Caamp in KC with Reese

Monday started out kind of hard. Reese and I went through the record collection and culled all of her albums to move to Idaho with her. Sounds silly but it was a highly emotional experience for both of us. Tears were shed more than once. Logan and Ammon were there as well and I was impressed by Logan’s, gentle and compassionate response to our unexpected sadness. Ammon was laughing and send “why are you guys crying right now? Is there some kind of hormonal thing happening that I am not aware of?! Meg, you look unwell!” Logan quickly let bro know that this is what mothers do, and he should prepare for his mom to be a little sentimental next week before he starts his mission. 

One of Reese’s favorite bands, Caamp, played in Kansas City at the starlight amphitheater on Monday night. I pitched the idea of just a mother daughter date to Logan and Aaron and both were encouraging. Special shout out to Aaron for being financially supportive as well.

At lunch time I pulled up the tour schedule for Caamp And passed my phone over to Reese And said “aye you feel like taking a little drive to Kansas City with me tonight?” She was SO excited! Quincy saw Caamp at the momentary with Benny her sophomore year, and Reese was at BYU and so jealous to miss out. Now it was her turn to see them live! And on a surprise whim.

Reese knew every word to every song. There was a cool breeze, the show was nearly sold out and we were elbow to elbow with the kindest people who were just as delighted as we were to be on the third to last row. Everyone was just happy to be there. Young and old, everyone loves some folk bluegrass. 

These guys are young! Frontman Taylor Meier has such a trademark unique raspy voice, we were expecting a bunch f old bald bearded men to take the stage. We were very surprised to find 25-30 (maximum) year olds playing so well. I assumed the rasp was from old tired vocal cords, but these guys were SO in sync and SO in tune and sang  beautifully!  

No bells or whistles. A very simple stage. Simple lights. No dancing or choreography. Just a group of friends with guitars, a banjo, and a mandolin.  Other songs had a bass, a second guitar, harmonic, a piano or synth, and percussion from drums as well as the second percussion setup they had with the whole audience stomping, clapping, and hollering along. 

We had a great time! The drive was lovely. 6 hours uninterrupted with my best friend. It was a dream! We covered a lot of material! My voice was as raspy as Taylor Meiers after all the yapping we did!  We also covered a dozen genres of music and listen to everything from Little, Jon and Ludacris to Manchester Orchestra and our beloved The Paper Kites…. which of course made me cry because Featherstone is my sendoff song for Reese. I love sharing a love for music with my kids, and I love that they appreciate dancing to Kanye or Zedd as much as a stomp and holler concert like last night. I also love that Reese recognized when Caamp threw in the guitar solo from Tom Perry’s Running Down a Dream into the show as Taylor introduced the band. 

Beautiful weather, beautiful daughter, and beautiful music (Caamp is a bunch of mega chillers!) 

They played all of our favorites. They also surprised the crowd with a rendition of Walking on a Dream by Empire of the Sun, and Dreams by Fleetwood Mac.