Jammin with Jars of Clay

Nearly 3,000 attendees packed the Felix Event Center to see Jars of Clay live in concert Saturday night, April 9, 2005. Flashing lights glittered on stage as Small Boat Sinking and Tyrone Wells opened for the critically acclaimed Grammy award-winning band.

The highly publicized event - sponsored by APU's Office of Communiversity - lasted three and a half hours, enough time for students to lose their voices and the word of God to be shared through the brilliance of three bands. The show opened with up-and-coming rock band, Small Boat Sinking. This well known group, including APU’s worship leader Brian Taylor ’05, plays at local coffee shops in Azusa.

After Small Boat Sinking rocked the place with precious vocals and glorious accordion harmonies, Tyrone Wells performed to an ecstatic crowd. When the tune to “Sea Breeze” began, screaming filled the Event Center as the crowd began to sway, hands raised at Wells’s feet to the endearing melody. For his final song, Wells played “When All is Said and Done” and prior to the song, he reflected, “When all is said and done all we have is our relationship with God and our relationship with each other.”

When Jars of Clay came on, fans began to scream and applaud wildly. They played a mixture of previously released songs like a “Faith Like a Child” as well as some from their recently released album, Redemption Songs. Lead singer, Dan, revealed to the audience that he wanted the concert not to be about Jars of Clay, but to be about their fans. This explained the lack of flashiness and percussion that have become characteristic of major concerts and a stage that instead held only the band and a handful of guitars. “This is the way that we started,” Dan said, “Just a couple of guys and their guitars.”

The concert was similar to a worship service as Jars of Clay played recognizable oldies that everyone sang, describing attributes of God. Their album Redemption Songs, a rendition of revised hymns, filled the Event Center with new music to old acknowledgements of God’s sovereignty. Quickly after the conclusion of the show, the entire Event Center applauded, wanting Jars of Clay to reappear for an encore and an acoustic version of their signature song, “Flood.” The whole building erupted as fans cheered louder than they had the entire concert, flooding the building with an encore to remember.