On the 24th of January 2017 (a date I will never forget!) I drove to Dublin to see Home Free live in concert. The doors opened at 8pm so my friends and I arrived at the venue at 7.30pm. There was a huge line there already but once the doors opened the line moved pretty fast.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The first thing I noticed as I walked through the front door of the venue, was Jenika standing behind the merch table. I immediately started fangirling when I saw her so I ended up asking her for a picture. She was so sweet and friendly. I said congratulations to her on her and Tims wedding to which she responded "awh, thank you. You're so sweet". Then I bought one of their Don't It Feel Good shirts. Jenika is also a lot taller than I thought, maybe it's because I've only ever seen her standing next to Tim.
We then went in to the hall and found our seats. Thankfully the place was small because we ended up sitting at the very back of the place. I didn't mind too much though because I was sitting right beside the 6th member of Home Free, Allen Strand and his beautiful wife Heather.
At exactly 9pm I saw Tim walking through the door and on to the stage followed by the rest of the band. It was at this moment I turned to my friends and started crying. I just couldn't believe that they were actually standing on stage in front of me. I was overwhelmed so I broke down.
Then the most amazing, phenomenal, mind-blowing, stunning (running out of words to describe) live acapella concert began. No professional recording or youtube video can compare to hearing them live. They are flawless and when Tim and Chance hit those low notes, the whole room shakes around you. The crowd would even gasp when they hit their low bass notes.
When Home Free interact with the audience it makes you feel like you are a part of the show. In fact, at one point I kind of was part of the show. Near the end of the show, Tim was talking to the crowd about the fact that in January 2016, they were meant to be playing in Dublin but their flight got cancelled due to bad weather. He asked the audience if anyone owned a boat. I thought that maybe a few people would shout but it turned out that I was the only one there who shouted. Tim then asked me for my number and permission to use my boat if they need to get back to Ireland again. This is when my friends screamed at me out of excitement and all I could do was laugh.
As their encore, they sang How Great Thou Art without any microphones. I was worried when they said they weren't going to use microphones that I wouldn't be able to hear them seeing as I was sitting at the very back but that wasn't the case. They were unbelievable. Here's my video of them singing it. (you may need to turn up the volume a bit as it is a little quiet in the recording.)
Before they went off stage, they announced that they wanted to meet all of us and sign any merch that we had. One of my friends went to buy a poster for them to sign but when she asked Jenika for a poster, she gave my friend a VIP poster for free!!!
This is where I need to explain one thing before I tell you about meeting them all. A few weeks ago, I had tweeted Tim a picture of a foam can holder made by his favourite beer brewery 'Founders' saying that I was tempted to take one to the concert and try to give it to him. He liked my tweet so I had to take it and give it to him.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
This is what I gave to him (the red one)
When we got to Heather, I asked her if it was okay to give Tim his 'present'. She said I could and also thanked me for asking permission. She also told me that she loved my scarf, which I think you can hear at the start of my video. This is the video of me meeting and talking to Home Free. Please excuse the shaky camera work but I was shaking like a leaf while I was there.
And here is the shirt they signed:
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I still can't believe I got to see and meet them. It feels like a dream but I can say for definite, it was one of the best days of my life and THE best concert I have ever been to. They are even more gorgeous in real life and extremely sweet and friendly. Oh and Adam's old school hair looks amazing! He never stops beat boxing either. While we were waiting in line to see them, you could hear him making noises. It was really cute. He really doesn't talk much!
When we all got our stuff signed we walked out to the lobby, said goodbye to Jenika and left the building. We all had to just stop and stand outside the venue to calm ourselves down. My knees were like jelly after meeting them. Just as we had calmed down and were about to walk away, Austin, Olena, Rob and Adam walked out the door behind us which made us all weak at the knees again. They were leaving and trying to catch a taxi. We, again, thanked them for coming over to Ireland. They all thanked us for coming to the show and said goodbye as they got into their taxis. Tim, Chance and Jenika stayed at the venue for a while. We saw them all sitting at the bar inside. After waiting another 15 minutes after the rest of the guys had left, we decided to leave.
So that's my story. Hope I answered all your questions with this BjOaks ...if not, ask me and I will answer :P
