Jars of Clay at Paramount Great America

Redwood Amphitheatre
Santa Clara, CA
March 31, 2003
by Didi DeRuiter

First of all Jars picked a great day to come to Northern California. The weather was absolutely perfect. It was about 85 degrees. Dan mentioned he loved the big orange ball in the sky.

When they walked on stage Teresa, Marlo & I started waving our JOC t-shirts and jumping & down. Steve got excited when he noticed us acting crazy.

Believe it or not they opened the show with "Hello Again" by Neil Diamond…the crowd was pretty surprised but the crowd got a good laugh out of it & Jars did too. The whole band was really silly esp. Dan & Steve...they had the crowd laughing most of the time. I can't tell you the song set list because I was way too excited & was totally jumping up & down during the fast songs (now this is not normal for Didi to do this). LOL!!!

Dan & Steve said they were going to test out a new song on us & they were going to have the ushers pass out wafers & questionnaires. The new song was "Show You Love". It was so beautiful...the crowd was totally worshipping to this NEW song that they never heard.

During "I'm Alright" Dan did some different things vocally...he really hit some pretty high notes, which I never noticed before when he sang that song.

They sang "The Valley Song". There was an airplane that was flying over so Dan stopped the song to listen to the airplane fly by...then they started the song again.

Teresa & I had this terrific idea during the show (can't remember which song it was) but we plastered ourselves in front of the stage & had our picture taken. In the back round on stage Dan was checking us out and posing with us. I think he thought he was Mr. Universe or something and then he kept pointing to his watch (now I know why the crowd was laughing…I thought they were laughing at us but it was Dan they were laughing at…hopefully just Dan!).

The crowd was into the Jars set except a few people in the FRONT middle section....sheesh!! The crowd was on their feet the whole time & were really into "WORSHIPPING" to the Jars songs...The whole left side of the venue was jumping up & down the whole time. They requested "Worlds Apart" as the closing song but I do think that was what Jars had planned anyways...

Dan screwed up on "Worlds Apart" during the "look beyond the empty cross" etc...But he did a great recovery job though...but it was kind of funny with Steve singing backup & singing a different lyric...but I think only true Jarheads would've caught this. Dan added a twist to Worlds Apart...they did the "Hallelujah" with the crowd but the ending he sang, "Jesus blood never fails me, this I know"...and repeated it. This is from Gavin Bryers CD, Dan mentioned before in one of his posts.

Also some dude yelled "Dan, where's the hat" so someone out in the crowd knew about "the famous hat".

The only disappointment that I had was that my camera has a mind of her own. I took tons of pictures of ALL the guys. I think my camera has a crush on Matt (LOL!!)...only 2 pics of Dan came out & all the pics of Steve that I took NONE came out. I was really STEAMED because I thought I got some great pics of Steve doing his "Karate Kid" pose & just jammin' his heart out.

I had some eye contact with Charlie & I think he recognized me because all of sudden he had this huge smile of his face and I gave him the thumbs up. He's too sweet!! At the end Steve suddenly recognized Marlo & I and his whole face just lit up. He started waving & his eyes got really wide & he had this really huge smile on his face. It totally surprised me because I didn't expect that at all...that he would totally spot us in the crowd esp. since they meet so many people and we're fans just like everyone else.

Anyways, no autographs...but we checked it out anyways after their performance. I guess at that time it was still not certain if they would or not. The line was HUGE to meet them. But, then they posted a sign that Jars were not signing autographs this time around.

I found out some exciting news though. I talked with one of the DJ's from The Bridge Radio (110.7 FM) and she said they are trying to work with their management to promote a Caedmons Call & Jars show in Berkeley in November. Berkeley is a great location since Berkeley is so liberal and UC Berkeley is so close by. If one person would be touched by one of these bands...it would be totally worth it!! Keep this in your prayers. The Bridge will also be posting some pics on their web site from the show. When that's up I will forward the link to you.