The Summer Shed Tour at Mud Island

Over the weekend, we attended the Summer Shed Tour, which featured TobyMac, Skillet, and Lecrae, along with Capital Kings, Tedashii, and We As Human. Our main interests of that group were TobyMac and Capital Kings, but we enjoyed all of the acts there, not surprisingly.

The concert was at the Mud Island Amphitheater in Memphis, Tennessee. If you aren’t aware, Mud Island is a river park on an “island” in the Mississippi River. And although I had been there a few times, I had never been to a concert in the Mud Island Amphitheater. That’s right - it has been there for over 30 years, but this was my first time. Not that I have anything against the place, but just that no one that I have wanted to see has had a concert there before. But that is where this one was, so that is where we went.

As you might can guess from the “Summer Shed Tour” name, all of the concerts on this tour were in outdoor venues, which to me is playing it a little risky, because you never know how the weather is going to be. For us, the weather forecasts had been calling for rain for that day, but as it turned out, the weather was absolutely perfect.

Here are a few photos from the night:

The show opened with We As Human, and they were probably the least familiar to us. Not exactly our kind of music, as they lean more toward hard rock. That’s not to say they were bad at all, of course. Just not our thing.

Up next was Capital Kings, an electronic music duo that we are quite familiar with, having listened to their debut CD many, many times. I was looking forward to their set, and it was great to see them in person, although we had seen them once before at the Winter Jam concert last year. Their music is always full of energy, just like I like it. I am looking forward to more from them, knowing that they are working on a new CD. It should be great.

Following Capital Kings was Tedashii, a rap/hip-hop artist. He was entertaining, with a style all his own. And he was more familiar to a good bit of the crowd, who seemed to really be into his music.

Before the sun went down, we had a nice view of downtown Memphis from across the water. And after the sun went down, we still had a nice view, but my iPhone camera couldn’t capture it very well. So you just get the pre-sunset view here. Interestingly, they had said no cameras or recording devices, and as we were going in one of the security guards was saying, “No iPads.” But seemingly everyone there had an iPhone or some other smart phone, and of course all of those can take photos and make recordings. However, if I were an artist, I would appreciate the free publicity from someone posting photos and video clips for their friends to see. So I don’t think most of them had any issues with that.

Lecrae was up next, and he was a big crowd favorite. He also had Tedashii back out for a few of his songs. Lecrae put on a great show, and once again, the crowd was really into him, with a lot of people knowing most of his songs. I felt a little left out with not knowing all of them.

Skillet was next, and I am ashamed to admit that I didn’t know they were from Memphis. And once again, they seemed to have a good following there, and not just because they started out as a local band. They put on a great show, too, with big fire and smoke effects to go along with their driving music. Jaylin really wasn’t a fan of the fire and loud explosions, but Laura and I loved it. Hard to capture the fire and all with an iPhone, but this was what I got. They also had rising platforms which were used at different times by the guitarists and the string players. Did I mention they had a violin and a cello player? You don’t see that every day in a hard rock band.

And lastly was TobyMac, who had the biggest following there. I have lost count of how many concerts of his we have attended, but this one was great just like all the rest of them. This time, lasers were added to the cool lighting package that he always has, and I always love lasers. I also love the part in each show when DJ Maj takes over for a few minutes, providing some great cuts in his own style. And unlike the last couple of TobyMac shows we have seen, for this one they brought back Jesus Freak as an encore, which is always great to see.

So despite the ringing in our ears that lasted for a day or two, it was a great show in a nice place on a perfect evening. Laura correctly said, “That’s about the best concert we have ever been to.” I couldn’t agree more.