Amazing Grace

It was recently brought to my attention that, while I haven't been to many concerts in my lifetime, I have gone to the oddest collection of concerts. In order, I've seen:

• Whitney Houston
• Def Leppard
• Amy Grant
• Elton John

Weird, right? I've always known my taste in music is eclectic, but this takes it to a whole other level. My entire family went to see Whitney when I was in junior high... we were pretty high up in the nosebleeds and at some point my brothers Jim and Steve went looking for better seats. During a lull in between songs when things were relatively quiet we heard, "I love you, Whitney!" and we all looked at each other knowing immediately the voice was my brother Steve.

He didn't really love Whitney. He just wanted to be the guy to yell it.

Def Leppard was a total accident, and one of those times it was really good mom was busy and not at home. I was a freshman in high school and Steve was a senior... I got a call from my friend Lisa that she had just won tickets on the radio and if I could be at her house (that was 15 minutes away) in a half hour I could go with her. I ran to dad and asked if it was ok, and he did the "dad-shrug" and said sure.

It was only as Steve was giving me a ride to Lisa's house that I found out he had asked mom weeks before if he could go to the concert and she said NO. Not only that, he was supposed to go with Lisa's boyfriend. So here I was, three years younger than him, going to the Def Leppard concert and sitting with his friends after mom told him he couldn't go.

Dad learned to check in with mom after that.

Amy Grant and Elton John were both random concerts ... but were both ones I actually chose myself and not by accident. The Elton concert was just him on stage with a piano and I could go back and relive it every night he was so good. We had seats off to the side of the stage, and that man reached into a tub of ice and grabbed out a Diet Coke after almost every song. Honestly, I was waiting for him to accidentally belch in the middle of Crocodile Rock but, professional that he is, he held it together...

Obviously I didn't take advantage of my love for music before I couldn't sit through concerts anymore or I would have gone to a lot more of them over the years. But there have been a couple of times when my brother Steve and his wife Patience have gone to concerts and he's called me so I could listen in through his cell phone. Usually you can't hear much over the crowd screaming, but there was one Billy Joel concert where the sound was so darn clear that I spent half the night singing along to the phone while listening to his classics.

It was a night I was incredibly grateful not to be on Candid Camera.

This past Friday night the phone rang and I couldn't get to it, but when I checked my messages I heard none other than Chris Tomlin singing Amazing Grace. Now that's a phone message you don't delete right away. My sweet friend Jenny had gone to the concert and held up her phone, leaving me a five minute message so I could enjoy the concert with her.

Have I mentioned to you all lately that I have the coolest friends?

So, I'm no Chris Tomlin. And I never did concerts. But I did have the opportunity to do a few recordings that I've told you about before. So, close your eyes, pretend I'm on a cell phone and imagine I'm letting you listen in on a concert from my past. Here's a little a cappella Amazing Grace, sung by me a long time ago, to start off your week:

08 Amazing Grace by gitzengirl