deletedItems: Life, Love and the Pursuit of Zombies.

Epic.

That’s what I would have to call my experience seeing my favorite band of all time, Live, in concert. Collective Soul was slated before Live, and Hana Pestle, an up-and-coming artist from Montana, was the opening act.

My husband and I drove 6 hours to Kansas City to see the show, because I had never seeing Live in concert, and I adore the band’s music.

We arrived at the venue, Crossroads KC, about a half an hour before the gates opened. Keep in mind that this was an outdoor venue, and there was a slight chance of rain that day. The line was not very long, so I snapped a few pictures of my surroundings as we waited.

About 10 minutes before the gates opened, it started to rain. Not a heavy rain, but enough to get my shirt somewhat damp, and enough for me to tuck my camera away for the time being.

The gates opened at 7pm sharp, and we made our way to the set of metal bleacher seats in the back of the venue. We didn’t stick around there long, however, when we realized that there was a better set of bleachers MUCH closer to the stage. We made our way to those seats, and settled in next to a nice couple that we had been standing in line with. As we sat and I snapped some pictures of the venue. Crossroads KC is a fairly small ourdoor venue in the heart of Kansas City’s downtown area. It is adjacent to Grinders, a small bar and grill. Overall, from appearances, it was a pretty nice venue. There was wood mulch on the ground to keep too much mud and/or dust from being tracked around, an easily accessible food vendor that also sold beer at 5.00 per cup or any cocktails of your choice, and a “Shots” booth for shots of any liquor you like.

As we sat waiting for the concert to begin, the wind started to pick up. I looked around, and saw that there were some rather ominous clouds headed our direction. People started getting a little nervous as the wind started to whip the banners and signs around, but no one was taking cover just yet. Then, the rain started. Not just a light rain like before, but a freaking DELUGE. We were still sitting on the bleachers, and didn’t really feel like moving was necessary since we were already soaked. However, the wind REALLY started picking up, and began to cause a little damage. It picked up one of the beer tents, and dropped it on a kid that happened to be in the way. One of the cinder blocks or possibly one of the posts hit him in the leg, and he had to be taken out my paramedics. The crowd control fence in front of us blew over, and people were running frantically taking cover. Then, of course, it started to hail. Which freaking hurt. My husband and I decided that it was time to take cover, so we huddled next to the fence behind the bleachers, where a group of fans were holding one of the vinyl banners over all our heads. Incredibly, the hail that started out dime-sized grew to nearly golf-ball sized in no time, which made us really freaking glad that we had taken cover.

Finally, the rain lessened, then stopped. We ventured back out to our bleacher seats, soaking wet but otherwise unharmed.

The crew at Crossroads began cleaning up the mess, and shortly, it was announced that the show would definitely go on. There were a good number of fans still there, including a whole group that were huddled under plastic near the stage. Amazing dedication. :)

It took about an hour to get the mess cleaned up, and to get the stage dry enough for the bands to play.

Finally, around the 9pm mark, they announced Hana Pestle coming to the stage. I had listened a bit to Hana on her MySpace page, and had picked up the EP earlier in the week. She has an amazing voice, which was showcased in her opening song “These Two Hands”. I think my favorite, however, was her cover of Radiohead’s “Creep”, which was her closing song. Hana did an awesome job! During the Collective Soul set, I jogged back to the merch table, and had the chance to meet her, as well as get my picture taken with her. I wish her the best of luck, I think she is going to make it BIG!

After Hana’s set, and a short break, Collective Soul took the stage. I wasn’t too familiar with the opening song, but the rest of the set included their biggest hits, such as “The World I Know” and “December”. I thought they did a pretty good job, even though I am not a huge Collective Soul fan. I was quite happy when they brought out Hana to help out with “Shine”. She did a great job! The lead singer of Collective Soul is very dramatic when singing, with lots of hand gestures and tossing the mic stand around. It wasn’t quite what I expected, but they did a decent job. The best part, was the closing song, “Run”. It’s my favorite Collective Soul song, and they rocked it.

There was another short intermission, while they set up the stage for Live. The crowd had more than doubled in size, and people were getting really excited, including myself!

Live took the stage, amidst screams and cheers from the crowd, opening with “All Over You” and following up with “Waitress”. I had never been so excited in my entire life! After the initial “OMG I’m watching LIVE!!!!” reaction, I settled back to watch the show and take it all in. I was really, really impressed with their sound, and how perfect both the music and the vocals were. Ed’s voice was amazingly on pitch and clear, even in the outdoor venue, which wasn’t something I had seen with other bands. The entire band played great! I was really happy that the keyboardist was present, it added a great element to the whole experience, allowing them to do tracks that they might not have done otherwise. Ed has great energy on stage, and commands the crowd’s attention from the beginning. He was very gracious with the crowd, and really seemed to enjoy performing each and every song.

Here is the night’s set list!

All Over You
Waitress
The River
The Distance
Dolphin’s Cry
Stood Up for Love
Lakini’s Juice [not sure when this one was played]
Walk the Line
Wings
Run to the Water
Heaven
I Alone
Lightning Crashes
I Wanna Dance With You (encore)

There were a few songs that I wished they would have performed, such as Pillar of Davidson and Iris, but I can’t say I was disappointed at all with the choices.

The stand out songs for me were “I Alone”, “Run to the Water” and the opener, “All Over You”. They did such an amazing job on these songs, I was completely caught up in the energy and charisma!

Hands down, this was the best show I’ve been too. The combination of a great venue, awesome sound, and the greatest band on the face of the planet, made the show an awesome, awesome experience.

If you haven’t seen Live, and you like them even a little, please catch one of their shows if you can!!