JMC photos

Not a scrappy post, and one that is several weeks overdue, but I promised some gals I would post pictures so.. 

Had planned to go to three JMC concerts in September, but was not able to make it to the one in Sandwich, IL. Too far away, didn't have the money to go, and working overtime made for a very tired Julie. Still, Rhi and I managed to make it to the other two that weekend. 

The first concert was held 9/11/10 in Jacksonville, IL. It was the first Concert in the Cornfield, and one of the last shows for the Lost Trailers. Didn't get very good pictures of them at all.. I don't know WHO had set up their lighting, but quite honestly, I thought they needed to be fired. Most of the time, the singer was in the dark, because the lighting sucked. Did manage to get a couple halfway decent pics though, and the music was still fabulous. Rhi didn't know who they were though, and kept asking when Jason was going to get on stage. {Which had one of the guys standing near us asking her if she had seen Jason before. Which made me laugh a bit.} LT not only mentioned 9/11 during the show, they brought up the firefighters and policeman that had sponsored the show and gave them a round of applause. {which I thought was cool - since this was not a memorial concernt, it just happened to be on 9/11)

Then Jason played. He came out wearing his leather coat and a hat, luckily that didn't last long. lol. he started out with  With You and Honky Tonk Friends. Of course all the girls screamed when he got to the "I love the dances they dance" part ;) And thank goodness for cameras with continuous shooting ;)

He usually jumps up onto the drummers risers for I Can Sleep When I'm Dead. This one was no exception. He can be hard to photograph when the lighting is not really good, because he moves around so much. But man, he does a great show. LOL And has a lot of fun doing it. 

He also sang Patrick Davis' Numbers, which is another favorite song. The gist of the song is about all the different numbers that affect us, and how some are mean nothing.. and some mean everything. 9/11 is one of the numbers in the song, so after the song, Jason spoke for a few minutes about that day and the people that have done so much to help {firemen, police, military}, thanking and asking us to be thankful for the people that have put their lives on the line, so we can still live in a free country.  {I thought it was very cool that both bands had said something in remembrance of that day.}

The guitarist tossed a pick at Rhi.. who was not expecting that. It hit her in the chest and then fell on the ground. She was stunned, and tried to look for it, but since it was dark, was not able to find it. Several people started trying to look for it, but gave up when it wasn't easily found. One of the guys in the crowd started looking for it too, using his lighter to see better. And when he found it, he gave it to Rhi. Amazing, how nice people can be. {And we passed him in the parking lot as we were leaving.. and he said "Hang onto that pick now!" as we walked by.}

This is one of my favorite pictures from the whole batch. He was signing autographs for people again. It's really amazing too, usually if there are kids in the crowd everybody will try to get them up to the stage so Jason can hold their hand. Several people made space for Rhi so she could get to the front of the stage. 

Yep, that's Rhi's hand on Jason's boot. I can't say anything, she was just copying me ;)

He also sang Angel of Broken Hearts, from the first album.  This is another one of my favorite pictures. Was a little frustrating trying to get it, had a couple of drunk girls in front of me that kept getting in the way. 

Jason climbed up the lighting supports again, like he did at Burlington. Crazy man. I actually have a whole series from that, but this one is my favorite.  Love the pout lol.

 He sang Randy Travis' Nothing At All, which has been a favorite song of mine for a very long time. And Jason's version is fabulous - it's a perfect song for his voice. A very large portion of the audience sang along. Love this picture.

 One of the funnier moments happened when he was singing "Hurry Home" - During the pause at the end of the song, right after the line "He walked in just in time to hear her say... " all  the drunk girls hollered out "WOOOOOOOO!" Jason laughed and said "No, she didn't say WOOOOO!" before finishing the song. 

He took pictures of the crowd for twitter again, including this one of the guys in the band. 

Had left my little notebook in the car lol so this is how I kept track of the playlist..

 And since I didn't have anything else for him to autograph... lol yep, that's my phone. It's amazing the stuff people hold up for him to sign - not just cds and photos, but purses, boots, guitars, shirts, you name it.  

Sunday we drove out to Arcola, IL for another show.Took us about 4 1/2 hours to get there with the construction.  Ended up being about 15 minutes late. Ah well, I'd do it again, in a heartbeat. The photos turned out much better {daytime shows are much easier}. Had only the second bad experience with audience members.. and realized later, ironically, they both involved the same people. The first one was at the Sauget show {the fight during Suzy Q}. For this one, we had gotten up as close as we could to the stage, and were actually blocked from getting any closer. Rhi wanted to try to get up to the stage because we had something we wanted him to autograph, but I told her just to wait, we could try later. Saw someone we had seen at many other shows, and I touched his shoulder just to say hi. He asked me if we wanted to go up to the stage just to take a picture or if we planned on staying up there the whole time. Well, I wasn't going to lie, and I said we would like to stay up there if we could, but really, I was just saying hello. He started getting mad and complaining about why should I expect to come late and get in front of people who waited for hours before the show started, etc etc. Which, ok, on the one hand, I can understand. HOWEVER. First of all. All I did was say HELLO. I was NOT trying to get past him or push him aside or anything like that. Secondly, this family had been to a TON of shows. They have traveled all over to see Jason sing. So he should KNOW that people are going to wind up close to the stage to touch Jason's hand and get autographs and pictures. To expect people not to move up to the stage for that is completely unreasonable, especially since Jason will spend half the show signing autographs for people. This guy not only moved his chair to block people from getting by {myself included}, but he tried to get the police involved with moving a small group {4 or 5} teenage girls who had gone up to get pictures and hadn't moved yet. The girls were standing near a part of the stage that was not even obstructing his view AT ALL. The cops basically blew him off. Not 10 minutes later, he pushed his way in front of some kids so he could be close to the stage. Jerk. Made me wonder who really started the fight at the Sauget show. 

Aaaaanyway. That aside, the show was fabulous. I couldn't get through the crowd at all at that point, so I gave Rhi my sharpie and the car I wanted him to autograph {a matchbox type car, a 1969 bronze GTO - a replica of the one he drove in the video for Hurry Home}, and she slipped through the crowd and up to the stage. Held it right up for him to sign. Which, of course, he did. And took a minute to look at it before giving it back to her. {When I got home I saw that I had caught him smiling as he looked at it. One of those great shots you don't realize you got at the time you took it}

At first I thought the yellowy orange tent would be a problem, but it turned out to be a pretty good background. I ended up {eventually} getting fairly close to the stage, so the pictures turned out pretty nice. It always amazes me when I see how hard Jason works to get everybody an autograph. His concerts are the only ones I have been to where the artist signs autographs during the show. He really interacts with the crowd, answering people that holler stuff at him, and telling jokes and stories between the songs. It's no wonder he has so many fans. He didn't get to do all the dancing and jumping he usually did, since the stage was much smaller, but he still had a lot of fun. 

People always ask me, since I have been to several shows, if he recognizes me. Well, of course not, he doesn't really KNOW me LOL But there have been a couple of times that he has seen me, smiled and waved, because he had seen me at other shows too. One of these days.. maybe someday we'll actually get a meet and greet. 

This is one of my favorite pictures from the show. :) 

The funniest part of this show, was, again, during Hurry Home.  There were probably 5-6 kids in front of me holding up things for him to autograph {pictures, their hands, flip flops}. None of them had a sharpie with them, so I held out the one I had. He smiled and nodded thanks, then sat down on the speaker to sign things {yup, right in front of me, so I had a GREAT view}. Never did get the sharpie back lol.

 

.. still singing the whole time, of course. I like how he uses the microphone to steady what he's trying to autograph. :)

And when he got to the pause at the end of Hurry Home, they all yelled "Jason! Jason! Jason!" Jason laughed and said "For those of you in the back, that can't see, there's a bunch of kids up here, going Jason! Jason! Jason! I get that all the time at home too. I get home, and the kids are all Daddy, Daddy Daddy! It makes you want to change your name sometimes." But laughing as he said it. He also commented, as he sat there signing all those flip flops, how "later in the day, there was going to be a bunch of kids with JMC in reverse all over the bottoms of their feet".

 

Then he finished the song. 

 

This was the first show that Rhi was not by my side the whole time. Normally that would make me very nervous, but I knew she wouldn't be leaving while Jason was on stage, and she was standing within a group of kids. And it was a daytime show, so I could see where she was. I think she enjoyed it, but it was also nice to see her look over at me every so often to make sure I was still there.{She's the one wearing the camo JMC hat}

We left right after the show, since we had another 4 hour drive to get home, stopped at McDonald's for something to eat, and listened to Jason singing all the way home.