friday was my day off...i was planning on going to the jars of clay/caedmon's call concert on friday night, so i drove down early to hang out with mel and dodger...that dodger is such a handful! so playful...always ready to play, always wanting to play...wore me out! it was really nice to spend time with mel...i feel like it had been such a long time since we last saw each other, let alone spent some quality time with each other.

so esther came over, and we went to the jars of clay/caedmon's call concert at uc irvine. (yes, that's my third caedmon's call concert in about 4 years - the first time in michigan, the second time at azusa pacific) lydia, laura and i were planning on going since the summer, but laura ended up going to the show up in norcal, so esther joined us instead. the show was awesome, and though i went primarily to see caedmon's call (unlike the rest of the audience, it seemed), the jars of clay part was really good, too. i think i'm a renewed fan. the only thing was, since they were both headlining, they each played about an hour, which didn't seem long enough. but then, both bands played a lot of my favorites, so it was well worth it.

we had pretty good seats, to the left of the stage, close enough to see that cliff young was barefoot. one of my favorite things about their live show is that they have these two percussionists - one drummer and another playing miscellaneous percussion instruments (in michigan, he played a garbage can; at this show, it looked like he played a washboard for one of the songs) - and they sometimes just go crazy, but they're so coordinated...it's really fun to watch. at this show, they didn't go off as much, but there were still some good moments. and all their voices sound so good live...even better than their recordings. that's actually what impressed me about jars of clay, too, 'cuz the lead singer sounded really, really good.

i hafta confess that i did a crazy fan thing. during intermission (while they were taking down the caedmon's call stuff and setting up for jars of clay), we saw cliff young a little to the side of where we were sitting, talking to some people. lydia had her digital camera, and i was debating whether to go down there or not...for about ten minutes, i was thinking, "nah, i wouldn't know what to say, it's kinda weird, yada, yada, yada..." then i saw someone go up for an autograph, and i just stood up and dragged lydia along to take a picture. he was really, really nice, but i was super-nervous, so i think he was a bit taken aback. looking back, he musta thought i was some crazy, but, whatever...and the picture turned out pretty okay, so lydia's gonna send me a copy. yaay!

i was talking to laura a few days before the show 'cuz i had to pick up the tickets from her, and she was telling me about the show. i guess she had gone up for pastor eugene's ordination, and a bunch of them went to the show while they were up there. so she was telling me about the ordination, and then about the show. and she told me how the lead singer of jars of clay was kinda making them laugh at some points...for example, while he was singing "flood" at a certain point in the song he motioned as if he was drowning...and sometimes he used "spirit hands" (think "bring it on") (when she was telling me, i had this sudden picture of pastor eugene flashing spirit hands...that was pretty funny). i told esther and lydia about that, so we were kinda anticipating it. there were certain moments when we just looked at each other and laughed, though he wasn't as out there as i think i was anticipating. he's just a very expressive guy...even when he was talking to the audience, he was pretty expressive.

both bands were really great live, and it was so cool just to such great musicians using their amazing talents for God's glory. i was really blessed by some of the songs...God really used some moments to speak to me and challenge me.