Wedding blues in Kansas City

July 23, 2013
janglinsouls

After proposing to his girlfriend on stage during the Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros concert on June 29 at Crossroads KC, Jordan Hayes thought, “Why stop here?”

So with the help from the band — including guitarist-turned-ordained-minister Christian Letts — Hayes married his longtime girlfriend … on stage … during the concert.

During the band’s performance of “Home,” frontman Alex Ebert fielded “stories” from the crowd. That’s when Ebert brought out Jordan and his girlfriend of nine years, Desiree Beaupre.

“Do you have a story to tell?” Ebert asked.

“I’ve got a quick story,” Hayes said. “Desiree, you’ve always been there for me. I just want to let you know, I will always be there for you. Where you marry me … right here.”

Hayes then dropped to his knee as the crowd cheered on the happy couple, and asked if there was an ordained minister around. Sure enough, Letts, standing two feet away, raised his hand and was more than happy to help.

“How about that, it was almost like it was meant to be,” Hayes said. “Will you marry me Right here? Right now, Desiree?”

Beaupre, of course, said yes, and for the first time in Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros history, there was going to be a live wedding.

Luckily, Letts kept it short and sweet. In a ceremony that lasted not even 2 minutes, the couple exchanged I-do’s and wedding rings, and just like that, they were married.

The Zeros finished “Home” with the newlyweds on the tambourines, followed by “Sea of Love” (the first dance” and “Om Nashi Me”).

“Thank you guys so much,” Alex said after the ceremony. “That takes a lot of courage… We’ve never done that before. In fact, I didn’t even know Christian was an ordained minister. Do you get that on the web? How does that work.”

Hayes, who works at The Grinders restaurant, told Ink Magazine that he had the idea for a while but didn’t know the plan would go through until the morning the concert.

“It was like three weeks of me being like, ‘Have you heard anything yet? Have you heard anything yet?’ That morning I woke up to a message on my phone saying, ‘You’re good,’” Hayes told Ink.

Read the review from Ink Magazine.

Read Caitlin Carter’s review in The Pitch.

***

About halfway through the set, following “Fiya Wata,” Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros performed another first. For the first time, the band played “If I Were Free,” a happy melodic tune from their new album on June 23.

Said frontman Alex Ebert: “This is our new song (“If I Were Free”). Some of you may have heard us practicing it at sound check because we don’t know it very well. I think we got it good now. We’ll try it out.”

For those fans who got to Grinders early enough, the band rehearsed the song for nearly 2 hours during soundcheck. After listening to it for 2 straight hours, you will not get be able to get it out of your heads for weeks.

“If I were free, I would run into battles with flowers and hugs. And bow at the boots of our well-oiled thugs. Yes, if I were free. If it were me, I would yell out ‘I love you!’ to all I passed. I would disrobe and disco, and rip off my mask.”

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