Last Thursday, my family and I attended the WinterJam concert in our area. What a powerhouse of a tour and the best part of the show were the women rockers! The highlights (for me) were seeing Mandisa, BarlowGirl and Skillet and I’ve been chomping at the bit to get this review out of my head and onto the web, so here goes…
As a hard-core American Idol fan, I was really thrilled to see Mandisa take the stage. Her singing was fantastic, but what captured my attention even more than her vocals was the testimony she gave about her time on American Idol and how she came to forgive Simon for his derogatory remarks about her weight. Then she sang a song that was new to me called “God Speaking” which was very cool.
Skillet is one of my favorite hard rock bands and I have never seen them live in concert before so this was quite treat. Naturally I spent most of my time fixated on drummer Lori Peters, watching her beat the tar out of her kit. Kori played keys and jammed on her guitar as well. It was refreshing to see a mixed-gender band for a change. These seem to be getting rarer and rarer these days.
BarlowGirl rocked it out like nobody’s business! I was pleasantly surprised at how fabulous they sounded for such a young group, although I’m sure they have gained a tremendous amount of experience in the past few years. And honestly, I half expected them to have other instrumentalists to fill in musically, but they took charge of their set with Alyssa on keys/bass, Rebecca on guitar and Lauren on drums. They had an incredibly full sound and Lauren led almost all of the vocals from the drums which was very impressive. (I don’t think I could play that hard AND sing at the same time!) They played a great mix of songs from all three of their albums, letting the audience sing along with “Never Alone”.
My two girls loved every second of the BarlowGirl’s performance. We had pretty decent seats in the first section of risers to the left of the stage. I tried to snap a few photos from my iPhone, but they aren’t that spectacular.
WinterJam tickets are only $10 a piece for a 4-hour concert of highly talented artists. If they are coming to your area, make plans to attend. It’s a night you won’t soon forget!
