The Piano Guys

Years and years and years ago when Kalen and I had been married for less than a year and were still living in Utah and attending Utah State University, the Institute of Religion put on a concert featuring a talented pianist named Jon Schmidt.  The cost for tickets was $1 a piece so we figured we'd go and check it out. Well, we were blown away by the concert!  We ended up going out and buying his two cd's and practically wore them and all of his subsequent albums out over the years.  Then a few years ago, I was listening to a cd of another talented pianist, Paul Cardall who had a cellist on his album accompanying him for several songs.  It was beautiful, so I looked up his name and found that Steven Sharp Nelson had a cd of his own.  So we added that to our collection.  Then not long after, Jon Schmidt and Steven Sharp Nelson teamed up to do some commercials for a piano store owned by Paul Anderson and they posted them on YouTube.  We, along with millions of other people, had fun watching those videos go viral over the next while.  We have followed them as they put out their first album and as they signed on with Sony and produced more albums.  When they announced their concert tour we found that one stop along the way was going to be in Royal Oak over near Detroit.  We were all dying to go.  The tickets were not $1 anymore. Not even close.  But I won the March Madness tournament again this year and could choose our fun family activity and we figured since we weren't going on any trips that summer, that we could take a chunk of our tax return and splurge on something that meant so much to our entire family.

We bought the tickets in April and shortly afterward, the entire concert sold out.  We marked October 16th on the calendar and waited.

Finally the day arrived!  After school we all donned our matching Piano Guys t-shirts that we had each received for our birthdays/Christmas and headed to Royal Oak.  After parking, we joined the long line of people that stretched completely around the building and waited for the doors to open.  

Once we got inside, we were thrilled to find that we had the best (cheap) seats in the house.  The place had the oddest floor that actually slanted backward so that those in front were elevated and those in back couldn't see over all the heads in front of them. Luckily, we had gotten a bench seat in the back of our section.  When we sat on the seat, we could see nothing.  But the back of the bench was actually a concrete section where the floor rose to the next level.  On that section was where the sound and light table was.  We discovered we could sit on the concrete section in front of the table without blocking anything and we could see everything up ahead perfectly.  The best and most exciting part of our seats was that Al VanderBeek (one of the behind the scenes Piano Guys) was running the table.  Spencer kept saying, "I can't believe I can see Al's shoes!"  And during the concert, Al and Kaya had a fun game of peek-a-boo.

The concert was beyond amazing!  They put on an incredible show and did several encore numbers for the cheering crowd. I don't think anyone there wanted it to end. When it finally did, we really hoped to be able to meet them and maybe get an autograph or photo or something.  Apparently so did everyone else.  But after a few minutes, someone came out into the entry hall and announced that they weren't going to be able to come out after all.  A lot of people left but there were still people staying.  We asked the guy selling merchandise, and he told us to stick around.  I guess the announcement pared down the crowd enough that it made the meet and greet more of a possibility.

Sure enough, everyone lined up and shortly afterward, they all came out.  We were way in the back of the line so we knew we would have to wait for awhile.  We were willing, although it was a school night and we still had a nearly two hour drive back home.  But after about thirty minutes or so, they pulled all the families with kids up to the front so that we could get through before it was too late.  It was so much fun to meet them.  When Al saw Kaya he said, "I remember you!"  They had a cute conversation which had Kaya giggling nonstop.  We told Jon about the first concert we had been to and laughed at how far he had come.  And Kalen even asked Jon about his daughter Sarah (who everyone teases Kendall about--Spencer even used to pray that Kendall would marry Sarah Schmidt) and Jon told Kendall, "Who knows?  Maybe someday I'll be your father in law!" They thought it was awesome that we all had their t-shirts (and the merchandise guy even remembered our order because he said it's not everyday you get an order for 7 shirts). It was fun to meet them.  A bit rushed of course, because of the waiting crowd but they did sign autographs and posed for a couple of pictures.

The Piano Guys: Jon Schmidt, Paul Anderson, Steven Sharp Nelson, and Al Van Der Beek

It was such a fun night and worth every dollar.  We told the kids that this was a once in a lifetime event for us, but I think we are all hoping to be able to go a few more times down the road.