We Love Michael Franti.

Michael Franti is a seriously cool singer/songwriter dude. And through good fortune and kind of cosmic alignment- and the fact that he and "his people" (manager+ tour manager) are really kind, my whole family was able to meet him at his concert in Pittsburgh last week. The thing is, he was adopted when he was a very little dude and has tons of positive feelings for his family.

Which is a great thing for us adoptive parents out there.

And my family loves him.

Here are a few reasons why.....

Michael is a really big guy...like 6 and a half feet tall- so, a big dude with super long dreads and tons of tattoos. And, as a point of social activism, he hasn't worn shoes in something like 15 years.
Ok so, ginormous, tattooed, deadlocked, barefoot fellows have the potential to be kind of intimidating, especially if you stand only 38 inches tall with an afro.

,

But when he met us,  he couldn't have been more approachable.. he sat down right away so he wouldn't tower over the kids and asked us about our family.

And that's the first reason of why we love him....

Rosie was so comfortable that she shoved the camera under his nose and took this photo... "smile!" she demanded of him.
And then there's another reason- he kindly humored our bossy little girl.

 

Then he signed her cute little Power to the Peaceful concert t-shirt.

He even took the time to draw his circle of love person signature on 6 t shirts.

Actually 7 shirts.
Move over babygirl...

Do you know how hard it is to suck in your stomach, squat and not become overly bedazzled and pass out when your favorite musician signs your back?

Yep... I was sweaty, and way far dorkier then typical, even for me... my kids were embarrassed...whatever. They should be used to me by now.

 

Jamie told him that Rosie went nuts whenever she listened to "Shake It" and with that, 

he asked

his tour manager to "bring me an acoustic" and played Rosie her song, modifying the lyrics to "Shake it Little Rosie..." which she loved, of course. 

(Because I was a little bit beside myself- I made the not so great photographic decision to video this on Anna's  phone and didn't get a single photo to post- I stole this off her phone- hence the lousy quality)

Then he played his most popular song-"Say Hey, I Love You"  and you better believe that we all sang the refrain. And he was nice enough to compliment us even though we were all terribly off key.

So, another reason... he lied to us about our collective singing voice and told us we were good.

 

Lily is the biggest Michael Franti and Spearhead fan ever- she rates Michael as her first favorite.  She asked him if he would be singing her favorite song- "Hello, Bonjour"- which is an older song.... he said he would add her request to the setlist.

When he was on stage, he thanked "The Glaskey Family" for coming to the show and spoke a little about his own adoption story. He encouraged anyone who was considering adoption to look deeper into their hearts to see if they could build their family by adopting a child. Then he spoke about how great his mom was to him growing up. Then he played Lily's song and dedicated it to our family.

Cool. 

If you look under Michael's left armpit in this photo- you will see our little rocker Mary, who managed to get on stage after Michael invited up kids and those over 60 years. (another reason, he invites kids and seniors to dance on stage, who else does that?)

Mary hid her curves from security, jumped on stage and rocked out.

She later told us that he had a sheet of paper taped in front of Michael's mike stand that said

"Glaskey Family- Maggie + Karl and 6 kids" 

My family made it as on stage crib notes!

(She said that there were also about 6 signs taped to the floor that said "Pittsburgh" so the band could remember where they were. I like that too.)

Anna, Michael and Mary post show.

 

Ok- so I stopped counting the reasons why we love Michael Franti, but I know there are a lot of them. 

Basically, he is an awesome musician and a good guy.

And he was really really kind to my family for no particular reason.

Please do yourself a favor and buy this album, you will love it.

ttp://michaelfranti.com/media/albums/sound-sunshine

But... if you are looking for his most popular song "Say Hey, I Love You"

super upbeat and fun and chances are you have heard it somewhere already- you will have to go to this album. And if you like that there are many many more albums- he has been making music for 20+ years.

 Enjoy!

http://michaelfranti.com/media/albums/all-rebel-rockers