Big World, Minnie Mee: Concert Review: OneRepublic

OneRepublic

Mayer Hawthorne

Serena Ryder

Ravinia Park

23 July 2013

Once again, I find myself at Ravinia Park. I honestly think this is the most I have ever spent in the Northern Suburbs for concerts... weird. Anyways, this time I found myself here for a OneRepublic concert.

Just like the Sheryl Crow concert, my friend and I had lawn tickets. However, the only different thing was the weather. Instead of being 90ish degrees, it was about 70˚ and I was freezing! But we made the best of it, chilling with a movie, some books, and food from delicious Panera Bread.

The show was amazing though! We started our night watching Harry Potter, and then we read all during Serena Ryder. I only know a few of her songs, but she put on a great show, and she seemed really excited to be playing at the park. Mayer Hawthorne was next and his music was really good. Just like Serena Ryder, I didn't really know his music that well, but I know his name. His music did not disappoint. There was so much energy and excitement.

But OneRepublic was the main reason we were at Ravinia. And let mee say, I have such a new found love and respect for that band now. They played all their singles, from Counting Stars to Stop and Stare. They even sang a few covers, including Gold Digger and part of Hold Us. Ryan Tedder's (vocals) voice is simply heaven. His voice sounds even better than the recordings! It was awesome!!

&& to make everything better, while we were listening out on the lawn, some woman walked up to us and offered us free amphitheater seats!! Which basically means, we packed up our stuff extremely quickly and ran to the pavilion to watch OneRepublic up close. What makes things even better, is that we were in the 8th row! It was freaking beautiful! We could see everything on the stage perfectly, and we could perfectly hear and experience everything and anything!! This was beautiful because I didn't even realize how attractive Tedder was til I saw his face, while he was singing. It was bee- yoouuu- tee- ful!! What was even more fun was that Tedder jumped off stage and ran around the amphitheater. His goal was to make it to the back of the amphitheater so he could sing to the people in the lawn too! As tempting as it was to run after him, the security guards at Ravinia were so sweet and nice (they told us where to look when we couldn't see Tedder anymore) that we didn't tempt fate. However, my favorite part was at the end, when OneRepublic started singing If I Lose Myself and started throwing these large blow-up, light up, balls with their names on it! Best even, after I stupidly hit one away from mee (reflexes... ), another one came towards us, and my best friend caught it. And gave it to mee. I love my best friend (: shout out to her!

All in all was an amazing and highly successful concert night. Surprises galore! And they were all perfect.