HOME | MAIN BOARD | TWITTER | LOGIN | REGISTER | SEARCH | FLAT MODE

not logged in

re: Newbie saying hi! (And some thoughts on the show)

Posted by:
rockfenris2005 02:38 pm UTC 03/22/17
In reply to: Newbie saying hi! (And some thoughts on the show) - Dave_Wain 09:20 pm UTC 03/21/17


Oh I loved this review. Thank you.

> If anyone was unfortunate enough to sit by a tall guy in
> his thirties, wearing ripped skinny jeans and a Todd
> Rundgren tee last night in the front row of the circle, I
> apologise now for weeping uncontrollably somewhere during
> the second act!
>
> Newbie alert! I’ve read this messageboard every day for
> the best part of this century, but I’m just not really a
> contributor on forums of this ilk. I just don’t think I’ve
> got anything particularly interesting to say. I’m a far
> better voyeur! Having said that, somewhere in the deep
> recesses of the M56 on the journey home, I felt I just HAD
> to finally join the board and offer my thoughts, if only
> in the hope that laying them down may facilitate some
> sleep!
>
> Let’s go back to the emotion of the night, and it IS a
> deeply emotional piece of work, but there’s no doubt a
> percentage of that is just sheer relief.
>
> Not so much a relief that it’s good, just the simple
> relief that it exists at all. We’ve all been on this
> (cliché warning) ‘journey’, whereby Jim’s lifelong vision
> of a musical has always been mooted, but even despite the
> teasingly short rehearsal promo clips, there was always a
> nagging suspicion in my mind that it was some insane
> self-created fantasy, caused by an over-prescribed dosage
> of Prozac or something…
>
> Thankfully it appears my doctor won’t be up before the
> GMC, because it really does live and breathe in one
> gargantuan, breathtaking, aural and visual spectacle.
>
> I found Jim’s work through an unusual entry point. One
> album I obsessed over as a teenager, and still do now is A
> Wizard, A True Star, so with a hunger for everything that
> Todd has laid his genius-like paws on, I ventured towards
> his productions; XTC, The Band, Patti Smith, and… well,
> you know the rest.
>
> This fervent hunger to sample an artist’s entire body of
> work soon transferred onto Steinman, and before I knew it
> I’d amassed the usual suspects, as well as those early
> eighties masterpieces for other artists. Needless to say
> this caused a great deal of concern among my parents and
> friends; between asking my mother to borrow one of her
> Barbra Streisand LP’s, and insisting that my school
> friends listen to Barry Manilow between Guns N’Roses CD’s,
> my card was marked early on as a potentially unhinged
> individual!
>
> I digress. We all have our stories, but one thing that’s
> remained constant since I first found Jim’s music, is the
> fact that first and foremost, I’m a Jim Steinman fan. As
> everyone will agree, there are times when this carries a
> degree of frustration, not least (despite the great
> review) in pieces like the one from The Arts Shelf
> yesterday which carried the slightly misleading headline
> ‘In the Land of the Musical, Meat Loaf is King’, because
> if there’s another aspect that added to the emotion of
> last night, it was the sight of Jim’s name above the
> title. It felt like a perverse vindication of two decades
> of strange looks; the record shop guy who smirked as I
> bought three copies of No Matter What, or the former
> partner who cited my predilection for relentlessly playing
> “some German opera shit” as a reason for breaking up.
>
> I’m using it relentlessly too, both in conversation and on
> social media; JIM STEINMAN’S Bat Out Of Hell: The Musical.
>
>
> Prior to going, a high percentage of people I told replied
> with “Ooh, is Meat Loaf in it?”, which was fine, but once
> I strangled the seventh successive person who said that,
> the bodies were beginning to pile up. This response will
> no doubt dwindle as the show’s legacy becomes etched into
> the folklore of Musical Theatre, and to be honest, I’m
> pretty pumped at the pending reappraisal of Jim’s career
> that BooH: TM should bring, not least for the folks that
> go out and pick up the Pandora’s Box CD. Oh how envious I
> am of them being able to listen to that for the first
> time.
>
> Anyhow, I’m droning on so much I’m almost on the verge of
> curing my own Steinman-induced insomnia, but, as for a few
> random thoughts on the show, it seems redundant to add
> another orgasm to the cacophony of heightened squeals over
> the much talked about sequences that had audience members
> gasping. A few things that really caught my eyes and ears
> began with Andrew Polec. Holy cow! I saw him interviewed
> alongside Meat (post-Q Award), and he really did look like
> a deer trapped in the headlights of an oncoming car. I
> really should have had no such concerns though, as he gave
> a commanding performance of self-assured brilliance. The
> same goes for Christina Bennington, who manages to embody
> a naïve innocence, mixed with an underlying desire to
> rebel.
>
> Jim’s script was far more intense than I expected. Naively
> I thought the narrative would be pretty filmsy in order to
> facilitate the music, but I was so wrong. Peppered with
> all the classic Steinmanism’s that we’ve become accustomed
> to – JUGULAR! – Jim visits all the themes that are
> entwined throughout his songbook. One aspect that I
> thought worked really well was the character of Tink. To
> me, there’s a real undercurrent of sexuality that really
> sparkles on stage between him and Strat, and Aran MacRae
> manages to deliver that with a subtle perfection.
>
> What Part of My Body Hurts the Most was the moment that
> really broke me, as I sobbed my way to snot-laden
> embarrassment like some kind of inconsolable fruitloop.
> The simplicity of the production on this song really
> heightened the emotion of it, while years of only seeing
> it on some grainy YouTube clip with Rob Evan singing
> proved too much to finally see it performed live.
>
> That’s all really. I hope I’m allowed back after a
> ridiculously long first post! I just had to share this
> with like-minded people as a means of cathartic release.
> Y’know, sometimes when you witness a miracle, you realise
> that it’s not much good just keeping it to yourself.
>


reply |

Previous: re: Newbie saying hi! (And some thoughts on the show) - Ali 02:56 pm UTC 03/22/17
Next: re: Newbie saying hi! (And some thoughts on the show) - Jacqueline 01:49 pm UTC 03/22/17

Thread:



    HOME | MAIN BOARD | LOG OFF | START A NEW THREAD | EDIT PROFILE | SEARCH | FLAT MODE