Credit: Jae S. Lee
-The Jonas Brothers played an amazing show at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on Sunday. The show was filled with covers, friends and surprises. Check out two great articles below. We’ll have our own footage and pictures soon.
USA Today: Postcard from the Road
Excerpt:
The event: The Jonas Brothers and friends, an off-tour concert Sunday night at 2,400-seat Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Tickets ($75) sold out the day the show was announced. Friends included Jordin Sparks, country stars Martina McBride, Brad Paisley, Phil Vassar and Vince Gill; and contemporary Christian artists Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith and Steven Curtis Chapman.
Family ties: “A lot of the people we’ll bring up tonight are idols of ours,” Nick Jonas told the crowd. The first one out: Michael W. Smith, who sang his 1991 hit Place in This World. Dad Kevin Jonas and Smith wrote a song called I Still Have the Dream. “They used to come to the show in the early days,” Smith says. “They’re talented — this is more than just a boy band.”
The covers: The Jonases not only had plenty of guests, they sprinkled their set with a liberal dose of covers, including John Mayer’s Gravity and Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’. They had several for the parents in the audience to enjoy, going back to the ’70s for Bob Marley’s Waiting in Vain, The Band’s The Weight (where Smith, Chapman, Vassar and Gill joined them) and a show-closing singalong of Don McLean’s American Pie.
Jonas Brothers get ‘Nashville welcome’ from special guests, fans
Excerpt:
When Faith Hill and Tim McGraw asked the sold-out crowd at the Ryman Auditorium to give the Jonas Brothers a “big Nashville welcome,” the audience of teens and tweens responded with resounding cheers.
Still, that was nothing compared with the deafening shrieks that greeted brothers Joe, Nick and Kevin Jonas as the pop trio took the stage five minutes later — it was only halfway into the first verse of “That’s Just the Way We Roll” that the song became audible.
AdvertisementOf course, the fans weren’t the only ones welcoming the band to Music City. Surprise guest performers included Brad Paisley, Martina McBride, Amy Grant, Vince Gill, Michael W. Smith, Steven Curtis Chapman, Phil Vassar, American Idol winner Jordin Sparks and Honor Society.
“We thought you deserved something extra special,” Nick Jonas told the audience at the beginning of the show.
Each guest performed one more of their own songs with the band: Paisley jammed on “Easy Money” and “Waitin’ on a Woman,” McBride belted her hit “Independence Day” and the group’s own “When You Look Me in the Eyes,” and Grant sang “Baby Baby” — a song that, she amusingly noted, was written for her now-19-year-old daughter.
“You guys were probably 2 months old at the time,” she told the band.
The carousel of celebrity appearances helped shield the fact that the concert was an admirably stripped-down affair: no dance routines, wardrobe changes or glitzy sets. It served to showcase the brothers’ impressive musicianship, particularly Nick, who switched between guitar, piano and drums throughout the set. While much of the music’s heavy lifting was done by a solid backing band, it was Nick who led the band and guests through songs and segues.
A few of the covers were noticeably rough around the edges. A sprawling take on The Band’s “The Weight” had its share of flubbed lines, and it seemed not everyone on stage was sure how to end Don McLean’s “American Pie.”
Still, in a way, the spontaneous moments were where the young band shined the most. Teen pop has plenty of performers able to rehearse and perfectly reproduce their dance steps and vocal runs. But to see a group of guys from that world able to wing it with some of Nashville’s best pickers and singers? That’s something else.
SET LIST“That’s Just the Way We Roll”
“Hold On”
“Gotta Find You”
“Gravity”
“Tonight”
“Place in this World” (with Michael W. Smith)
“Year 3000”
“Independence Day” (with Martina McBride)
“Baby Baby” (with Amy Grant)
“Goodnight and Goodbye”
“Superstition” (with Jordin Sparks)
“No Air” (with Jordin Sparks)
“Cinderella” (with Steven Curtis Chapman)
“The Weight” (with Steven Curtis Chapman, Vince Gill, Michael W. Smith and Phil Vassar)
“Lovebug”
“A Little Bit Longer”
“Don’t Close the Book” (with Honor Society)
“When You Look Me in the Eyes” (with Martina McBride)
“Waitin’ on a Woman” (with Brad Paisley)
“Easy Money” (with Brad Paisley
“Free Fallin'”
“Waiting in Vain”
“S.O.S.”
“Burnin’ Up”
“American Pie” (with all guests)
