OK, this will be a long entry, but there is lots to tell.   The picture above is from when we went to see Jack last year.  Of course in our haste to get out the door for the concert, I forgot to grab my camera.  Oh well.

We have been following Jack Ingram since back in college.  He was our favorite performer, and we went to more of his concerts than I can count.  We travelled around to see him - Ft. Worth, Dallas, Waco, Austin.  Oh, the road trips with his music blaring and all of us singing along.  Those were great times!  We saw him so much that he knew who were were.  Let me clarify that we were not crazy groupie stalkers, just college kids with lots of time on our hands.  OK, so maybe we were a little groupie-ish.  Anyway, the point is we have been following him for about 15 years (Oh my!  That seems like a long time now that I think about it).

Here are a couple of pictures from back in the day.  Barrett played with him on his 22nd birthday.  Check out the ceiling in the bar.  Jack has come a really, really long way.  :)

My parents have known Martina and John McBride since Garth Brooks came to Texas back in the early 90’s and have keep in touch since then.  They were going to the concert and got us some tickets at the last minute.  My mom told me that our name was on the parking list and we would park at the bus entrance. 

So we drive up to the parking lot and give them my name.  They direct us to the bus area.  I was thinking shuttle bus area, but no - this was the tour bus area.  They opened the gate, and we parked right in front of the tour busses.  We were originally parked next to my parents right in front of Martina’s bus, but we had to move over a little so we didn’t block the ambulance access area.  OK, I guess we can move over to one of the other tour busses if we have to.  :)

Mom met us at the car and gave us our meet & greet passes to see Jack.  I convinced her to stay with us since Dad was meeting with some people.  We were hanging out by the meet & greet area waiting for them to bring the other people down when Jack turned the corner (probably from his tour bus) to head to the meet & greet room.  He recognized us immediately and was just the same as 10 years ago.  He was gracious and thanked us for coming out.  We laughed about his “overnight success” with just being awarded “Newcomer of the Year” at the last ACM awards.  I introduced him to my mom, and then he headed in to do the meet & greet.  What fun!

We headed backstage and ate some dessert (delicious carrot cake and banana pudding) while we chatted with my parents and one of my dad’s friends in production.  It was nice and cool in the backstage building so we didn’t venture out to see the opening act, Chris Young.  I’m sure he was great, but we didn’t know anything about him so we didn’t feel like fighting the heat to watch him.

JACK INGRAM

Once it was time for Jack to go on, Barrett and I headed down to our seats.  We were front row center stage, VERY excited, and ready to sing and dance.  Jack took the stage and rocked it out.  He tried to throw Barrett his pick after the first song, but it flew off to the side and another guy in the row behind us got it.  After the next song, he looked at us, leaned over a little, and threw his pick more directly to us instead of lobbing in out to Barrett.  We definitely got that one.  :)

Mom came to join us after the first song.  She knows some of his music so she was singing along too.  At one point before his song “Hold On” he had everyone hug the person they came with while he was telling one of his stories.  Everyone was hugging someone, and since Dad was backstage, Mom didn’t have anyone to hug.  Jack stopped talking and said, “Oh, that’s not right!”  And he hopped down off the stage and hugged my mom!  The girls next to her about died, and she was having a ball.  All I could think was that I’m sure he is really sweaty (because the boy sweats a lot when he’s on stage), and I was wondering what Mom thought about it.

Jack was awesome!  He sang some songs from his newest album and a few older ones.  We had a good time watching him onstage and reminiscing about all the little bars we saw him in.  It was a little strange to see him playing a huge stage with a gigantic banner with his name and a logo hanging behind him.  “Hawkeye” from a morning radio show I listen too was even sitting next to Barrett at the end of Jack’s set.  That was pretty fun too.

Congratulations on your success Jack!  And thanks for remembering us little people who supported you back in the day.

MARTINA McBRIDE

In case you have never seen Martina in person, she is a petite little thing.  It is truly amazing how such a big voice can come out of a little body like that.  We were excited to see her because we probably haven’t seen her in concert since the early 90s. 

My parents were sitting on the side of the stage so my dad wouldn’t have to walk down to the seats.  Their seats next to us got filled in by some young girls that were next to Mom during Jack.  There was a cute little couple (probably around 25) next to Barrett who just got engaged and moved from Omaha.  They had a camera, and since we forgot ours Barrett exchanged business cards with them and asked to get some of the pictures.  We’ll post them when we get them.

Martina puts on a great show.  She had a great variety of songs from her newest album, greatest hits, timeless album, and even some classic 80’s rock songs!  She started with “It’s My Time” and sang some really great ones - Happy Girl, Whatever You Say, Wild Angels, My Baby Loves Me, Love’s the Only House, This One’s For the Girls, A Broken Wing, and Independence Day. 

Other songs she threw in there that made for a really fun, unexpected surprise included Lean On Me, Feel Like a Natural Woman, Summer of ’69,Don’t Stop Believing, and Hit Me With Your Best Shot.  It was so fun to hear some of those great songs, and she rocked them out.  I’m not sure the girls next to me had even heard a couple of them, but we sang along.

Before she sang Independence Day as her last song of the set (before the encore), she addressed the crowd and told them that she loved Dallas.  She said Dallas held a special place for her because she was in the Dallas airport when she found out her first song made the charts and she played with Garth here among other things.  Then she said that they have a dear friend here, and she started talking about Dad and mentioned that his birthday was tomorrow.  She asked that everybody join her in singing Happy Birthday to him.  She and all of us in the audience sang to him.  They had a camera on him on the side of the stage, but the lights were down where he was so you could barely see him on the screens.  Finally at the end of the song, they brought the lights up, and there he was with Mom on the jumbo screens waving and saying thank you.  I couldn’t believe it!  It was so amazing!  How great is she to do that for him.  Thank you Martina.  Not many people can embarrass my dad, but I think you may have actually pulled it off.  :)

We are so glad that we were able to make arrangements for the boys on such short notice.  The concert was fabulous, and it was a really great night!