|
8806. CharlieL - 1/1/2010 12:18:30 AM Tim Hart, a founding member of Steeleye Span, dies Christmas Eve at the age of 61. That band had a profound effect on me and the way I see bass guitar in traditional music. 8807. Ms. No - 1/10/2010 8:50:25 AM All you haters just sit back and shut it. I'm gone camping!
When I first heard that they'd made a musical of a horrible but fondly remembered film from my pre-teen days ---when every girl wanted to be Olivia Newton John --- all I could think was that they're really scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Xanadu? The Musical?
Jesus wept.
Except that it was really, awesomely fun! They managed to hit the right amount of camp and fun-poking without being over-the-top in a bad way and without denigrating what we all know was a horrible film but many a teen girl loved anyway.
They've added some songs --- Newton-John and otherwise --- and they fit well.It's a 90 minute show with no intermission and it's exactly the right length with good pacing. One of the best things for me was a surprise that happened in the opening number.
If you never saw or have blocked the film from your mind, it takes place in Venice Beach, CA. Chalk artist draws a mural on a brick wall of the Nine Muses and the mural comes to life with Olivia-Newton John as the Muse Clio who attaches to our young artist and prevents his suicide.
blah blah blah rest of film ensues.
So in the opening number when the mural comes to life, one of the muses is considerably older than the others and I take a good look at her and burst into happy tears. It's Annie Golden who played Jeannie in Milos Forman's movie version of Hair. I was thrilled to see her --- and she's great in the show as is the other major supporting female role. The entire ensemble is solid.
The lead female was excellent. Nobody has exactly Newton-John's voice, but this woman managed to get the right coloring in the vocals and delivery so that she evokes Newton-John's sound. She's also a good comedian with the right amount of joy and tongue in cheek but never stepping over into commenting on the character or making fun of the outrageousness of the whole story.
Now, my friend who took me was not as enthusiastic about the show as I was --- she enjoyed it, but had more mixed feelings primarily because she has a real distate for bad accents. It's a running joke in the show and I thought it was hysterical, but it just grated on her nerves.
She did enjoy the show but was more reserved in her appreciation that I have been.
At any rate, if it's in your season's musicals, don't skip it out of fear. It's well-written with lots of little tid-bits thrown into the script that aren't necessarily about the film ---literary references to Alice in Wonderland and others, oddly enough --- and if you enjoyed the music when it was popular you'll enjoy hearing it again.
And couldn't love a roller-skating finale? 8808. alistairConnor - 1/11/2010 1:18:08 AM I went to a show before Christmas that I expected to hate, or, at best, to be bored by. It was called "Beatles Symphonie", which already put my teeth on edge. The concept is to render the George Martin orchestrations live, which would have been technically impossible for the Beatles to do in public.
I was happily surprised, to put it mildly. It was the Orchestre Symphonique de Lyon, with a six-piece rock group. Most of the members of the group have day jobs in the orchestra, which helps : they were really really tight.
Yes, they did all your favourites. They hit all the right notes. Everything was perfectly audible, thanks to the wonders of modern sound engineering. And the show was nicely paced: the beginning was dominated by brass, Magical Mystery Tour and so on, and I was just thinking that the strings didn't have much to do, and here's Eleanor Rigby... Next, a couple of straight rock numbers without the orchestra. Sort of beside the point, I thought, but they balanced the concert nicely, otherwise it would have been dominated by the softer, wimpier orchestrations.
What bowled me over was the emotional impact the songs had on me. I found myself singing along with tears rolling down my cheeks. Not sure what that was about, except that this music has been part of my life from my earliest childhood, and has acquired a lot of personal meaning. And the total immersion experience was awesome. Never mind Avatar in 3D.
One minor quibble. The singer did a fine job musically, and carried the show well. But I knew the words better that he did. Apart from the well-known hooks, his renditions suffered from being in "chewing gum" dialect : this is what happens when kids learn pop songs phonetically in a language they don't understand. Things get garbled, half a line migrates to the wrong verse, that sort of thing. It was teeth-grindingly awful for me to listen through, but by the end of the show I took it philosophically. It gave the show authenticity, as a genuinely French tribute to the Beatles. 8809. judithathome - 1/12/2010 4:14:13 PM MsNo, we enjoy musicals and in fact, saw two over the Christmas holidays...both were "Christmas" themed and both were excellent.
May not make it over for Xanadu but not because of a bad attitude toward musicals...it's just a real hassle getting there from here. If you know what I mean...ha!
(Sounds bizarre since you came all the way from California!) 8810. judithathome - 1/12/2010 4:15:40 PM test 8811. judithathome - 1/12/2010 4:16:06 PM test 8812. judithathome - 1/12/2010 4:16:13 PM test 8813. judithathome - 1/12/2010 4:16:20 PM test 8814. judithathome - 1/12/2010 4:16:28 PM test 8815. judithathome - 1/12/2010 4:16:36 PM test 8816. judithathome - 1/12/2010 4:17:57 PM Sorry...my screen was all wonky and I hate having to move the screen from side to side.
And yes, I know I could change the number of posts per page but I'm lazy that way.... 8817. alistairConnor - 1/12/2010 9:23:36 PM and you just gave a huge boost to the daily post rate! 8818. vonKreedon - 1/12/2010 10:44:32 PM I'm so sorry to hear about Tim Hart's death. Steeleye Span is the only group that I ever followed around the country, well, around the northeast on their 1976 tour. Danced, very briefly, twice with Maddy as she danced through the audience in Boston and in NYC. The NYC show was on Halloween, IIRC.
Hell of a band. 8819. vonKreedon - 1/12/2010 11:09:10 PM The Blacksmith, from Steeleye Span's first album 8820. Ms. No - 1/18/2010 9:50:11 PM No, I do know what you mean, Judith. Also, I saw it here in Sacramento about ten blocks from my apartment so it was no big trip AND I got the ticket for free! Although, I would have paid to see it if I'd known how much I'd enjoy it. ;-> 8821. judithathome - 1/19/2010 10:54:32 PM MsNo, what I meant was, most people in Fort Worth don't like to drive in Dallas.
And for some bizarre reason, I thought you were addressing that post to me and that you'd seen this in DALLAS! Since most touring musicals go to Fair PArk in Dallas, I was assuming waaaaay too much about your post! Sorry...
But still glad you enjoyed it! 8822. vonKreedon - 1/19/2010 11:57:30 PM And we lose another indy folk singer; Kate McGarrigle died Monday night at age 63.
Kate and Anna McGarrigle 8823. Ms. No - 1/23/2010 5:55:31 PM I remember listening to their album "Dancer with Bruised Knees" at my uncle's place in Nashville about a zillion years ago. It's got a song on it about the chemical bonds of salt that they make into a love story......if I recall correctly. I was only about 10 or 11.
8824. Ms. No - 1/23/2010 5:57:40 PM I so loved going to Fair Park as a kid --- whether it was the State Fair, the ballet or musicals. It was pretty close to my grandmother's house. She lived just off Ferguson Rd off I-30. 8825. arkymalarky - 1/24/2010 8:39:48 AM Oooh, I did too.
|
