Rock the River - St. Louis

August 2nd, 2009 I attended one of the greatest concerts of my life: Rock the River

The event took place directly under the Gateway Arch right by the Mississippi River.

Admission was free!

The show opened up first with Canton Jones who got the crowd pumped and ready for RED.

RED was amazing live, the guy can sing really good but one of the interesting things about the band is that I had no idea the guy playing bass was also the guy who does all the screaming.

Their set list included: Fight Inside, Confession (What's Inside My Head), Let Go, Death of Me, Already Over and Breathe Into Me.

Next up on the performance list was Lecrae but I didn't stay and listen to him because I was too busy trying to manuver through the crowd to get to the merchandise tent where I bought my Red shirt, Skillet poster and pre-ordered Awake for $9.

I also missed Franklin Graham (Billy Graham's son) speak but from what I head it was pretty incredible.

After I got back to my spot Hawk Nelson came on and the place was jumping and dancing around having a good time. Jason Dunn got rid of the mohawk and now has long hair again back in the days of Letters to President and Smile, It's the End of the World.

Their set list was clever considering they used songs from every single one of their albums including Live Life Loud.

They performed Bring 'Em Out to start with followed by The Show, You Have What I Need, Friend Like That, The Meaning of Life, California, Let's Dance and Live Life Loud.

Afterwards, there was yet another Franklin Graham altar call for people to come down and accept Christ into their lives.

Kirk Franklin was on stage next but I missed him to go get some food

The emcee talked and then he introduced Skillet, the place lit up and started going crazy.

Skillet started off by having a robotic voice give an intro that said "Skillet welcomes you to the show, Skillet would like to remind their audience that they are not responsible for lost voices, whiplash from neck, or a rocked off face"

As soon as that stopped Ben Kasica, Korey Cooper and Jen Ledger started rocking out and the crowd went nuts. Then when John Cooper walked out with his bass the madness began. Korey and Ben were on levitating platforms (as seen in the picture) and were going up and up as they continued to play. Finally, the music began opening with Whispers In the Dark followed by The Older I Get which was funny because the band's equipment was not working right so when Korey started to play the intro to the song the guitar went dead and she quickly fixed it while John started singing la-la-la-la-la-la la-la la-la-la-la-la in the style of the song. They managed to play it but then had to stall so they could look at the equipment and get it fixed. John started talking to the crowd and said "Jesus is greater thank rock 'n roll, Jesus is greater that music, he is the greatest thing that has ever happened to us" The band started playing again with Comatose where the Asian instrumentalists got out on the platforms and were playing. The Last Night came on followed by Hero and Rebirthing then closed out the show with Savior. My friends were disappointed they didn't play Monster but we decided that we are going to see a Skillet headlined show to hear over an hour of their stuff. There was so much head banging, raising fists in the air and just rocking out, my head and throat still hurt from that amazing show. Skillet was my favorite that day.

Later on at night Flyleaf finally came on stage and they definately won the loudest band of the day award. Lacey is a great singer and her scream are good but we just couldn't hear what she was saying. They played Fully Alive, I'm So Sick, All Around Me and some new stuff. My group left as they were playing Cassie and Breathe Today but it was still an awesome show!

Rock the River - St. Louis was AMAZING!