By Ben Cox
Photos by ElCrow Photography & Marcy Patterson.
The teenaged sensation Champ Jaxon made his third stop in four years to Jacksonville Main Street’s Downtown Concert Series on Friday, July 18.
The changes were apparent — he’s a little taller, the voice is a little deeper and the guitar chops are getting better, faster, tighter and no less amazing. Jaxon and his band played several tunes off of his recently released live album and a number of studio singles. The now 14-year-old south Floridian packed the square on this return from the two-week hiatus of the downtown concert series. It was a near perfect night with partly cloudy skies, temperatures in the low 80s and humid. You could almost smell the rains coming up from the Everglades as Jaxon ripped through blues, southern rock and classic rock favorites for the crowd.
Concert-goers who are Deaf or hard-of-hearing got a treat for the second concert in a row as interpreters have been enthusiastically interpreting the concerts. Kia Moore, program director for the for the Substance Use Prevention and Recovery program at the Jacksonville Community Center for the Deaf says the interpreters are being paid for to make the concerts more inclusive, “The idea of inclusion for the Deaf community couldn’t be passed up. [It was] an idea that came about from myself and a local interpreter. So, we made it happen!”
It was a great night of music with a packed square for all.
