I promised myself I would get more done tonight. So after this, I’m out and off to plan some lessons.
But I had to post this first. See why I keep checking Ramin Karimloo‘s tour dates?!
(I had to put my earphones on because the audio is kind of soft.)
It’s different, but I’m pretty sure I love it.
I posted about a band my brother-in-law discovered for us. Then I posted about Les Mis.
Now I will reveal the connection between the two.
Remember I casually mentioned I wasn’t crazy about the Javert casting? And that the wonderful fellow who was cast as an army officer with five measly lines should have been cast as Javert? Mmm, yes.
Meet Hadley Fraser, half of the duo that makes up Sheytoons.
The other half is his good friend and fellow Les Miserables/Phantom of the Opera veteran, Ramin Karimloo. I would have cast Ramin as Jean Valjean and Hadley as Javert. Oh, maybe because they’ve played those roles before… and maybe because they’re just plain awesome.
Both of them have played different roles that made them more famous — neither is known for Javert or Valjean– but they would have sung the pants off Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman. Okay, weird mental image.
Ramin (we’re on a first name basis) was Enjolras in the 25th Anniversary of Les Mis and Hadley was his drunk sidekick Grantaire. A minor role, but not quite as minor as army officer. (not that I’m bitter…)
Just fast-forward to 0:40 and listen. (Oh, and stop watching at 1:50, unless you want to be thankful that Tom Hooper didn’t mis-cast Marius like they did for the 25th Anniversary.)
Come on, is Hadley even trying!? : )
These two were also in the 25th Anniversary of Phantom of the Opera, which is the best cast for POTO, and if you are a POTO fan, you should go to Netflix right now and watch it. Ramin is the Phantom and Hadley is Raoul. (or you can watch parts on Youtube: Music of the Night (brilliant) – All I Ask of You (swoon) — and them together in the final lair)
So that’s the story behind Sheytoons. These guys have incredible voices, have great careers on stage, and they write bluegrass music for fun. Now I just need them to come to America on tour.
Part of me is glad I put off writing this post, because I don’t feel like I need to give an exhaustive review of the movie. It’s been out long enough that plenty of other people have written far better blog posts about it, and the majority of my readers have hopefully already seen it.
I’ve seen it twice, and I’m perfectly open to seeing it a third time. I don’t think I’ve seen a movie three times in the theatre since Beauty and the Beast. So ultimately you know where I stand regarding this film.
I told my sister and brother-in-law they had to see it. I knew they would be a harder sell than I was, because Jill has read the book, Patrick is reading the book, and both of them have seen the show approximately fifty times between seeing it live, on PBS, and via various YouTube clips. They know who has played which role in the various Anniversary additions (ask Patrick sometime what he thinks of Marius in the 25th Anniversary…) and they have dissected the lyrics of the major pieces. (At least Stars.)
But I still insisted they see it, even though I knew Jill would be disappointed in her favorite song (more about that later).
I was anxious to hear their review, and it was pretty much what I expected. They were happy when things that were added incorporated little bits from the book (the buying of the doll for Cosette, for example), but disappointed when the things added contradicted the book (the meeting of Valjean and Cosette in the woods). Jill pointed out the absurdity of the last scene, when everyone is waving guns… in heaven. I agreed with that — although it was really the waving of the tricolor that irked me more. And being very familiar with the musical, they noticed when songs were out of order or shortened. I noticed to some extent, and we all knew they had to do something or the movie would have lasted five hours. (If you see it live on stage, the tempo of songs is pretty quick in order to get it all in. With the added scenes, if the songs were sung the way they were in the movie and in their entirety, the movie would have been a BBC miniseries.)
They also changed some lines in the some of the songs, which I hadn’t noticed, but once she mentioned one of them, I became just as upset as she was! I need to go back to see it for myself.
It is very different seeing the movie than seeing it on stage, partly because the movie brings you into the dirt of the miserable ones in a way the stage can’t. I’m not sure you can get more depressing than prison, starvation, prostitution, profligate living, poverty, sickness, death, and loss of innocence. Oh, and sewers. Life is awful. And without God, life would be unbearable. And the movie brings that right in your face.
They didn’t shy away from the message of the film… I’m not sure how you could have, but I wasn’t going to put it past modern society. But it’s there. And Tom Hooper didn’t try to hide it at all. There aren’t many movies that make me want to stand up and clap afterwards. This one did just that.
Was it perfect? No. There were definitely things I would have changed. But it had so much to live up to in my mind, the fact that it fulfilled my expectations is no small feat.
Since this post is long, for the faint-of-heart, I will cut to the chase here: Go see this film.
Okay, let’s continue.
When I saw Les Mis live on stage, I Dreamed a Dream was a disappointment. Being an alto myself, most alto solos have a lot to live up to in my mind. It’s not that I think “I could do better,” but I’m a bit protective of the solos, few as they are. Plus, with the ones I’ve sung myself, like IDAD, being overly familiar with them means I’m more critical than I might be with others. (Sort of like Jill and the entire movie. haha.)
So I was nervous. Anne Hathaway? Really?
Ha. Do not fear. She was brilliant.
She takes away any expectation you might have by singing it in a way you’ve never seen it sung before.
Did she hit every low note? No. Does it matter? NO. Why? Because she was Fantine.
Her solo, more than any other, was sung with such passion, the fact that she’s not a trained singer didn’t matter. She’s not a trained singer, she’s a woman at the edge of desperation, staring into darkness. She has known happiness and halcyon days, and that heightens the present suffering.
Many of the musical numbers are this way (although no other to the extent of IDAD) – the passion shows through the music, making the piece less about the proper tone, voice quality, notes, and more about the scene, the lyrics, the emotion. The music really was a vehicle to express the emotion of the lyrics. So the singers may be nasally at times, for example, but it was somehow more forgivable in context.
For many of us, Les Mis songs are familiar not in the context of the show, but because of their presence at a high school concert, an audition, American Idol, a coffeehouse/talent show, etc.
Typically, you hear IDAD sung by the alto in the show choir who has a beautiful voice but is never getting that lead in the high school musical because, well, she’s an alto. ”Here is Mary Sue singing I Dreamed a Dream, followed by Betty Smith on the violin, and then Billy Jones will tap dance…”
But Hathaway’s performance was not going to be followed up by Pachelbel’s Canon on violin. It was heart-wrenching. She wasn’t singing a nice musical solo. She was crying out as Fantine.
And this is one of the the things that makes Crowe’s musical performance slightly underwhelming. (I’m trying to be nice here.) Hathaway had already shown us that you didn’t need to be a Broadway performer to pull it off. Could Crowe follow her lead?
Nope. In Stars, which is one of the best songs in the whole show, he transported us back to that high school auditorium. It was almost as if he spent the whole show trying to hit his notes and forgot his passion. You could have followed up his performance of Stars with some sophomore girl singing Summertime.
Maybe it was a matter of Stars being directed incorrectly, but I didn’t see a man passionately in pursuit of justice. In fact, if it wasn’t for his ubiquity throughout the movie, you might not have known how adamant Javert was to catch Jean Valjean.
Stars isn’t the song of a man who is on the fence about his pursuit. There’s no wavering. I guess part of the error is in the directing — why was he so wishy-washy? Check out the lyrics… this is a man whose whole life is based on seeing justice fulfilled — no understanding of mercy, of repentance, of the fact that a man can change. In the movie, Javert leaves the crucifix to go outside — he turns from the greatest sign of mercy to sing to nature — unwavering, predictable stars.
You know your place in the sky
You hold your course and your aim
And each in your season
Returns and returns
And is always the same
And if they aren’t? well…
And if you fall as Lucifer fell
You fall in flame!
When that is challenged– when Jean Valjean shows him that man can change, that God is mercy, Javert can’t stand it. He can’t live in “the world of Jean Valjean.” At different points in the musical, both men are given back their lives, both are given freedom… and the men make very different decisions at those crossroads. (See “Who am I” and “Javert’s Suicide.” Note that Javert’s song ends on a discordant note…)
Sadly, these three scenes should be the most powerful parts of the musical (Who Am I, Stars, and Javert’s suicide)… and they fall short.
One of my favorite scenes (besides On My Own, which again, being an alto solo, needed to live up to my expectations — and did!) was Marius’ Empty Chairs at Empty Tables. I thought Marius was very well cast and ended up being one of my favorite characters.
I think what really moved me during Empty Chairs, especially when I saw it the second time, was thinking about a friend of mine who lost his friends in combat. We tend to forget about our young veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan… how many young men in that theatre with me could have sung that same song?
All in all, I would definitely recommend seeing Les Mis. I know some things could have been done better, and I would have cast someone else as Javert. Namely, Hadley Fraser. He has played various roles on stage, including the best Raoul I’ve ever seen (25th Anniversary of Phantom of the Opera) and Grantaire in Les Mis’ 25th Anniversary. He was in the movie, playing the role of the army officer at the barricade, and during the final battle gets to sing five lines. Those are some of the best lines you’ll hear sung by a man in the entire movie, with an exception of the magnificent Colm Wilkinson (the Bishop), whose performance should have moved you to weep. While I was happy Hadley was at least in the movie, his performance (of those five lines), made me depressed thinking about what could have been. Alas. Tom Hooper didn’t ask me.
But again, I would highly recommend seeing the movie. I don’t feel like this long blog post has done it justice at all… but I’m still pushing “publish.”
I spent a lovely Music City evening listening to an adorable duo, Jenny and Tyler, at a concert that was part of East Side Storytellin’, an evening of book readings, musical performances, and author/musician interviews, sponsored by East Side Story, an all-local bookstore.
It was one of those evenings that makes this city unique. It reminded me of another event I attended in the Fall, which reminded me that I haven’t blogged about it yet, which reminded me of five other things I haven’t blogged about yet…
So until I get around to blogging about all those other things, I thought I would provide some musical entertainment for you, courtesy of a band my brother-in-law found and nicely shared with my sister and me. We mustn’t overlook how charitable and selfless this act was… because he surely knew we would immediately become smitten (more smitten then we already were; but more about that later).
I won’t say any more — I’m saving it for a future post– but be prepared to love these guys. And make note to remember this when I blog about Les Mis (most likely my next post).
Please meet… Sheytoons:
Enjoy. I’ll be back.
This Christmas seems a little darker than most.
Perhaps it’s just a part of growing older — when you’re a child, Christmas is full of mystery and presents and laughter and presents. Thank God my childhood was a happy one, and so Christmas was a happy day in the middle of a happy life.
As you grow older, your eyes are opened to the fact that not everyone has happy childhoods and not everyone has happy lives. Christmas isn’t always a happy day in the midst of a happy life.
But this doesn’t make Christmas less joyful — or at least it shouldn’t — because joy is not an emotion or a warm fuzzy feeling. That is why we all still lit that pink candle on Gaudete Sunday, a Sunday of joy, despite being a nation in shock and mourning. Joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, the rejoicing that occurs not because happy things are happening in our lives, but the rejoicing because God exists and, if we’re in the state of grace, dwells within us. We rejoice because The Good exists and we possess it in our souls.
This Christmas, I have dear friends who are suffering. Several are away from their families for Christmas; one has to work the entire day; one is suffering from abuse and depression; one has a son in Afghanistan. There are Christians suffering under occupation, nations ready for war, and our own country on the brink of financial crisis. There are people suffering under debilitating illnesses and cancer. There are those who have no physical homes to go to, those who have no family, those who don’t even believe in the Christ child. And there are families reeling from the loss of the dearest present God has ever given them: their child, their mother, their sister, their brother, because of a lost soul who didn’t value his own life or those innocent lives at Sandy Hook.
Into this darkness, the Christ child comes: regardless of who believes in Him, who listens to Him, or who recognizes Him.
“The Lord himself will give you a sign.
Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel.”
(Isaiah 7:14)
This prophecy of Isaiah, dating back to 733 BC, proclaims that the Messiah will be born to a virgin. But God, through the prophet, tells us something else very specific about this Messiah: that he will be called “Emmanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14)
Emmanuel: God with us.
Pope Benedict points out, “Even though Jesus is not actually named Emmanuel, nevertheless He is Emmanuel, as the entire history of the Gospels seeks to demonstrate. This man — they tell us– in His very person is God’s being-with-men.”
Into this dark world, God has come, and He has come in a way He has never come before — He has entered time and space in order to be with us.
He comes not to take us from this dark world, but to dwell in it with us.
When St. Joseph learns of his mission- to take Jesus into his home- he learns of Jesus’ mission too: “you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save his people from their sins.” (Mt 1:21). What does it mean to save us from our sins? Pope Benedict points out that, like the healing of the paralytic lowered through the roof, this saving of our sins might be disappointing at first — “The promising of forgiveness of sins seems both too little and too much: too much, because it trespasses upon God’s exclusive sphere; too little, because there seems to be no thought of Israel’s concrete suffering or its true need for salvation.”
Perhaps the families in Newtown, or each of us individually, could say the same thing– where is God in this darkness? Why has He come, if we are still suffering? Or has He even come?
“Man is a relational being,” the Pope continues. “And if his first, fundamental relationship is disturbed — his relationship with God — then nothing else can be truly in order. This is where the priority lies in Jesus’ message and ministry: before all else, He wants to point man toward the essence of his malady, and to show him — if you are not truly healed there, then however many good things you may find, you are not truly healed. In this sense, the explanation of Jesus’ name that was offered to Joseph in his dream already contains a fundamental clarification of how man’s salvation has to be understood and hence what the Saviour’s essential task must be.”
This is the light of Christmas — not that there is no longer darkness, but that the light has come to join us in the darkness to save us from ourselves.
Georges de la Tour’s meditative “The Newborn,” reminds us that this was the only baby born in this world in order to die. Other children come to live; He came to die. The swaddling clothes were a prefigurement of the shroud, the wood of the cradle an anticipation of the wood of the cross.
This mission of Emmanuel is prefigured in the famous Old Testament story of Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael in the third chapter of Daniel. King Nebuchadnezzar throws the men in the fire because they will not worship his gods. The men tell the king, “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace; and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king.” The men are delivered– but how? The king sees not three men in the fire, but four — and the fourth’s appearance “is like a son of the gods.”
God could have yanked those men out of the fire. But He doesn’t. Instead He joins them in the fire.
He could deliver us from all suffering – and He does – not by taking it away, but by joining us.
In the Incarnation, God takes on human flesh so that He can suffer. As God, He is immutable — unchangeable — and perfect, and cannot suffer deprivation. And so He takes a complete human nature to Himself, in order that He may suffer with us.
That is the mystery of Christmas. Not that our God has come to wipe away our tears, but to weep with us.
If this Christmas seems darker than most, embrace the light of the Christ child. He knows your needs better than you do; in the darkness, He is already there waiting for you.
Every fall and spring, my work takes me around the state of Tennessee. I teach parish volunteers on Saturdays and travel to them — which means 7 weeks of the fall (8 this fall) and 7 weeks of the spring, my Saturday is spent inside working. Luckily I love teaching, I love what I teach, and it’s all worth it in the end. I did have a moment of crisis last Saturday when I reflected on the fact that I haven’t had a free Saturday in October or November for the last four years and won’t have a free one for the foreseeable future. But I try not to think about it.
This past weekend, in addition to teaching on Saturday, we also were sticking around to teach school teachers on Monday. Luckily, we were teaching in a city where I have a friend who lives on a mountain nearby. (My cousin also lives there, but I heard through the grapevine that she wasn’t in the city — so next time, T!) So the weekend turned into a nice little getaway — Friday night was spent hanging out with Barbara and her husband Steve and a local priest, eating good food and drinking homemade brew. Saturday was spent teaching, but the evening was filled with more eating good food, drinking wine, and sitting on their beautiful back porch around a fire pit, eating s’mores. (That’s their front yard, above– so you can see I wasn’t suffering much)
On Sunday, after Mass, RCIA class, and brunch, Steve took me on a tour of Lookout Mountain. We went on a little walk to their church (where we had left his car to go to brunch) then tooled around Lookout Mountain in his Lexus convertible with the top down. It was a gorgeous day and Lookout Mountain is filled with stunning views and beautiful houses. Not all the houses are huge (although there are those), but all of them are unique and well-loved. Around every corner, there was yet another house with some great feature, whether it was big bay windows, an arch, or even a bell tower– that made me gasp and say, “I want to live THERE!”
Steve does some Civil War reenacting, so he took me to Point Park to show me around. It was a great personal tour — and he didn’t even know how much of a Civil War buff I am!
They always take pictures of their friends by this cannon — so I had to pose for the obligatory photo. When we got to the cannon, a young couple was taking turns taking pictures of each other, so Steve kindly asked if they wanted him to take a picture of both of them. Now, Steve is a bit of a Renaissance man — he’s a photographer on the side, and a darn good one. So I almost lost it laughing when the girl showed him how to take a picture with her iPhone. But he was very kind and listened to her lesson. And then proceeded to take the best photo that’s probably ever been taken with her phone.
Over the course of the weekend, he taught me lots of cool tricks — like how to use the HDR feature on my iPhone so that the city showed up in the picture above. Pretty cool.
He also showed me the best photo editing apps to purchase. In the picture below, there used to be a big white warehouse building in the valley below. Not anymore! Poof! 
The rocks up at Point Park were so cool. We saw them in real life, and then we went to the museum and saw the photos of the Union soldiers posing on the rocks after the battle. A photographer took their pictures up on the mountain, on this awesome rock outcropping, and then he developed the pictures right there! Steve has been out on the outcropping while reenacting and said you can still see where he mounted his tripod. Pretty awesome.
Sunday night we … guess what? Ate good food and drank wine. And another priest came for dinner! We watched the sunset from the back porch.
I could get used to this life. Did I mention that Barbara made me breakfast every morning? Even when I had to leave at 6:30 am to go teach.
That’s love.
Speaking of love, this guy can’t get enough of it. Meet Huck:
So all in all… a great weekend. It was definitely what I needed during this stressful time at work. In addition to the busyness of work, I’m also teaching twice a week in the evenings… which means a lot of lesson prep the evenings I’m not teaching. And guess what? Starting next week, I’m teaching a study on the Vatican II documents on Monday nights. All of this translates into: Until Thanksgiving, I’m teaching every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Each day/night something different.
After Thanksgiving, it will just be Tuesday and Thursdays. And I’ll feel like I have tons of time on my hands.
I really wanted to teach more. And God answered that prayer!
Last week, despite the stress — or maybe because of it? — I went to a Carbon Leaf concert with my friend Manda. (Don’t tell my Mom. Maybe she won’t read this far down? Haha.)
Manda was a good sport, because it was a late night. And we both had to work the next day. We skipped the opening bands and went over there at 9:30 (after I taught. Hey, you only live once!) and walked into a basically-empty concert venue. We counted 30 people there! Eeek!
More people came, but it was still pretty sparse. It was a week night, after all, and they had scheduled the concert at the last minute. But it ended up being a great concert — the guys didn’t hold back, despite the small crowd, and it was practically a private show. We were in the “front row” since no one was standing in front of us, and at one point the lead singer (Barry) and Manda were having a conversation back and forth with eye contact and body language. The whole thing was really hilarious. In between songs, Barry would just talk to us. And we would talk back. It was great.
After they played their last song, Barry came down off the stage and motioned for the other guys to bring instruments and join him — and they stood right there and sang another song — no microphones, a foot away from us. And when they were done, they just started mingling and we hung out for awhile. It was so laid back and awesome.
And guess what? The next day I didn’t regret it for a minute. Yeah, I was tired. But I wasn’t stressed and I wasn’t moody. Because good music, good friends, and an evening where you can let go of the fifty things that are usually occupying your mind is exactly what you need when you’re burning the candle at both ends.
The end.
You’re probably all thinking, “All Joannie does is eat and listen to music.” And you’d be right.
Kidding.
I wanted to post about last night not because 99% of you would care, but for my friend Lori, who couldn’t be there. Here you go Lori – you’re the 1%.
Gaelic Storm was playing in town last night, and after not seeing them for several years, I found myself at my third GS storm concert in eight months. Since Lori couldn’t join me, I went with her parents, her boyfriend, and another good friend of hers. (All of whom are friends of mine, of course.) Her absence was felt and we spent most of the night talking about how much we love her. : )
The opening band was actually really good — a rarity for opening bands. (I really dislike most opening bands.) They were a Canadian bluegrass band — two brothers and a cousin who are fourth-generation traveling musicians.
Gaelic Storm was great, of course, although the show seemed a bit different than usual. The night was live on the radio, which meant after about an hour they stopped playing and the radio host acted like it was over, and then they kept playing once off air. I don’t know if that had anything to do with it or not, but they didn’t play their usual instrumentals and the concert seemed shorter, even though it wasn’t. They played a lot of stuff off their new album, which is to be expected, and I missed a lot of their old stuff.
Their newish fiddler player (new as in she wasn’t playing with them when I was obsessed with them in college) is 7 months pregnant and is oh-so-cute. Before the show I was telling everyone how I saw Ellery fiddle pregnant… and then Jessie came up on stage pregnant!
Just water for the new mom! : )
All in all, a fun evening!
Last week I saw on Twitter that Matt Maher was going to be playing in Nashville. I wasn’t sure if Matt’s recent move to Nashville would necessarily translate into concerts, so I was pleasantly surprised to already see him playing here.
When I looked into it, I saw that it was a benefit concert put on by Audrey Assad and her husband Billy for those struggling with debt incurred by medical bills. Audrey is another great Catholic musician, and she and Billy produced an EP called “The Cancer Year” to help pay for the medical costs they incurred when Billy was diagnosed with and fought Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Today Billy is cancer free, the EP was a success, and they wanted to have a concert to help others.
I was grateful that my friends Maria and Manda wanted to go too, because I was sort of unsure what to expect. It seemed like it was going to be a small, intimate group of people… was it just going to be Audrey and Billy’s friends? Would we stick out?
It was worth the risk.
It was a small, intimate gathering (sixty people tops), and most of the people knew Audrey and Billy personally. But it wasn’t a big deal that we didn’t, and I knew a lot of people there and felt perfectly comfortable. It was a blend of Catholics and hipsters. And it was awesome.
It was in a converted warehouse that is now a venue with rooms of varying size. The room we were in is actually a “member’s only” coffee shop. Who knew such things existed?
One of Billy’s friends is in Second City in Chicago and did stand up comedy. There was beer and coffee and food. And all the artists from the EP played — first Erin Gauvin, then Audrey, Audrey with Matt, just Matt, Audrey again, Audrey with Marshall Altman.
It was very laid-back and exactly what the night should be… just a bunch of friends hanging out and playing music. We were standing in the back with Matt Maher for awhile, and it was no big deal — he was just a guy hanging out with his friends. Audrey sat in front of us while Matt played – and again, it was just a girl watching her friend perform.
It was just a bunch of people hanging out and celebrating. Except these people were professionals.
Have I mentioned that I love this town?
Phantom of the Opera will always be my favorite musical. I know it doesn’t have the philosophical and theological richness of Les Miserables, and perhaps it is a bit pedestrian to claim it as “favorite” — it’s like feeling advant-garde by claiming to like Adele.
I know much of it is because it’s so comfortably familiar – I have a strange memory of listening to the soundtrack while driving in the van with my parents and sister Jill — maybe circa 1996? It’s a strange memory because I feel like we were just driving around town at night for fun — and the only plausible explanation for that would be if we were looking at Christmas lights… and who the heck listens to Phantom while looking at Christmas lights?
And it wasn’t the average one-disc soundtrack that just included all the songs — no, it was the full soundtrack that included every sung line, including the dialogue between songs. In middle school and high school, I must have listened to that soundtrack over and over — I didn’t realize I listened to it so frequently until I watched the show and knew exactly what was coming before and after the main song — the off-key playing of Phantom after Music of the Night, or the dialogue between Meg and Christine about her new tutor, or the fantastic give-and-take dialogue surrounding the discovery of the notes from the Opera Ghost.
After seeing it live, I read the book and was shocked to find how much I loved Raoul. The Phantom is downright creepy and demonic in the book- quite different from Webber’s sympathetic portrait. So when I saw it again on stage, the book definitely swayed my second-viewing and I properly swooned at All I Ask of You and cheered when (spoiler alert) Christine left Phantom behind.
With all of this in mind, you can imagine what I thought of the 2004 movie. I guess I should give it a second chance, but the fact that I was drawn to feel disappointed when she left the Phantom for Raoul makes me give it two-thumbs down. I know he’s the main character, but come on — I should not be thinking, “Stay in this dungeon, Christine! What are you thinking?!” when she has the option to flee a murderer.
All this to say… I just finished watching the 25th Anniversary performance at Royal Albert Hall. And it is stunning. After seeing bits on YouTube (Thanks to Jill– who saw it on PBS and recommended it), I got it on Netflix and relived my high school days over the last few nights. I can’t recommend it enough. Especially if you’ve only seen the live-action movie.
Ramin Karimloo is incredible. Sierra Boggess is, hands down, the best Christine I’ve ever heard.
And you actually understand the story. I don’t know why the characters make so much more sense in this production than the others — it’s not as if it’s a different script than the other times I’ve seen it on stage. But somehow Phantom is creepier, Raoul is more dashing — and while you do feel sorry for Phantom, you definitely don’t want Christine to stay with him.
Perhaps it was seeing them up close — something I’ve obviously never been able to do when I saw it on stage (balcony seats in Clowes Hall and the Murat). They had always been voices to me, but not actors.
I will have the songs in my head for the next week or so — the only downside to singing them in show choir is that it’s hard for me to hear them without wanting to sing along. And I’m not worthy to sing along with Sierra!
If you’re a Phantom fan, you have to see this production. If you have never seen Phantom, this is a great way to see it for the first time.
I went on a bit of a trip down memory lane a little over a month ago. You might remember my first trip to McNamara’s, and how the live Irish music reminded me of my college years (I make them sound so long ago). During that trip to McNamara’s, I told my friend Lori how much she would like the band Gaelic Storm.
We looked up tour dates, although I didn’t have high hopes. Much to my surprise, we saw they were coming in February to the little city of Tullahoma, which is about an hour and a half from here. Sadly, it was the Thursday night preceding our large annual conference, meaning that I was not free to travel about the countryside in search of Irish music.
Luckily for us, they soon posted another date — the Tuesday before that Thursday — right here in town! I hadn’t seen Gaelic Storm in four or five years, so I was really looking forward to seeing the old gang (minus the fiddler, Ellery, who has been replaced since I saw them last; she left to have a baby).
The venue had expanded since I last saw a show there, so it was good to be back. Lori and I got there a little early, found a hightop near the stage, and ordered our Guinness.
The opening act was awful. (and required a second Guinness)
But Gaelic Storm soon made us forget the opening act even existed.
I hadn’t realized how much I missed them.
For those of you who didn’t know me during my college years, it’s hard to convey what Gaelic Storm was to me then. I think my mom thought I was going to run away with them someday. I freely admit I was a groupie — in three years I think I went to 10 concerts. Each has a story — whether it’s getting stranded in Baltimore all night after a concert, having Patrick Murphy raise a glass to my friend Trena on her birthday (and buy her a shot afterwards), or getting into a theological argument with Patrick after a show (the day after my 21st birthday).
There was a time when I knew almost every word to every song they sang. And I still do know those words… it’s just they’ve added more songs to their repertoire.
See, little Joannie was a wee bit obssessed:
That was in Alexandria, VA, the second time I saw them in concert. They were sitting at a table signing autographs after the show, and when I asked to take a picture with them, Patrick patted for me to sit on his lap and I obliged.
Ah, the innocence of a 19 year old.
I was glad that Lori loved them just as much as I did. Nashville can be a difficult crowd to please — live music just doesn’t wow the residents of Music City. So half the crowd was dead and the other half was drunk. Lori and I were neither — but I was too shy to dance around since we were sitting on the dead half of the room. But by the end we were at least standing and I even danced a bit.
They did an awesome percussion number where each member played a beat with something — Ryan, the drummer, went to town on the side of a wooden box he was sitting on. It was awesome.
They sang a lot of my favorites and some new ones I had never heard. And they even sang Courtin’ in the Kitchen for their finale.
As I mentioned, Lori loved them as much as I did. It’s always sort of a relief when you take someone to a concert and they actually enjoy themselves.
She enjoyed herself so much… she wanted to go back on Thursday night.
All day Thursday was spent getting ready for our conference. The conference officially started Friday at noon, but I had a wakeup call at 5:00 and had to be at the Motherhouse soon after. As Lori and I walked to our cars on Thursday evening (she helped set up for the conference during the day), I was vacillating between prudence & maturity, which dictated me staying home and going to bed, or adventure & love of GS, which meant three hours in the car and a very late night.
Lori followed me to my apartment, so I could continue to weigh my options.
You can only imagine what won out.
This was my reasoning. I could go to bed at 9 or 10 and wake up early, and if I was cranky or stressed during the next day, I would be even more cranky knowing I passed up Gaelic Storm the night before. Or… I could be completely ridiculous, drive to Tullahoma for the concert and get very little sleep, and if I was cranky or stressed during the next day, I would force myself to be happy and perky because I had made a crazy decision the night before and had a wonderful time at the concert. I couldn’t let anyone know I had been so dumb the night before — so I had to be extra fantastic the next day.
See? It made perfect sense to me.
We had called the venue in Tullahoma to make sure that they still had tickets, and we found out that the 7pm start time was GS’ real start time, not an opening act. Since they had only played for about an hour and a half on Tuesday, we figured we’d be back in the car by 8:30 and home by 10!
Lori drove and I curled up in the back seat and slept. (isn’t she a great friend?!) I woke up when we were pulling into the metropolis. It was 7:10 — we dashed inside and bought tickets from the nice Tullahoma native sitting outside the auditorium. Then we headed in (the door was in the front of the auditorium and our seats were in the back, but it was dark and no one seemed to notice) and took up our spots in the back. She had given us two aisle seats, but it still didn’t change the fact that it was an auditorium — and we were surrounded by people over the age of 70. It appeared that it was going to be another dead crowd.
But Lori didn’t let that stop her! We were going to have fun and be crazy, whether the people around us were or not. We danced in our seats and sang along and jumped up every time they made everyone stand.
At one point, Patrick sort of made the sound that he makes when he’s about to sing Johnny Tarr, and Lori let out a huge “YESSSS!” that echoed through the theatre. I thought Patrick was going to fall over. Then, between songs when it was particularly quiet, Lori screamed at the top of her lungs, “Kiss me I’m Irish!” (which happens to be the name of a song) As Patrick looked out (pretended to be bewildered), someone echoed the request, and Patrick squinted into the darkness and replied, “Really? You look Italian.”
And then they proceeded to play a completely different song. I told Lori not to take it personally — I had never heard them do that song in concert, so they might not be prepared to take random requests. Lori pointed out that you never deny requests in Music City. But hey, this was Tullahoma, after all.
The audience eventually got energetic, although they never stayed standing for long. I’ve seen GS in a lot of different venues, but never in an auditorium like this. It was hard — you wanted to dance, but you were sitting in a movie theatre seat. (at least the seats were kind of bouncy) The older man sitting across the aisle from us told Lori and I afterwards that our craziness made his night.
They ended up taking an intermission … and played several extra songs they hadn’t played Tuesday — so the concert wasn’t over until almost 10. Oops! They told the same jokes and sang many of the same songs… but it was still wonderful.
And when they came out for intermission, guess what they played?
Kiss Me I’m Irish. : )
