Andrew Peterson

Zach here...this is my first blog post, so here we go! This might be long...just wanted to throw that out there.

As some of you might know, I'm a huge music fan in general. I really love artists who can tell stories with their songs, and who not only are great writers, but talented musicians and singers too! Last night, I got to fulfill one of my goals in life...I met Andrew Peterson!!!!



I promise, I'm going to try to write this without sounding like a stalker.

Rockdale Community Church, (where we have a monthly worship night that I co-lead), has been hosting Christian musicians during the summer for the past few years. When I found out that Andrew Peterson and Ben Shive were coming this year, I flipped. Of course, I try to play it off like it's every day that my favorite musical duo comes to my backyard, but as I was standing there talking to Andy (that's what I call him now by the way), it took all of me not to start doing the sprinkler dance...that would have been a little weird.

One of the highlights of the night was getting there early to "help set up", and meeting both Andy and Ben. I know that they were probably tired from the drive, stressed after the sound check and setup, and wanting to eat and prepare for the show, but after the sound check, Andrew stood and talked to us for a while, just about music, recording, and lots of other geeky stuff:)

I went home to pick up Sarah, and we headed to the church to get seats with all of our other friends who were there...Justin, Steph, Adam, Mandie, Michael, Krista, to name a few, and my good friend Mark, who was visiting for the night!

The cool part about the concert was that Andy told stories about certain songs, which made the actual lyrics make much more sense! He started out with a couple familiar songs, a song off of his new album, and then I heard it...the 7 sweet notes of "Canaan Bound", one of my favorite songs. It was such a great evening, sitting with Sarah singing along to familiar songs like (in no certain order) canaan bound, pillar of fire, lay me down, far country, let there be light, shiloh, family man, clear to venus, and high noon.


The concert was very moving, to say the least. We laughed at his stories about his life in Florida and fun times with his family. I had tears in my eyes (hey, so did all the other girls) when he told us the story about the Queen of Iowa, and sang his song about her. Finally, the closing of the concert was deeply rooted in the Gospel and the powerful love of Jesus. He played a song called Hosanna, off of his new album, which set the stage for probably my favorite song of his, High Noon. I'll have to post the words some day, but you can check them out here. Those two songs, combined with an acapella version of All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name, led us into worship to close the night. What a perfect way to end a great evening, singing all together with renewed spirits!


So yeah, it was a huge blessing, a great time with Sarah and friends, and an amazing chance to meet one of my favorite singers.

Next on my list is John Smoltz...one day...one day.

I'll try to post more often...maybe not as long...but maybe :)