This post is long overdue, but better late than never! This year I got to attend GMA (Gospel Music Association) Week in downtown Nashville, TN with an “artist escort” badge courtesy Inpop Records who I was interning for at the time (I now work for them!) While it wasn’t supposed to I found out later on, this badge got me into the “Music Builds” Tour Kick-off showcase at the Wildhorse Saloon not only for FREE, but it also later got me into the press pit in front of the stage by flashing it to some very lazy security guards. Did I mention this was on my 20th birthday? It was a pretty cool night. The lineup included two of my favorite bands, Jars of Clay and Switchfoot. Here’s a shot of Steve from Jars during sound check:
The headliner was Third Day… which baffles me because while I understand that they are a very popular band, if it was up to me the lineup would have been the exact opposite… Third Day, Switchfoot, Jars of Clay… Nonetheless each band got a lot of playing time and the show was great. Also met a really nice girl & her dad who bought me water and later got me into the Switchfoot M&G. Here’s a shot of Jon from Switchfoot crowd surfing…
After the show I had the pleasure of running into Steve from Jars by the merch table and he ended up asking me for some photos after recognizing I was the girl sticking the telephoto lens in his face all night. I ended up emailing him some shots and he says he’ll use ’em somewhere so we’ll see! Just the fact that he liked them was amazing to me because Jars is probably my favorite band of all time (tied with the newsboys) and they literally changed my life, so it was fun to be able to give something back to them, despite how ridiculously small a thing it was.