A Weekend Miracle

So, you might have read my previous post that gave you an update of our weekend having a storm cloud over (pun intended). There is no way for me to express the sheer awesomeness of the events that followed after I left that post. Dave has to be one of the luckiest/blessed humans on the face of the earth. No one, and I mean no one, other than Dave (and myself) benefited from this weekend's bad turn of events. So to pick up where I left off, the concert was moved to a church. This cut the expected 10,000 people attending the event by 90%. Dave was intended to play at 2:30 but his show got cut because when they moved the concert to a church, they only had time for 5 bands to play, and Dave was not one of them. He was, however, still scheduled to lead a worship set at the very end of the concert for those who wanted to stay around after the headliners (Run Kid Run and Jon McLaughlin) and semi-headliner (Ben Rector), so he had to stay as well but half his band went back home. This left us (I say us because I was introduced and acted as his manager all weekend) with a guitarist/vocalist (Dave), keyboards, and bass; perfect for an acoustic set. You might be thinking, "I have no clue who Run Kid Run or John McLaughlin is so this must not have been a very big show." False. Run Kid Run is one of the biggest bands on the Christian music scenes, and they are my favorite band. They are equivalent to Greg seeing Dave Matthews, Ferg seeing Bon Jovi, or Mom seeing Paul McCartney. John McLaughlin is also one of the largest up and coming secular artists in the industry. Not only was his song "So Close" that he wrote for the movie Enchanted nominated for an Oscar and performed at the Oscar's, but you have probably heard one or two of his songs; for instance, Beating My Heart (his newest) or Beautiful Disaster. To hear these songs, click on the title of this blog and go to the "audio & video" section of his web site and look these songs up. So to sum it up, this was kind of a big deal. Anyways, Run Kid Run's plane was delayed for over an hour due to bad weather conditions, so this left them without a second headliner act. Side note: the church activities building the concert was moved to did not have electricity so the air conditioning was not running, and it was very hot and humid for the 1500+ people that ended up cramming into this room that was no bigger than half a basketball court. They finally came to Dave and asked him to fill in for Run Kid Run who was running late, and Jon would play after him and Run Kid Run would just play when they showed up at the end. This put Dave in the time slot when the most people were in the building because that was the time originally advertised for the headliner to play. Dave got to open for Jon McLaughlin, we were pumped. When Dave got on stage, he was immediately accepted by the crowd because he played the Aggie Fight Song. With a combination of Dave's amazing vocal abilities and his entertaining stage presence, he was easily the best and most popular performance of the whole concert. College Station loved him; they were begging for more, even though the headliners were about to play. After Dave played, Jon got up and gave an awesome performance, and last, Run Kid Run closed out the night. Why was this all so good for me? Because we hung out with Jon McLaughlin and Run Kid Run all night in the band room. They were awesome guys that just sat around and talked and made jokes with us all night like we were equals. If I passed anyone from Run Kid Run or Jon McLaughlin on the street they would say "Whats up, Chad!" What would you give to spend a night with and have Dave Matthews, Bon Jovi, or Paul McCartney to know your name? All in all, Dave became a celebrity in many people's eyes, I got to hang out with my favorite band, and we had a blast every step of the way. How much luckier can you get?