Looking for America: Relient K & Switchfoot {Part One}

In a 2015 blog post, I said that if I had a time machine, I would go to the 2007 Switchfoot and Relient K concert in my city. At the time, I was still a kid and not a major fan, but I came to wish that the concert had been just a few years later so that I could have gone. This spring, I learned that Relient K and Switchfoot were touring together again and coming to a venue half an hour away. I bought my ticket in advance and looked forward to the event all year. Last night, it happened, and I saw my favorite bands in concert together. My life is complete. I have officially gotten everything I ever wanted in life. (Which is ironic, given that I've never been in a romantic relationship. But who cares about those? Well, everyone, but I had different priorities.)

I saw Relient K in 2013, so that need in my soul was filled, but this was my first time seeing Switchfoot. Both of these bands were the soundtrack to my teenage years and contributed to my personal formation, and Switchfoot provided truth, hope, and perspective when I dealt with depression, self-directed rage, and despair as a chronically ill teenager with few friends, a weird personality, and the sense that no one would ever understand. The albums introduced me to new ways of looking at life while simultaneously giving me words to express my deeply held values and feelings. This band provided a profound outlet, because whether I was experiencing ecstasy, pain, frustration, righteous indignation, existential despair, or an intangible sense of beauty, there was always a suitable Switchfoot song that would affirm the realness of my feelings and point me to something beyond myself.

I went to the concert with Victoria, a friend from high school. She's been a phantom friend for a few years because she was at college and I never got to see her, but I still thought of her often, and all my other friends knew who she was because I would come out with so many random stories about her. Now that she has graduated, we've gotten together a few times, and it was marvelous to share the experience of the concert last night.

When we pulled into the parking lot and saw the tour buses, it started feeling real.

     Relient K had a giant buffalo onstage. This was really exciting, because one of my fictional characters (read: imaginary friends) loves buffalo. After a while, I remembered that the reason I made that up in 2011 was because one of my Narnia forum friends had an imaginary pet buffalo named Sushi. I loved that he was standing up there contemplatively during Relient K's performance. Sushi wrote opera, so I'm not sure what he thought of this music style.

 They sang "Mrs. Hippopotamuses,'" my favorite song from the new album. It's all about Ohio nostalgia and is special to me because of Ohioan friends, Ohioan fictional characters, and drives through the state on the way to visit my paternal grandparents. I was so glad to experience this song live.

Photo credits for this image go to some random person on Twitter. I'm much obliged to them for sharing it with the event hashtag, because this was one of my favorite moments of the concert. The last song Relient K played was "Deathbed." Jon Foreman (the lead singer of Switchfoot) has a solo at the end of that song, so when Relient K started playing it, I got misty eyed, knowing what was coming. Sure enough, he came out onstage at the end and sang the end of the song. It was beautiful.

  Seeing Switchfoot was such an amazing experience, and I loved shouting along with all the songs and freaking out about the fact that I was in the same room with the people who made the music that made me the person I am.

 He made his way through the crowd and climbed up onto the balcony in the back, never missing a note of "Love Alone is Worth the Fight." I was so happy for the people up there. (Here's a link to a fellow concert-goer's related YouTube video.)

"Hello Hurricane" with just a few instruments:

 Jon Foreman crowdsurfed towards the back of the building, and I touched his leg! This is the lousiest picture in the history of lousy pictures, but this shows just how close I was, even after he was out of reach. (His head is to the right above the light, and the white is his t-shirt.) I LIVED FOR THIS AND SO MANY OTHER MOMENTS OF THIS CONCERT. I'm not obsessive about celebrities, but it was wonderful to be in the same physical space with the band after years of their recorded voices meaning so much to me. This just made it even more surreal and amazing.

 Relient K came back out for part of the encore, and it was just magnificent to see the two bands together and to marvel again that my dream came true.

     Sometime soon, I shall follow up with part two, a post reflecting on the songs and some of what Jon Foreman shared from the stage. It seems indulgent to make two posts about one event, but if I include it all in one post, the only people who will make it to the end would be the most die-hard band fans and those who love me enough to endure through hyper-long blog posts. So, I shall return!