On Thursday, 17 July, I had the fortunate opportunity to be one of thousands who attended a special movie theater live screening of Glenn Beck's summer stage concert "Glenn Beck '08: Unelectable"

This was a first for Glenn Beck and, to my knowledge, the first of its kind. Glenn gave the performance to a sold out live stage theater in Dallas, TX. The performance was captured by about seven high definition video cameras, directed, and streamed to a satellite where it then went to 350 movie theaters.

I bought five tickets to the performance the first day they were available for Glenn Beck Insiders (about 4-5 days before they were available to the general public) to see the HD simulcast at the Jordan Landing Cinemark theaters in West Jordan, UT.

I don't know how big the other movie theaters were, but there were two sold-out theaters at the Jordan Landing Cinemark and they each probably seated 2-300 people. I' sure there were other theaters that were much larger.

I showed up a little more than two hours before the show was to start because the tickets were all general admission. I wanted to make sure our group had good seats and that we would be able to sit all together. There was one other person who had shown up before me, but she was in line for the other theater. So, I was the first person in line for theater #1. It wasn't long, however, before a handful of other people were in line behind me. Then, with over 90 minutes to go before Glenn went on stage, a young man came, told us we could begin seating, and showed us to the theater. I thought that was super nice because there was a pregnant woman in line behind me and I felt bad for her if she was going to have to stand in line for over an hour. Instead, she could relax in a theater seat.

I made some observations before the show. First of all, there were a lot of pretty attractive women there for the Glenn Beck performance, about half of which were pregnant. Also, the people were very friendly and very talkative, even with people they didn't know.

About 70 minutes before the show started, the projector came on and the dozen or so of us that were in the theater by that point were treated to a Windows "Active Desktop Recovery" dialog... in HD. It didn't inspire my confidence that the show was going to go without any snags.

After a couple minutes, however, the Windows message disappeared and was replaced with a young, pretty round-faced blonde with loop earrings holding a small seemingly homemade clapper board and she was opening and closing it in front of a pair of microphones about once every two seconds.

She was then replaced by a goofy-looking guy in need of a little orthodontic work (or maybe he was just had perma-grin from the excitement of being involved in something so... momentous) who did the same thing, but a little differently. His method of clapping the clapper board was just a little more... goofy. After a while, he was replaced by an older gentleman who had less muscle tone in his arms. It seemed harder for him to keep closing the clapper board and before long, he was replaced by a tall, intimidating fellow who repeatedly closed the clapper with great determination.

It was fascinating.

Twenty five minutes before 6:00, the Glenn Beck preshow began. This was just a slideshow presentation of funny trivia facts, pictures, and silly quotes. I didn't catch much of it because I was running in and out of the theater to meet the others in my group to get them their tickets.

Five minutes before six, a countdown timer appeared on the screen counting down the minutes and seconds "to Glenn." And then, there was a snow-filled screen and static noise.

On the screen appeared a man in an orange vest and an orange hat, like a construction worker or something, fist-bumping with three or four other people in a dark area. After a few moments of watching this, it became apparent we were seeing Glenn Beck backstage. He carried a plastic green toy assault rifle and walked out on stage as we followed, viewing him through the lens of a camera carried by a Steadicam operator.

The theater Glenn performed in was beautiful. It was smaller than I expected and looked more like a large stand-up comedy club than an opera house, an arena, or an auditorium (which I've seen Glenn perform in the last three times I've seen him live.)

Glenn started by introducing two "special" people in the audience. The first was Texas governor Rick Perry (who had perfect hair) and had to have been at least a little uncomfortable being an elected official at a show that was all about slamming "the weasels" in elected positions. The second was soldier/author/all around great guy Marcus Lutrell. Gov. Perry got some applause, but Marcus Lutrell got a standing ovation that went on for several moments. It was clear the audience loved this guy... and for good reason!

Once that was out of the way, Glenn jumped right into the comedy- talking about politicians that come out (as he had) wearing their "huntin' outfit" and carrying their gun that was given to them by a dear family member (never purchased, of course). Glenn said he thought people who don such ridiculous costumes to show the press they're in favor of the second ammendment make him sick and he took off the orange vest, orange hat, and the flannel shirt under the vest. Underneath was a light grey T-shirt with large black letters: "NRA." Hee hee.

The comedy went on for the next hour about politics, about Glenn's city government making ridiculous demands and imposing outrageous restrictions on what Glenn and his family can and can not build in their yard, about Glenn's experience traveling with a firearm through a New York area airport, and about stupid laws (Chico, CA will collect a $500 fine from anyone caught detonating a nuclear weapon within city limits.)

There was a short 15-minute intermission and Glenn came back on in a blue politician's suit and red tie and stood behind a podium with a "Beck '08" placard attached to the front of it.

The second part of the comedy show centered around what Americans (or at least Glenn-minded Americans) want to hear from their presidential candidates: the truth.

(The above picture was taken at a previous performance by another Glenn Beck Insider, but the gist is the same.)

The camera work was great. The timing was awesome. The comedy was the best I've seen of Glenn. My wife was a little... well, okay, very, disturbed by the number of times Glenn joked about wanting to kill someone with a gun.

The message in between the comedy was one about realizing the power in our country is not in Washington, not in your state capitol, not in your City Hall. It's in you! And it comes from God. Glenn encouraged the audience to read history, learn more about the founding fathers, learn more about the history of our great country, and never forget it is a great country worth fighting for, worth dying for, and worth saving from peril.

The message Glenn gave at the Freedom Festival Patriotic Service at Brigham Young University last month is essentially the same message, only without all the comedy mixed in.

So, all in all, I think it was a tremendous success and I congratulate Glenn and Company for a job spectacularly well done. They should be very proud of themselves. I'm certainly proud I could have participated in this special moment in history as an audience member at the first-ever Glenn Beck HD simulcast.