Jack Johnson - The bliss of it all!

Last night Luke and I went to the Jack Johnson concert in Vancouver at Roger's Arena (formerly GM Place). Let's just say it was EPIC!!!!

Zee Avi played first.

She was great and quite the voice... but I was about ready for her to stop playing when she did. It was good but not what we came to listen to.

Then up was a band called G Love.

Their music was cool, their lead's voice was not my style at all. AT ALL! And by the time they were done, I was like... Enough already! And where's Jack?

We had to wait (gasp!) for the stage crew to switch out all the instruments, reconfigure the stage, etc. (side note: I always wonder the pressure the guitar tuner must feel to make sure he does his job right. There's nothing worse than an out of tune guitar and there's a guy that's in charge of making sure this doesn't happen and runs in and out with new ones for the musicians. I wonder if he or she has nightmares of an angry musician starting to play out of tune... probably not.)

Eventually they were ready to play. Pandemonium! Sold out! And yes, we're WAY up there!

And it was beautiful. They could've played all night. It was SO good. I guess it's extra special to me to hear really super, duper good musicians play because I'm a musician and I have so much appreciation for what it takes to be THAT good but I think it was just so good last night that it would've been amazing had I only played the pots and pans as a toddler.

What I liked about last night in point form:

• Jack Johnson is really BETTER live and his albums are already so great! It's lame when a band is a total disappointment in concert. Then you know the real artist is the producer.
• Jack, the person, is obviously in love with his wife and kids, made pretty clear in his music and the stories he told. That always adds to my appreciation of the music... knowing that the guy singing is also just a good guy. Jerks can be good too but they're also just jerks. You know?
• The upright piano was an AMAZING piano. It was cool!
• Zack Gill, who played it, was cooler! He could play that thing like... well, I don't know what but it was so awesome! Blues off the charts! And he could sing. That deserves another point.
• The piano player could SING. He harmonized mostly with Jack but there was with one song where he just dished up some serious vocals. It was a meal in, and of itself. It was one of my favorite parts of the whole concert!
• The stage was really basic, big curved screen behind... nothing to take away from the musicians.
• The bass player was extremely good, nothing sloppy, very layed back. Cool.
• The guy sitting next to me... he had an odd habit of shouting out f-bombs with all sorts of interesting twists to them. I finally laughed out loud, it was so ludicrous and he apologized to me. I just told him it was fine and that he sounded like he had tourette's syndrome. Ha!
• The drummer was totally the opposite of what you always get at a concert. He didn't do a single showy number or anything. He was very steady. He also had good posture. I'm fairly sure he's a really nice person. He had that look. And his name was Adam. Even God liked that name for his human. ;-)
• We danced silly and had a great time!
• Earl, the guy who scanned my ticket at the door was very nice! He was probably in his 70's, was very nice and had sympathy when I forgot my glasses in the car. Policy is that once you're in, you're in. No leaving. But he re-entered my ticket into the system so I could go to my car. Thanks Earl! I was able to see individual people on the stage because of you.

I must say though, it was my first time being away from Hudson for more than a few hours. And we were not just away from him in time but also distance. That was weird to me but my mom and her husband Jan watched him, had a great time and offered to watch him again soon!

The best part of this whole night was having a REALLY good date night with Luke. I love him! We have so much fun together and this time was no exception. We stopped at Tim Hortons to grab dinner on the go plus 6 donuts. And yes, we ate them all. We talked and pre-funk'd to Jack's music in the car. We bought over-priced snacks and gave our own reviews of the bands before the headliner. We danced. We laughed and then danced some more. And then we went to pick up Hudson and that was just as sweet as the entire night.

Thanks Jack Johnson for coming to Vancouver and giving us the chance to go out and have a really good time!