First Ticket
Just yesterday, it was exactly 17 years ago when I had a spark of interest to work in the music industry. I was in line with my church youth group at my first concert, the See Spot Rock tour at Sunshine Theater in 2003. My excitement had been building up to this show for a couple of weeks, it felt unreal just being in line. Adding to the surreality was seeing Matt Thiessen from Relient K, who I had only previously seen in CD inserts, walk casually around the block. The doors to Sunshine opened with the sound of Sanctus Real finishing up their soundcheck and the line started to move inside.
Walking at a sluggish pace behind a line of people to the descending ramp walkway to the dance floor, the lights were already dimmed and the guitars started to feed back. As soon as I had touched the dance floor the drums came in, the subwoofers beating with my heart in my chest.
I had never been to anything that loud before… it really held no comparisons. I was not a stranger to music or audio at that point in my life. I was 15 and had been an active A/V volunteer at church, played guitar in my youth group’s worship band, and had played a couple small house shows with my pop-punk bands. The volume at the house shows was blistering; the guitars and drums were fighting for volume as the vocalist was being drowned out. But the sound at this concert was full and balanced and the experience being with so many people singing along and jumping around, I could drop whatever teenage baggage at the door, not care about the problems I was going through, and enjoy being covered in constant waves of sound for just a few hours.
The lineup order that night was Sanctus Real, John Rueben, Pillar, Relient K, and the O.C Supertones. Although I had heard all of these bands at some point on the local Christian radio station, I remember even the acts that I didn’t give much attention to on the radio, somehow on stage they were more vibrant and compelling. I found myself enjoying every act, admiring the talent and expression on stage. Everyone had such a high energy in their performances that made their pristine studio recordings sound flat and colorless in comparison.
Relient K’s set was the one I was excited to see, they were the sole reason I bought my ticket. Their record “Two Lefts Don’t Make a Right… But Three Do” had come out only a couple months before that night and I recall they had played just about the entire album in their set. Their performance still is in my mind today, and that record is still one of my favorites in their discography.
The drive back home I remember my mind was buzzing with ideas the entire car ride. The virtuosity and talent that were blaring from the PA that night was inspiring; not only did I have ideas that I couldn’t wait until the morning after to start working on... but I also had a persistent question spinning in my mind: how could I ever be a part of something like that?
15-year-old Andrew Godfrey would have loved to be on that stage rocking out on the lead guitar, jumping around, feeding off of the energy in the crowd. But over time in developing my musical and audio engineering skills, I enjoy being the one behind the board. During my time working all-ages concerts at Launchpad, I only hope that in some small way, I could inspire a first-time participant as much if not more than I had been motivated to be.
What was your first concert? If you’re working in the music biz in any way, what inspired you to work toward where you are at? Comment below and let me know!
