Jars Of Clay

Ever since the summer before we started dating, my wife and I have gone to at least one concert at the Nebraska State Fair. This year we went to see Jars of Clay and I must say that it was one of the best concerts I've been to in a while. It was a bunch of guys, who were quite popular some time ago, on stage with just instruments playing and singing because they love it. They aren't quite as popular now, but that doesn't matter, I don't know that it mattered to them all that much back in the day either. They played some new stuff which I didn't recognize, and some old stuff that I did, and even a cover of the Cars (who played the following night). I enjoyed all of it. There wasn't a song that I didn't connect to the music, and that's kind of rare for me. Nothing seemed forced, and there weren't any distracting pyrotechnics or anything like that. We took my, nearly, four year old. He thought the music as too loud for the first song and a half, but then he started to get into it and by the end he was telling me that he wanted to go talk to 'that guy' (meaning the singer). We went up after the show, while they were tearing down (yeah, the band helped tear down their own set!) and the drummer talked to him a little bit and gave him a set list. He was so excited! I think bands like Jars of Clay are all too rare anymore. If more bands played sets like that and interacted with their fans on a personal level I think the pop music scene would be severely diminished, and the state of music would be that much better for it.