Best. Concert. Ever.

Since it's been so long since I posted, think back... way back... to a week ago last Wednesday, April 14... are you there? Ok, so am I!

That evening my friend Kara and I went to a concert in the small town of Richwood, OH. I had been looking forward to this concert for a very long time, because 2 of my favorite bands were touring together!  I really didn't know what to expect in Richwood, because I had never even heard of the town before!  I discovered it's about an hour and a half drive southeast of Findlay, on Route 37.  And it really is a very small town.

The venue for the concert was the local baptist church, with a fairly small sanctuary area decorated out of the 70's - hello harvest gold carpet and pews!  Kara and I were both incredibly amazed that these big-name Christian bands (Vota, Stellar Kart, and Barlowgirl) would be playing in such a small town and a small place!  I'd guess that if there were 300 people in that building it would be completely packed. We were definitely amused at the country feel to this concert - so completely different than Winter Jam we went to a few weeks before this!  It was definitely funny to see all the band equipment set up right by the pipes of a pipe organ! :)

The best part of the whole evening (for me) was right after we got there.  We found a place to park on the street, and as we were walking in we went past the tour bands' tour buses. A guy sitting on the ground using a laptop looked at me and said, "Hey, it's a Vota fan!" because I was wearing my Vota T-shirt.  I told him Vota was the main reason I was coming to the concert, of course!  He told me to come with him for a minute, and leads me onto one of the buses, and announces that I'm a Vota fan to all the guys on the bus!  Turns out he's Case, the main guitarist from Vota; I had thought he looked familiar to me.  I then got to have a brief conversation with Case and also meet Bryan, Vota's lead singer. They're really nice guys, and they were excited that I had come so far to see them - as was I!

Our seats were about in the middle of the church, but in such a small place the view was amazing, and it was really cool to be so close to the bands performing. I took some pictures, which you can look at on my Picasa album here.  The pics were taken with the camera on my phone which has basically no zoom, so you can see how small the place really was!

Vota's music set was awesome, and I really wished they could have played longer!  They played most of my favorite songs, and it was great to really be able to see them during the performance. I got a wave from both Bryan and Case during the show too when they saw me. Stellar Kart, my other favorite band, played after Vota and they were great too!  They put a lot of humor into their show too, and the music was awesome of course.  Both were very energetic, despite the fact that crowd really didn't really seem to know their music too well. Barlowgirl played last, and they were obviously the group that most everyone (except me) came to see.  I like Barlowgirl well enough, but this was the third time I had seen them in concert in like 9 months. During the entire concert, there was a lady a couple rows ahead of us who I'd say was in her mid 60's, and she was totally rockin' to every song!  She was so into it, even though she really didn't seem to know the songs, and it was just really funny to see!


The whole evening was just so much fun!  Kara and I enjoyed hanging out together, and getting to see two of my favorite bands together in the same concert (plus meeting two of the guys from Vota) was completely awesome for me!