Concert at the state fair......

Ah yes, the best part of the fair yesterday and the main reason for our going....Mercy Me had a concert and we had second row seats!!

Sarah showing where our seats were.
Unknown to us, it was actually not just Mercy Me. First up was Monk and Neagle and then Aaron Shust:

Finally after a 15 minute intermission Mercy Me:

This picture was posted just because I thought it was funny how they were singing: :p

Bring the Rain!

So afterwards they had a meet 'n greet and we of course stood in line for that...Here is Sarah with them. Unfortunately because of the way things were set up we could not get behind them for a picture or hold up the line so this was the best picture, still I got to talk to them all which is all I really cared about...oh and check out Bart Millard's smile! :p

One last fair picture:

A little about the concert....First off, except for maybe Toby Mac/Newsboys, Mercy Me is the one Christian music group that, at least for me, has consistently put out albums that have really spoken to me and I have enjoyed. That is one reason we got tickets on the second row, I got them months in advance the day they came out because I wanted to have good seats. I have also found that for concerts at the fair when you sit so close to the stage it is actually not as hard on the ears because of the way the speakers are set up... While it is loud, as in your shirt is moving from the air loud; as in it is hard to hold a camera steady loud. You don't really hear the music from the speakers so much as you feel it. :p

Anyway the concert was terrific! For some concerts the group might play a song that might not be your favorite and leave out one you really love. Mercy Me has so many great songs they obviously can't sing them all but they did a very good job covering a range of their stuff in the amount of time they had.

The crowd was pretty amazing as well. From the very first song you could hear everyone singing along with the band, it actually seemed to surprise Bart Millard, the lead singer, at just how loud we were. On the third song, I think it was "Word of God Speak" he started singing the chorus and we were so loud he just stopped and held out the microphone to the crowd and let us have it. A few songs later he switched over to a mixture of hymns a cappella and it honestly was hard to tell if he was singing or not. Everyone was together in singing and there actually was some audible harmonizing going on! It made me miss being in a large church a little bit....No music, just 8,000 or so people singing their hearts out to the Lord. It was incredible.... :)

One funny thing, about 20 minute in, there was this loud engine revving type noise for about 15 seconds that was coming from the tractor pull that was about 300 yards away. This continued every 6-8 minutes for the rest of the concert. After about probably the 6th time this happened, Bart Millard, asked the crowd what on earth that crazy loud noise was that kept occurring. As one voice everyone yelled back at him "IT'S A TRACTOR!" he looked at the crowd and laughed, and said "Of course! It is a tractor, I forgot I am in the south" :D Anyway, that about sums up the concert, I guess you have probably figured out I thought it was wonderful.