I was in the second row center pit right behind Eric & his family from FOA. My only complaint was that the seats were folding chairs without pillows & for my condition (5 months Pregnant) really bothered my back. My fault though as I should have took a pillow along. I am very appreciative that the venue & FOA did this for us (opening up the 1st 3 rows) as it was very nice to be that close to Amy. It made it hard for me to get up & dance/clap during the Stevie Wonder song later in the concert though. A good many people yelled out requests during the concert but the only one Amy played was Father's Eyes...some of them she said she was not prepared to do. I felt bad as a girl infront of me had a sign requesting "Thy Word" & we know Amy saw it but she did not play it. Some girl early in the concert yelled out for her to play "Baby, Baby" & Amy said it was her only big hit & she was saving it for the end of the show...as she was pacing herself. A fun moment was just after Amy sang "Simple Things" & she looked down at our section of the pit & said "I think y'all need microphones down there"...obviously she heard the first rows of FOA fans singing along.

The concert was a nice mix of old & new stuff. Some pleasant surprises to hear like If These Walls Could Speak, In a Little While, & Jesus Loves Me/They will Know We are Christians by Our Love/Helping Hand medley that was just awesome. Amy made a point of introducing her band members throughout the show & two songs featured Will Owsley who has a solo indy album out & Kim Keyes who also did a very funny impersonation of Cher singing the Patsy Cline song "Crazy".

Two stories that Amy told during the show... 1)At Chautauqua (Friday) the afternoon before the concert they went bike riding to see the grounds and such. She started talking to a couple of teenage girls there about the area, they (the girls) had been coming to Chautauqua since they were really young. After they had talked a while, one of the girls looked at Amy & said "So, what's your importance here?", & Amy (ever her humble self) said "Oh, I'm just a singer". She added that the girls came up to her after the concert & said they were just mortified, they had never heard of her before. She told them it was a big world.
2) During a "lull" she said there are so many stories of her kids that she could tell & Jamminjeff from FOA yelled out to tell the snake story--so she did--in more detail than she did in the FOA chat. She expanded on her former compulsion to kill every snake she saw, usually with a stick or a golf club. She laughed when she related how one time she left the snake curled up in the hole for the next group to find. She also said that on that camping trip she referred to Sarah (her daughter) begged to keep the snake as a pet so she said ok, then sometime on the way home the snake got loose & was in her car. They took everything out of the car & still couldn't find it. So for days afterwards, everywhere she would go she'd leave all her doors open to give the snake a way out. Finally after a couple of days she said the snake followed her out of the car.

I loved Amy's curly hair, reminded me of the old days when her hair was curly. I was able to take 4 rolls of 800 speed 24 frame film from my 2nd row seats throughout the show with my zoom lens. It was great to sit so close to people whom I have met through FOA.