halfcactus (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
halfcactus) wrote2026-04-03 02:51 pm
halfcactus) wrote2026-04-03 02:51 pm
Entry tags:
March music shows
Watched a bunch of stuff whose tickets I bought last year:
Les Miserables World Tour (Concert)
It was kinda hard to get into this because I woke up that day to news of USrael bombing a school in Iran, which was like... another war, and still, no one's going to stop them?
Notes: Javert (Jeremy Secomb) was phenomenal and was quite—and I mean this as a compliment—unhinged, like he was stoic by default but the wildness would spill over anytime Valjean was involved. At one point he had Thenardier in a chokehold. Gavroche and Grantaire wore matching green outfits, I guess they really are family-coded in the musical canon. Marius (Will Callan) had great himbo energy and huge stage presence (on top of a very powerful voice), which made Enjolras (Harry Chandler) feel significantly less impressive. Mme Thenardier (Lea Salonga), well, did her best (I'm happy she got to do all three roles, but she's just not a comic actress); Thenardier (Red Concepción), however, was fantastic. The child actors were very cute and performed very well.
Throughout the first act, a guy in the row in front of us kept taking photos and videos (with his screen dimmed to the lowest setting) at the beginning of each song, which was distracting. The couple beside me was annoyed and had a few passive-aggressive remarks during the intermission period.
ONE OK ROCK - Detox Tour
Watched this with my cousin, who flew in from our hometown and is a much bigger fan. (Life update: It looks like I can now be trusted to pick people up from the airport—I took a slower route and missed a turn and got super stressed, but my cousin didn't appear to care.) The funny thing is that I almost opted not to buy water from the concession stand because I'd planned to just quietly enjoy the music and sit pretty, but the moment they played the second song (The Beginning, my personal favorite) I kissed my demure image and my voice goodbye. 😂 The sounds, lights, and stage production, were perfect, and the energy from the band and the crowd impossible to resist. Halfway through the concert, Taka, the vocalist, admitted that he had just lost his voice and barely gotten it back and wasn't in the best shape; he was drinking and spraying his throat in between songs, which was kinda stressful??? I found out afterwards that they'd cut two songs from the set, Tiny Pieces and +Matter, both from the new album.
Other "old" songs in the set list: Wherever You Are, a highly intimate experience; crowd pleasers Renegades ("Japanese" version) and Stand Out Fit In; Kimishidai Ressha, a huge surprise; and We Are for encore.
A Chorus Line
The production I watched a mostly local one, with a couple of guest actors and a guest choreographer. It's my first time seeing any version of this musical, and overall I think it's not my type of musical, though it's structurally interesting. I think it's also the type of musical where the cast can make it or break it, requiring the ability to sing, dance, AND deliver monologues. As much as it pains me to say it, I feel like a lot of local actors have yet to figure out how line-read effectively in English. They sounded fine and fluent, but the flow, intonation and inflections were always kind of same-y, less like delivering a natural performance and more like trying to mimic a certain type of speaking. Which is fine in small doses and in most musical productions, but not on this one specifically since it's heavy on spoken parts.
Les Miserables World Tour (Concert)
It was kinda hard to get into this because I woke up that day to news of USrael bombing a school in Iran, which was like... another war, and still, no one's going to stop them?
Notes: Javert (Jeremy Secomb) was phenomenal and was quite—and I mean this as a compliment—unhinged, like he was stoic by default but the wildness would spill over anytime Valjean was involved. At one point he had Thenardier in a chokehold. Gavroche and Grantaire wore matching green outfits, I guess they really are family-coded in the musical canon. Marius (Will Callan) had great himbo energy and huge stage presence (on top of a very powerful voice), which made Enjolras (Harry Chandler) feel significantly less impressive. Mme Thenardier (Lea Salonga), well, did her best (I'm happy she got to do all three roles, but she's just not a comic actress); Thenardier (Red Concepción), however, was fantastic. The child actors were very cute and performed very well.
Throughout the first act, a guy in the row in front of us kept taking photos and videos (with his screen dimmed to the lowest setting) at the beginning of each song, which was distracting. The couple beside me was annoyed and had a few passive-aggressive remarks during the intermission period.
ONE OK ROCK - Detox Tour
Watched this with my cousin, who flew in from our hometown and is a much bigger fan. (Life update: It looks like I can now be trusted to pick people up from the airport—I took a slower route and missed a turn and got super stressed, but my cousin didn't appear to care.) The funny thing is that I almost opted not to buy water from the concession stand because I'd planned to just quietly enjoy the music and sit pretty, but the moment they played the second song (The Beginning, my personal favorite) I kissed my demure image and my voice goodbye. 😂 The sounds, lights, and stage production, were perfect, and the energy from the band and the crowd impossible to resist. Halfway through the concert, Taka, the vocalist, admitted that he had just lost his voice and barely gotten it back and wasn't in the best shape; he was drinking and spraying his throat in between songs, which was kinda stressful??? I found out afterwards that they'd cut two songs from the set, Tiny Pieces and +Matter, both from the new album.
Other "old" songs in the set list: Wherever You Are, a highly intimate experience; crowd pleasers Renegades ("Japanese" version) and Stand Out Fit In; Kimishidai Ressha, a huge surprise; and We Are for encore.
A Chorus Line
The production I watched a mostly local one, with a couple of guest actors and a guest choreographer. It's my first time seeing any version of this musical, and overall I think it's not my type of musical, though it's structurally interesting. I think it's also the type of musical where the cast can make it or break it, requiring the ability to sing, dance, AND deliver monologues. As much as it pains me to say it, I feel like a lot of local actors have yet to figure out how line-read effectively in English. They sounded fine and fluent, but the flow, intonation and inflections were always kind of same-y, less like delivering a natural performance and more like trying to mimic a certain type of speaking. Which is fine in small doses and in most musical productions, but not on this one specifically since it's heavy on spoken parts.