Concert Review
The NorVa, Norfolk, VA
March 24, 2002

by Morgan (Morgo) Levy (theoriginaljarhead@juno.com)

CHARACTERS IN THIS STORY:

"I" (Morgan) and "II" (Rachel)...

CHARACTER COSTUMES:

Bright blue pants, orange shirts, rainbow belts, elf hats, red blinking arrow lights (attached to the hats!), etc.

GETTING STARTED:

We got to the concert around 5:45. About... say, 20 people were in line ahead of us. If it were up to me, we would have been in line all day and stuff, but my mom didn't want to wait in Norfolk any longer than she had to! Within 10 minutes of us getting there, people were lining up down the street. One of Rachel's friends said that when they ordered their tickets at 4 pm that day, there was only 50 left... so I'm guessing the show sold out! Go Jars!

Got in around 6:15, went up front and we were about three *layers* (rows of standing people) back from the front. Which is really about five/ten feet away from the stage. Wonderfulness! Concert started at 7.

Shaun Groves came out at 7, and I shall have to admit that even though Jennifer Knapp was one of my favorite female singers, I liked his concert better than hers. Certain reasons why... here's a quick rundown of his concert.

*SG comes out on stage*
*everyone cheers*
*plays Satellite and goes straight to After the Music Fades from that song*
SG: Hi guys, thanks for coming out... (etc.) Hey, do you guys like my shirt?
*crowd cheers*
Thanks, cuz... my wife told me to wear this green shirt that I've got under it, *pulls up shirt* but shirts like that are made for guys with muscles. Speaking of muscles... I saw what Jennifer Knapp is wearing and it's kind of like this shirt. Shows off her muscles! Jennifer Knapp, she... she scares me. Yeah, every day she beats me up and takes my lunch money, etc...
*talks about Two Cents and the story behind it*
*sings Two Cents*
*walks over to keyboard*
SG: Now I know you guys all came out here just to see me... *crowd cheers* SHHH! Don't let THEM know that! Yeah... I know you didn't come out for those.. Jar people... or that girl named Jennifer... and since I'm so very humble and generous and unselfish, I've... I've decided to only take up 20 minutes of the time tonight. Cuz I'm just a nice guy like that. And I've asked those friends of mine... that Jars of something and Jennifer to close the show for me.
*crowd is cracking up by this time*
Yeah.. and thanks to all of you for coming out.

(THIS IS WHERE IT GETS GOOD!)
Even those girls with those... blinking arrows on their heads... and those elf hats! THERE'S TWO GIRLS UP HERE WEARING ELF HATS AND BLINKY ARROWS!! What's UP with that?!
(That was character I and II, aka Morgan and Rachel)

*starts playing Welcome Home*
*crowd flips out*
*stops playing*
SG: I'm not going to play that song! I'm just fooling around! *crowd has shocked looks* I don't play that song live... *starts laughing cuz everyone is taking him seriously* *plays song* Thanks for coming out! *waves and exits*

NOTES ON SHAUN GROVES:

He was so funny! He's not as scary looking as his pictures, and he talked to us from the stage! YEE! That totally made my hour (because something else made my hour later!)! He was just really aweshum and down to earth and hilarious!

JK:

I shan't bore you with the entire script of the evening for Jennifer Knapp, because it was NOT one of the best shows I've seen her play. Anyhow. Concert. This tour she has a full backing band (drummer who plays guitar, lead guitarist who is not Mark Townsend, violinist who sang harmony and was a mite odd, and a bassist. He was kewl.) and that was kind of odd, because half the songs she didn't play guitar! Usually it's just her and Mark Townsend up there. But not this time! She sang a TON of songs off the new album, about two or three off Lay It Down, and about two or three off the first album. I don't really remember. She totally remixed Undo Me, and it was good... but it was really weird. I was kind of sad because Jen seemed different than when I'd seen her before, but I don't know. But it was a good concert.

JAR PEOPLE:

Then came intermission, during which we managed to move ourselves up to second *layer*! Great stuff. Jars came out a LONG time later, it seemed like intermission was about a half hour! I don't think it was though... we saw them backstage and just watched! Steve came out and I recognized him (of course)... no one else did! He was playing... turntables... for Silence.. As Rachel says, "The little DJ machine"... it's hard to explain, but there was creepy lights and Matt and Charlie came out and started playing Silence. Dan... didn't come out! He was still backstage (and we couldn't see anymore because the lights were off) and started singing!! It was freaky.. and he slowly came out. Basically just sang "Where aaaaare yooooou... I've got a queeeeestion," over and over.. kind of like when they opened their shows with River Constantine. Just part of the song. Then with the same tune, he started singing "Here comes the show..." and it was interesting? They then burst into Disappear.

COOL THINGS ABOUT THEIR CONCERT AND A FEW FREAKY ONES AT THAT:

-Matt was really funny! He seems like he's totally LOVING being on stage! Freaked me out a bit because he was staring off into space, but he came down on a speaker and shook hands with people in the crowd. He smacked my arm with his guitar. Then the strap fell off and the guitar went falling... a guy in the audience grabbed the neck and pushed it back at Matt so no one would pull on it, and Matt grabbed the body and flipped it back up! Strong wrists! He did that several times.

-Like a Child isn't the extremely remixed version, just regular with Dan playing drums sometimes.

-I Need You was introed exactly like the PPV with "With a new album comes new songs comes a new single comes new songs to play live" and yeah... no new toothbrush remarks.

-Actually, the entire show was similar to the PPV!

-Fly was absolutely BEAUTIFUL!

-The Widowing Field's intro was funny because Dan was talking about how they wrote a song for the movie about Vietnam.
Dan: Yeah, it's this movie with this really hot guy in it.
Steve: HE'S SO DREAMY!
Dan: Yeah, that Mel Gibson!
Rather amusing. I think.

-Flood got the crowd hyped up (finally) and jumping...

-Dan played his drums (which are Pork Pie Drums! and their accordions are Hohner! That's something I've been wanting to find out for a while.

-They ended the concert with Worlds Apart (got me worried for a while that they wouldn't play it!) and they went on for a long long time, then Dan left the stage. I thought he'd just stopped singing, and when I realized he was gone, I was frightened... then Matt took off his guitar and left while Steve was doing some solo thing on his guitar, and then Charlie left. Then Steve played a few dying notes and left... and the crowd kept singing until the silly Norva started blasting their music turned on the lights. *shakes head* Then everyone cheered for 'em!!

-During Flood, Dan laid down on the floor and sang... rather amusing!

-Aaron sang backup with Charlie and Matt (and Steve sang harmony with Dan the whole time pretty much)

OTHER RANDOM THOUGHTS AS THEY COME:

So. That was Jars in a nutshell because I could go on forever. Shaun Groves was joking with people in the audience and tons of stuff, and they were just.. yeah. At one point (when Dan was talking about starving children in Africa), Steve realized that there was a balcony and said "HEY! There's people in a box up there!" kind of off to the side, but the mic picked it up quietly. So we could hear him.

After the show we just stayed where we were and waited for a nice security guard to give us playlists. Rachel and I each got one from one of Jars' roadies. The Norva security people wont' give you anything. We asked for Matt's picks (he left 'em in the mic stand) and the mean Norva guy took them and put 'em in his pocket! So when the guy who gave us the playlists came out, he had two of Steve's picks and he threw one in our general direction, and another in another girl's direction. I was sitting there the entire night thinking that I really really wanted a Steve/Matt pick... and I got it! *happy sigh* I'm so thrilled...! That was aweshum!

We got outside (cuz Jars wasn't going meet people unless they had passes) and Shaun Groves was out there. So we went up to him and conversation was as follows:
Shaun: What's UP with those lights? They were totally trippin' me out all night!
Me: Trippin' you out? Is that a good thing?
Rachel: *I forget what she said*
My Mom: LET'S GET A PICTURE!!!!!!!!!
So we had him sign our books and Rachel's frog and talked a bit more, said it was nice meeting him and left... he's so nice! Just a fun to talk to guy!

All in all, awesome night, we didn't get to meet them but that's ok because we weren't too worried about getting backstage since we shall meet 'em in April! *evil giggle* Can't wait 'til April 13th!

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READ MORGAN'S APRIL 13th REVIEW
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