On the night of the Matt Maher concert, senior Allison Lozinak couldn’t stop looking at the clock. She arrived at JC around 7:30 a.m. and tried to keep busy by helping her family and other event staff members set up the gym, but she found herself counting down the hours until the band arrived.
Two weeks earlier, Lozinak had no idea that her dream to bring Maher back to JC would become a reality.
“[The band] had a cancellation in Delaware, and we found out two weeks before Jan. 22 and booked them. We had two weeks to put it all together,” Lozinak said. “We didn’t expect for all this to happen, but we were really lucky that they agreed to come and do this. I don’t think any of it actually hit me until I saw them pull up outside of JC. At that point, I was just like, ‘Wow, this is finally happening.”
As a part of her project, Lozinak prepared a speech to read in front of the entire audience before the concert. Her speech outlined her experience at her first Maher concert and how she felt a pleasantly surprising reaction to his music.
The size of the crowd intimidated Lozinak at first, but she said, “Once I was onstage, I wasn’t really nervous at all. It kind of escaped me, and I was calm as anything.”
The crowd was larger than Lozinak had anticipated. She wasn’t sure how many people to expect since they had only two weeks to put the concert together and to promote it.
Over 800 people from school, the local community and out-of-state attended the concert. “Last time [the band] only had two weeks to promote, only 300 people showed up. So I’d like to think we did a pretty good job,” Lozinak said.
During the concert, members of the audience surrounded the stage, singing and swaying to songs such as “Sing Over Your Children,” “Shout of the King” and “Hold Us Together.” “Hold Us Together” is “the one song that always plays in the back of my mind because it means so much to me,” Lozinak said.
For senior Jenna Elliott, the concert served as “an exciting way to let go of stress from exams and to have a good time with my friends.”
Lozinak, who has gotten to know the band over the past four years, said that every show is “a mini reunion and a time of catching up and goofing up.”
This concert was no different, as Lozinak reunited with the band afterward. “After the concert, I was happy as anything. Seeing them perform in our gym again is something I’ve always wanted,” Lozinak said.
For Lozinak, her favorite parts of the concert were singing every song and being able to introduce him at the beginning. “Matt is my favorite artist, so to be the one to take him back behind stage and then introduce him is something that I’ll never forget,” Lozinak said.
“The Patriot” had a chance to meet up with Matt Maher before the concert. Click here to see the interview.
Jenny Hottle is the Online Chief for “The Patriot” and jcpatriot.com.