus Music” bumping. lol the song ended and John left the stage and Toby went into I’m For You, which was amazing….(Before I go any further, I would like to say I’m not familiar with Toby’s band nor anything about his shows, so forgive me if this section of the note to be a little shorter and a little less detailed than Skillet’s section.)….after I’m For You, Toby stopped and talked about how he was thankful for everyone being there and he asked if they wanted to hear some new music, to which the crowd yelled and Showstopper was played, and might I say it was really epic live. After Showstopper, a couple of Toby’s band members picked up trumpets and one had a trombone and they played a little intro before going into Ordinary Love, which is one of my favorites from the Portable Sounds cd, and they played through the song, but didn’t really end it, rather they flowed perfectly right into my favorite from Toby’s Momentum cd, J-Train, which was really cool live. After J-Train ended, Toby took a minute to talk to the audience about how awesome it was to be with us on the night before Easter, joking about eating chocolate and Easter bunnies and stuff like that, but then he got serious and talked about the real reason for Easter, talking about Jesus dying on Friday and raising on Sunday, and the crowd went wild with cheers. He kept talking until his talking led him into Lose Your Soul, which was neat live. They went almost right into Made To Love after Lose Your Soul, which is another one of my favorites. Then he went into no matter what, everyone loses their way, but we got to get back up again, and I thought he was gonna add Get Back Up into the setlist, which I was hoping for, but he didn’t. Instead, he went into Irene, one of Momentum’s highlight songs, adding a little cover of a song called Everything Will Be Alright. Then they ended the song, but Toby goes “Whoa, bring that beat back” in which 2 of his fellow singers, GabeReal and Shonlock, each do a little freestyle rap for the audience, while the female singer, Nirva Ready, takes on the role as the "rose between two thorns," and sings the chorus of Rich Mullins' Awesome God, which the crowd joins in singing. Toby ended the freestyle session by doin a rap of his own: Boomin’, which is another favorite from Portable Sounds. After it was over, the lights went out and the track from the Tonight cd featuring his son, Truett aka TRUdogg, played while Toby’s band was visible slightly on stage. Halfway through Tru’s track, the music ends and we hear Toby’s voice, but can’t see him. He gives himself away by saying “I must ask myself, Mr. Mac why are you in the back of the arena, sir?!”. We look and he’s standing with his guitarist and GabeReal standing on the little stage Toby started on at the beginning of his set, a cluster of hanging light bulbs of different lengths and sizes hanging above them. Toby welcomed us into his own personal living room, which all it needed was a fireplace, to which Gabe compared themselves to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, which got the audience to laugh. They talked for a minute before going into verse/chorus only acoustic versions of Love Is In The House, to which he changed the verse a little bit and Catchafire. Then he talked about spicing things up and throwing curve balls, which led into the American Idol favorite Pants on the Ground, which half the audience sang with and Gone followed. He then pulled out a bible and read some scripture and talked for a minute about living in God’s light, which led into an acoustic cover of In The Light, a song which Toby’s last band, dc Talk, was famous for producing. Then he and his two boys rejoined his band on stage for a nice performance of Diverse City, which flowed into Funky Jesus Music, which included Rollercoaster of Love, That’s The Way I Like It, and We Are Family. Then the band left the stage, but no one started taking anything down, a sign of an encore to be had. Sure enough, Toby and his band came back and sang an amazing City On Our Knees. Then the lights dim a little bit and Toby’s no where to be seen while the band begins to play one of my favorites from Welcome To Diverse City: Burn For You. Then Toby began singing from one of the bleachers off to the side of the stage, getting some of the crowd around him to sing with him. Then he slowly made his way back to the stage, where he got the crowd rowdy for his own rendition of Jesus Freak, this one more rocky than John’s acoustic version earlier (though John singing Jesus Freak was beyond epic. Any panhead will agree). Then they played that song Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye) as an outro as machines on both sides of the stage begins shooting out shredded paper. tobyMac ended the evening by doing a leap from the stage into the audience, doing one more crowd surf before having them push him back towards the stage, where he climbed back onto and he and the band said goodbye to the audience and left.
Thus, ending the Awake Tonight Tour on Saturday, April 3, 2010 in Jackson, MS. =)
Wesley and I, COMPLETELY EXHAUSTED, made our way back to the car and went over to the nearest gas station, where I filled my car up with gas, and we made our 4 ½ hour long trip back to Tipton County, Tennessee.
The Awake Tonight Tour was without a doubt THE BEST SHOW I’VE EVER SEEN!!!!! I’m glad my sister enjoyed her first real rock concert. =) I can’t wait for the next time I see Skillet. And tobyMac for that matter. It’s gonna be EPIC!!!! as most people know, this is one of the biggest Tours in Christian Music history: it's the best of Christian Rock and the best of Christian Hip/Hop, and it was AMAZING!!!! :D
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