This one was not my typical genre of music, but it also wasn’t a typical concert experience. Big props to my buddy Del for once again going the VIP route. This show was quite cool.
Arriving at the club, we were greeted outside by Jordan the “Party Master” for some VIP lanyards. After a bit, we were brought into the club where the boys from Switchfoot were doing a sound check. The band welcomed about 30 to 40 of us, played some songs, and took some questions from the crowd.
If you’re not familiar with this band, it’s two brothers (Jon and Tim Foreman) and two other dudes (Chad on drums on Jerome on keys) and then they have another dude (Boaz – unsure of spelling) touring with them as another guitarist. He does not appear to be a full band member looking at their website.
With the VIP experience, you were able to pre-submit questions, which I did, that they may answer. Mine was the first one they picked off the list, and of course, I had to work in Oasis with all the recent reunion hype:
As brothers in a “90s band” who know what it takes to maintain a long, professional, music career together and keep the band going…do you think Oasis will hold it together to complete their reunion tour?”
There was some laughter and then Tim took the question. He said he does not think they’ll keep it together the full tour. They need to have chaos, and it would be off-brand if the tour went off without a hitch. I wish I had recorded the answer, but I failed. Sorry. He did go on though to say that he and Jon do fight, and once had a big blowout but they’ve learned to work through the issues and use it as fuel to write better songs.
They played some songs for us, took more questions, and they also let one of the guys come up and play with them. He had flown in from Brazil just to see them and said that they had inspired him to learn guitar. He did well and actually ended up returning to play another song during the actual show.
After the approximately 50-minute private session was over, we had to get back in line outside but our passes gave us an entry 15 minutes earlier than the rest of the crown in order to get a good spot in the club. This did not pertain to us however because our designate area for the night was on the side of the stage, standing next to their guitar tech which was pretty cool.
From this vantage point, we were there to high-five/fist bump/shake hands with the band as they took the stage and again when leaving and coming back for the encore. I had only had this view once before and that ironically was Tesla back in 2002. I say this is ironic because I saw Tesla the night before Switchfoot. The 2002 Tesla side stage experience was also pretty awesome. The 2024 Tesla experience…not so much.
Anyway, Switchfoot is out celebrating the 25th anniversary of their album The Beautiful Letdown. For this tour, they are doing what many bands seem to be doing lately and they’re playing the full album. They did play it a bit out of sequence by saving Twenty-Four for last. Well, last as far as that album goes as they did at least another 4 songs after this, two of them as part of the encore.
What I will say about Switchfoot is that they have some loyal fans. There were people there during the Q&A session who have done the VIP experience multiple times, some even just a week before. It wasn’t a huge crowd but it was decent and most people seemed to know every word, and many people brought signs and gifts for the band. Does this make them “Switchies” or “Footies” or “Switchfooties?” I don’t know. But they have a good following. I’ll also say that they seem like genuinely nice dudes. Jon goes into the crowd a lot during the show, and played Twenty-Four off the stage in the middle of the crowd. The rest of the band was very friendly as well, and we received a “thanks for coming” from nearly every band member, guitar tech, tour manager, and Jordan the Party Master.
As for myself, I just like live music and will go to pretty much any show. For this reason, and I hate to admit it for the hardcore fans, I really didn’t know this band too much leading up to the show. I knew the big radio hit, Meant to Live and did recognize some of the songs, but I wasn’t a huge follower. I still really enjoyed and appreciate it though, so that’s gotta count for something.
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