Ticket Prices:
$44.00 - Reserved Track
$34.00 - Reserved Grandstand
Gate admission is included in the ticket price.
Just one week after being named the winner of the seventh season of “American Idol,” 25-year-old David Cook rewrote chart history, with a record-breaking 14 debuts on Billboard’s Hot Digital Songs survey. He also had 11 songs jump onto the Hot 100, the highest number of new entries ever, and the second-highest amount of simultaneous hits since the Beatles in 1964. All that, and his single, “The Time of My Life,” instantly became the highest debuting title of 2008, entering the Hot 100 at No.
When this most recent season of “American Idol” began, Cook wasn’t on anyone’s radar to win the whole thing – including his own. “I like that I ‘snuck up’ on people,” he says. “During those early shows, when there were 24 people, I knew I didn’t have to be one of the best, but I didn’t want to be one of the worst. So it was fun for me because there wasn’t a lot of pressure and I could find my own footing.”
Cook won fans with his unique renditions of songs like Lionel Richie’s “Hello,” Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” and the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby.” He explains, “When I began, I told vocal coach Debra Byrd I wanted the season to be like a set list, so people would feel like they were at one of my concerts.”
Cook’s musical journey began early. He grew up watching his father play guitar. But David’s first instrument of choice was the violin. “I tried that first because there was a girl in the school orchestra I thought was pretty.” When he was in seventh grade, his dad bought him a Fender Stratocaster. “I was bad at it because I never took a lesson. Gradually I got better.”
He was exposed to many different genres of music. “My parents had eclectic record collections. My mom liked Kenny Rogers and my dad was more into Boston, Kansas and Dire Straits. The first cassette tape I ever bought was by Kris Kross. I was into Boyz II Men for a while. When I was 13, someone played me the song ‘Closer’ by Nine Inch Nails and once I got past the audacity of the lyrics, I really enjoyed the song. So I backtracked through rock, which got me to where I am now.”
David formed a band in high school with a friend and appeared in three musicals: “West Side Story,” “Singin’ in the Rain” and “The Music Man.” He also loved sports and played baseball throughout high school. Ultimately his love for music brought his attention back to his band. David enrolled at Central Missouri State, changed the name of the band from Redeye to Axiom to Axium and had some local success.
As he was completing his studies, David had to choose between working as a graphic designer in Kansas City or moving to Tulsa to play rhythm guitar and sing backing vocals for a band called the Midwest Kings. “Of course, I moved to Tulsa,” he says. That’s where he lives today, although home is officially Blue Springs, Missouri. The Cook family relocated there after David was born in Houston on Dec. 20, 1982.
With his friends chipping in financially, David recorded “Analog Heart.” The album sold well regionally and won an URBY award from Urban Tulsa Weekly for Best Independent Album. David was in the early stages of recording a second album when his younger brother Andrew asked him to accompany him to Omaha and lend moral support while he tried out for “American Idol.” David was reluctant, but his brother and mother did their best to persuade him. He recalls, “At the last minute I decided to do it. Andrew and I were in the same group of four for the first audition and he didn’t make the cut. It was very awkward. I turned to him and said, ‘Is this something you want me to do? Because if you don’t, I won’t.’ And his response was, ‘If you don’t, I’ll beat your ass.’ So it’s entirely his and my mother’s fault that this happened to me, and I’m very grateful.”
We all know how the story went from there. Simon, Randy and Paula sent David to Hollywood, where he made it into the top 24. Then he was in the top 12, the top 10, the top five and the top two, all without ever being in the dreaded “bottom three.” Then, on May 21 at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, Ryan Seacrest pronounced David Cook the winner of this season of “American Idol.”
It’s all come with lessons learned, according to Cook. “The whole process has given me a brand-new lease on life in that I am more sure of who I am now that ever before. I’ve learned that when I’m singing live on stage to embrace that moment and if doesn’t work, it’s OK, move on.”
Green River Ordinance
Josh Jenkins (vocals/guitar/piano)
Geoff Ice (bass)
Jamey Ice (guitar)
Joshua Wilkerson (guitar)
Denton Hunker (drums)
The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances; if there is any reaction, both are transformed. – Carl Jung
Assuming Jung is right, the same logic would dictate that the meeting of five personalities would create an equal reaction, five-fold in its power to change.
Such a meeting has taken place. Despite the remote Texas setting, five boys found each other. Accident, inevitability, chance, fate…no one will ever be able to explain whatever it is that draws the colors of the spectrum together into one stream of pure white light.
Green River Ordinance was born from this light. Brothers Geoff and Jamey Ice, Josh Jenkins, Joshua Wilkerson and Denton Hunker transformed their lives into one singular dream. The dream of creating music. While most kids their age were worrying about high school, they were writing and performing their own music.
Guitarist Joshua Wilkerson’s father played in bands, touring with The Beach Boys, Cheap Trick, The Guess Who and The Fabulous Thunderbirds. Brothers Jamey and Geoff Ice were raised by music-loving parents who even followed The Grateful Dead at one time. Mr. Ice also has his own country-western band, and encouraged his boys to play blues and classic rock at an early age. Singer/guitarist Josh Jenkins’ father was a country singer and songwriter. He had Josh decked out in old-fashioned western clothes and singing in local oprys as a small child.
With all the music in their lives, all they needed was a common denominator that would bring them together. Songwriting, it seems, was that catalyst.
Jamey and Geoff formed the original GRO, with a different lineup of musicians that came and went as time went on. At the tender ages of 16 and 14, they were seasoned club performers who already had a local following. When Josh joined the band they discovered the bond they had in writing songs. There was great freedom in shaping and hashing out the songs that they wrote. It was the most incredible experience. When Joshua and Denton joined the band the songwriting was taken to a whole new level. There was a certain magic that happened when all five of them got into a room together to write songs.
They found that every one was able to contribute to the songwriting process; and that certain chemistry would took place as they all worked together. In between shows they would sit around and work on songs. Each person would bring their own ideas to the band; sometimes it would just be a riff, or a tune. Sometimes it was a whole piece. But together they found that they would create a free flow of ideas between the five of them, as they encouraged and pushed each other forward. At the end of the process after much work and challenging each other, the song would be complete.
They recorded their first EP in the basement of their church, a CD that sold out its first pressing in just a few months. While still not old enough to be customers in the bars they played, they played to packed houses. An upheaval of popular local support led them to open for Bon Jovi in Dallas in 2006.
The momentum grew. They were soon opening for or touring with bands like Collective Soul, Hanson, SisterHazel, Blue October, Bowling for Soup, Simple Plan, and Flickerstick, to name but a few.
Accolades flowed toward them: The Best New Band of 2003 by the Fort Worth Weekly, then The Best Live Band the year after. In 2006, they were named Best Artist of the year, had the Rock Album of the Year, and the Song of the Year at the Fort Worth Music Awards. In 2008, they repeated the Artist of the Year award by the same folks. MTV Best on Campus named GRO one of the top twenty college bands in the U.S. Radio Shack selected their song “Piece It Together” to pre-load onto over 500,000 MP3 players they sold around the world. Blogcritics.com named them the top unsigned band in the world in 2006.
That changed in 2007 when they inked the deal with EMI/Virgin Records, joining a stable of talent that reads like a Who’s Who of rock music. From the Immortals like Pink Floyd and Bob Seger to the newer classics like Beastie Boys and Coldplay, GRO has now taken their place on the very professional stage of the music industry.
But the band is anything but green. They’ve lived the life, and on stage or in the studio, this fact is obvious. Smooth, polished and professional, their musicianship and stage presence belies their youth. They look like rock stars. But that’s where the similarity ends. You won’t find these young men bashing their way through hotel room walls. Even after all this time in the business, they are still as gracious, enthusiastic and real as the day they recorded that first CD in their church basement. They are as likely to be seen having a quiet lunch with their grandparents as they would be hanging at the Whisky in the wee hours of Sunday morning. Positive in the face of all the adversity rock and roll can throw at them, the joy they have with each other, and with their music, shines in their faces. They’re making their own rules, taking their own place in time, making their own mark on the world.
Their new album, Out of My Hands, will be revealed in February of 2009. The band spent a year writing and perfecting the songs and then another eight months recording with producers Mark Endert (Natasha Bedingfield, Maroon 5, Gavin DeGraw), Jordan Critz and Paul Ebersold (Sister Hazel, 3 Doors Down, Third Day). The band has always had a strong vision about what they wanted to do musically, and are thrilled to see it finally come true.
