Hi!
A few days ago we were able to go to a Joel Ansett concert in Milwaukee! He is a subtly Christian singer-songwriter artist. My Mom found him around a year ago and his music is amazing. It’s very calming but also at the concert I realized just how deep and heavy a lot of the songs are. He talks about a lot of grief and struggle in them, and it helps him be happier and grow closer to God. I can see how, it helped me too!
I’ve realized how this chill, singer-songwriter music that’s often with acoustics or piano, especially if it’s Christian, is one of my favorite types of music. I’ve grown up with this style of music in our house, it is so inspiring, creative and relaxing. Lately our family has had Joel’s music on in the background, especially at night, and it is so cozy with the season starting to feeling like fall!
We were able to make it to this concert of Joel’s, which was a part of the 10th Anniversary Tour for his album, “The Nature of Us.” It was at a church in Milwaukee, which was very nice. We also went out to eat before and that was fun, it was a good night!
I knew I’d like the concert, but I loved it way more than I thought! I could really feel God talking to me through several of the songs. I enjoyed getting to see Joel sing in person, he has such a cool voice. And we got to meet him at the end! He was also with one of his best friends, Dan DeCristofaro, who played some of his own songs beforehand and then played with Joel for the rest. Dan had an amazing voice and was super charismatic!
I read something on Joel’s website about re-humanizing, it was partly unrelated, but I think his work in general is re-humanizing. It gets you in touch with things below the surface and I certainly had that experience. It was so good!
I’ll go into it more below.
What’s something you liked about it (and why)? He had such a cool way of talking to the audience, which I loved. He talked quite a bit and was very relatable but he wasn’t over the top. He was very chill and he had a great sense of humor, which I also really enjoyed. He made so many little jokes here and there. His vibe was calm but silly and it drew the audience in, I really liked it.
I also loved hearing the stories about the songs. It brought them all to life and made me enjoy them even more. He was very good at telling the stories, he mentioned that he loves giving context and that was really helpful.
What’s something you disliked about it (and why)? There was someone sitting in front of me and that made it hard to see Joel at times so I wish that would’ve have been the case. The church was nice but since the pews were all the same level it did make that part of it challenging. But honestly I only noticed it at the beginning so I think he was in a pretty good position for most of it and it must not have bothered me much.
What was your biggest takeaway or lesson? Joel said at the beginning that there may be a song that jumps out to you. There were definitely a few for me! One of them was “Lost For Now,” which is about struggling when things are taken away from you and trusting God through that. I knew this one going into it (I didn’t know many of his songs specifically) and it’s a beautiful song so seeing him sing this right in front of us was so cool. It just really hit me, the idea that I don’t know what the future will hold and that I may lose people who are dear to me. And also God has been talking to me about detachment and how I need to let go of things in order to follow Him. The line, “it’s only lost for now” really struck me too. All this got me to the point of hearing the question that He keeps placing on my heart, “Am I enough for you?” And in despite of the sadness, this song helped me feel like He would be enough for me, even if I lost all this stuff.
The lines at the end where he raises his voice also hit me. Because Joel has this quiet, soft voice most of time, it made the times when he does raise his voice higher and louder so powerful, especially in person.
All these emotions kept going when a few songs later he played “Turn to Gold,” which I’ve barely heard before. The story was really neat, basically he thought about how if he were an aspen tree and their golden leaves were his clothes, he’d want to wear them for more than a few days like they do! He realized he had the wrong approach to blessing, where he’d grasp on to it and act like it was the last good thing that would ever happen to him. But he said the better way to keep blessings is with open hands, remembering that the Lord gives and takes away. This really struck me as well, and then when I heard the song I fell in love with it! The refrain is beautiful, it’s about not being afraid to let go. Of course this fit so well with the last song and it impacted me so deeply. It has a line at the end, “Come and see the nature of true royalty, it’s not having a golden crown, it’s learning to lay it down.” Wow. That’s what Jesus did. And that’s detachment right there, the true victory is being able to lay it down.
The other song was “Tragedy is Not The End,” and that had a lot of neat lines that hit me as well.
Joel made a joke about marketing these events, because it’s like, “Do you want to grieve in public? Or weep silently next to a stranger?” It was so funny, but also true! I didn’t realize how heavy his songs were. I felt like I was grieving but almost in advance, like whatever it was hadn’t fully happened yet. For some of it I’m not sure whether it will happen and some of it I know needs to happen. It was God preparing me. It was sad but also really beautiful and I felt very close to God. So yeah, all of this was my takeaway. I know I need to enter into detachment and to let God be enough for me. And I also know I should appreciate what I have and who is in my life, and treat them kinder. ❤️
What is something you’re curious to learn more about as a result of this experience? I’m familiar with a lot of his songs because they’ve been on in the background for a while, but I’m curious to listen to them more closely and pay attention to the lyrics. They all have such a cool meaning and he is so intentional with them.
Thank you for reading!
God bless!
Lucy
