Piano Men: A Concert Outside

The Venue

The company

The music

And it was Awesome! My cousin Karen and I have been anticipating this event for two months, and Saturday night it all went down. First off, our seats were awesome. And despite the heat at first and feeling a bit sticky, the sun eventually went down and the portentous rain clouds were nothing but a figure in the sky. And when you're listening to Jack's Mannequin and The Fray, who really cares about the heat or the almost rain?!

Jack's was the opening act, and they played for almost an hour. Andy, who Karen and I affectionately refer to as Jack, is a maniac (and I mean that in the best, most endearing way, because it was great) on stage; he's the lead singer, pianist, and songwriter of the band. You can just feel the music coming out of him when he gets behind his piano and starts singing.

Here are a couple clips of two of my favorite songs by them, "Spinning," and "Hammers and Strings (A Lullaby)." For a band that I just discovered six months ago, I'm completely in love with their music and can't wait for more.

After about thirty minutes to change the stage (Jack's is surprisingly very low-key when it comes to their stage crap; it's pretty much just their instruments), The Fray came on. By this time it was dark and their stage lights were an amazing aspect of the show. If you check out their two disc covers, you can see that light is a theme for them:


I discovered The Fray about four years ago when their song, "Over My Head (Cable Car)," was getting a lot of radio play. I instantly loved it and got their first cd for Christmas that year. I've been a fan ever since.

One of the coolest parts of their stage show was the video with four different screens showing each of the members in their element. After experiencing Rock Band and Guitar Hero, I get how music can transform you while you're performing; you're whole body gets into it and you really are in the moment. This is a picture of Isaac as he's doin' his piano thing.



Although I do think he might've had an off night performing as I'm pretty sure there were some high notes that he wasn't exactly singing/hitting. He's completely adorable though, and if not married I'd want to fly out to Denver (where they're from, as is my cousin Karen, so hence cool things come out of Denver) and track him down. Here they are singing their latest radio hit, "You Found Me."



They sang songs from both their cds, and finished it up with an encore of an acoustic version of Kanye West's, "Heartless," and then their album ending, "Happiness." After all the excitement and anticipation it sucks that it all ends so quickly. I guess there's always the next one to look forward to.