Special to Irish American News
The Irish Rover by Jim McClure
First new album in 13 years with Midwest Tour
I saw Amy Grant in concert last month at the beautiful, ornate and historic Coronado Theater in on downtown Rockford, an appropriate setting for a royal figure in the world of religious pop and Top 40 music. The locale and regal venue were indeed fit for a king, or in this case 'The Queen of Christian Pop" in her 50 year jubilee. Her loyal subjects, fans who have listened, and followed (literally) Grant from iteration to iteration and decade to decade. 
If they feel a unique bond with Amy there is also one among themselves. Pre-concert one of the largest groups of fans, the Facebook page Friends of Amy, had a get-together of two dozen fans in a fun and cordial pub gathering not unlike a reunion of high schoolers who don't miss their first experiences but revel in them as still evolving and vibrant. Many from Chicago and Midwest, some from across the country.
With an air of warmth tinged with excitement and a dab of nostalgia, Grant started singing her first song of the night, "Saved by Love" before appearing from offstage, the mere sound of her voice flooding anticipation with reality that the newest meetup was underway.
After the first song Amy noted both the beautiful setting indoors in the palatial Coronado Theater and the beauty of the Rock River flowing through the city of 110,000. "I could not believe the gorgeous view of the river from the hotel in your town" she told the audience.
The six time Grammy Award winning singer and songwriter acknowledged with considerable humility that "I know you were probably really excited when you bought your tickets as I am with my favorite musicians, but when performance night comes don't you say to yourself 'Gee I'm kind of tired and it's cold out, maybe I should stay home in my jammies and be nice and warm.' "
Two women who had traveled together to the concert eschewed any jammies, opting instead for the famed cheetah jacket, slacks and slip ons topped by a dead-on hairdo for that cover ensemble of her first crossover album from 1985, Unguarded.
Prior to the concert which was only several days before the release of her first album of new music since 2013, Grant told WIFR-TV CBS Channel 23 Digital Editor Forrest Nelson that giving longtime desire fans want they want sometimes means accepting the celebration of the old success before playing what lies ahead in her latest record, "The Me that Remains."
"Not everybody coming to a concert, what they want to hear is the old stuff, but it's fun for the people performing to say 'Oh yeah, something new!" Grant told the interviewer, " It's great to play in an old theater, because there's no way just to look at the walls and go 'who else has sung from that stage."
Sweet echoes of Amy in the past continued in the first set with "Power," " Ask me," "Somewhere down the Road," "That's What Love is for," and the autobiography of her Born Again experience, "1974."
Next came her first single from the new album, "January 6," which draws parallels to the protests of the 1960's to those of today via references to Woodstock, John Lennon and Marvin Gaye. If you try to "Imagine" all the people then and now asking "What's Going On?", the 65 year old singer-songwriter has an intriguing answer.
"We're experiencing history as it happens," says Grant. "Nobody has the big picture, and it's vital that we can sit in unrest without jumping to conclusions of how it can all be fixed. That starts within ourselves."
If the eyes are the windows to the soul Grant revels that she can now see them in the smaller venues she plays in these days, not the major stadiums and giant concert venues in her heyday. "It's nice to be able to look out and see faces again in wonderful old places like this," she said of the Coronado between songs. "Music should be a shared experience, and there'll be a part later on tonight where I'll ask you to get up and dance. There's just something about standing among others as you sing that you really experience the song individually and with others."
Midway through the concert she performed the blockbuster chart-toppers that framed the 1990's days of tens of thousands seeing her in concert in nights: "Baby, Baby," "Every Heartbeat," and "Good for Me."
She remarked wryly about that era with the humorous empathy that "I imagine you really like being here and being able to see someone right on the stage in front of you with
your own eyes instead of watching them looking at a giant screen the whole time."
That bit of Irish wit about the Coronado Theater in Rockford will no doubt prove true for world class Irish dancing when Riverdance 30 comes to town June 2 at 7:30 pm, the closest the dancing troupe will come to Chicago in a countrywide tour with stops in Canada.
Before singing a number of songs from virtually every album of hers from the 70's, 80's and
90's, Grant played her new single from the album of the same name, The Me That Remains.
In introducing the song she pointedly suggested to the audience that "sometimes you have to let the past die to fully experience where you are now,"
The song was the summation and result of a time of healing and recovery from a bike accident in which she suffered a brain injury and vocal cord surgery which left her needing to learn how to sing again.
"How much of our lives do we spend projecting ourselves into the future,obsessing over what's next?" Grant asks. "There's something about the recovery process—it's essential to be in the moment you're in, to say, 'Where's the next step?' and relish that."
As she continues her new album tour Amy Grant will appear in Chicago on Monday, June 15th at 7:30 pm at City Winery.
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