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healingmirthFair warning (and an apology to anyone who browses with cuts already expanded): this is so, so, so long, 2000 words long, but I wanted to record it somewhere, so it might as well be here.
So I went to see American Idiot again yesterday, because Van Hughes was on as Tunny Monday and Tuesday. (for just the second/third time, I think, the first being a couple months ago when Stark was stuck out of town due to air travel problems) This time, Stark was off shooting The Miraculous Year. Also, discount tickets and one of the seats available was first-row mezzanine, which is by far my favorite seat in the theater for watching the whole show. Someday I may go for the far house-left seats and stare at Michael Esper for 90 minutes, but last night was not his night.
The past week has been crazy change-up week, with injuries and illnesses and bears, oh my! Okay, not as much with the bears, but there have still been all sorts of people on in other people's tracks.
Mary's been out forever (I heard she has mono?) but I'd already seen Libby (do a great job!) on as Heather, so that wasn't much of an incentive to make a special trip, but the chance to see Leslie on as Heather was definitely added incentive for last night. The night I saw Libby on as Heather, I was distracted, seriously, seriously distracted, by how much time Heather and Will spent making out on the couch, and I still don't know if that was different from shows with Mary, or if I just happened to pick up on it. What I noticed most last night there was a moment where Leslie put her hand on his arm during "Novacaine" and Michael flinched her off and curled even more protectively around himself and his guitar. It was just heartbreaking.
I like Leslie's Heather, a lot more than I liked her Whatsername. I don't find that surprising, since she just has to live up to Mary, who's great, but made it a slightly more restrained singing/acting role than a throw your whole body into it role. Any bits of overthinking awkwardness detract from Whatsername, but they'd just play into Heather, if they were there.
Rebecca totally killed me at the beginning of "21 Guns" last night. She's always amazing, but I feel like everyone was much more effectively fragile in their fragile moments yesterday.
This just in: I have just realized that the spelling of the song title Novacaine is not the same as the trade name of the drug, Novocaine. Now I want to know whether that's just random misspelling that no one ever bothered to correct, or whether it was done for legal reasons. Or artistic ones that I don't understand.
I think there were people in the audience singing along to "Novacaine" last night, and I wonder if it's just that I could hear them because the song's so quiet, and they were singing all along, or if it was just that song, or if I'm just hearing things.
Because a good thing bears repeating: Michael Esper/Will, still the most precious, self-destructive thing in the history of ever. Sigh.
Wallace Smith was pretty unremarkable and totally competent as Favorite Son. It's nothing on him, it's just that I don't think anyone could measure up to Joshua Henry for me. I'd need Wallace to dial up his charisma and find some more power in his voice to match on "Favorite Son" but he did a perfectly lovely job in "Before the Lobotomy" and that's my favorite male vocal in the whole show, so well done.
There was some Twitter kerfluffle over the weekend between Aspen Vincent and John because he tweeted an apology to the fans that he was sick and couldn't go on, and she took it badly. IDEK. Anyway, not that I think John ever really slacks off, but I really felt like he was making effort above and beyond last night.
On to the supposed point of why I was going to post about this - Van Hughes. Honestly, despite the fact that I knew Theo was out (due to some sort of injury) and that Theo wouldn't cover Tunny anyway, when Van first stood up, I had to wonder if it was Theo. Their faces are a little similar, and both Stark's and Van's Tunny's work the crazy eyes during the opening number. Once the hat came off, Van looked a lot like Benji Madden (or Joel, I suppose. This is perhaps due to the fact that I just saw them on When I was 17. And as a fun side note, I didn't even realize that two of the guys in Good Charlotte were brothers, much less twins.) The people behind me on the way out thought that Van looked like Joshua Jackson, which I guess I can see.
I totally would have made the trip to see Van on as Johnny if I'd known about it in time, but on the heels of the uncharitable thought that John's sort of my least favorite, I thought he really worked it last night. Either he still isn't feeling well (likely) or there was something wacky about his mic or the sound (possible) but his vocals were reedier than usual. There were moments early in the show where it was distracting because he just didn't sound right, and a few moments of really wacky over-enunciation, but whatever was going on, it made for a much more contemplative, and to me more powerful, second half of the show.
I hate to criticize, but it makes me sad that Van blew almost his first line. They skipped over the "That motherfucker," "Literally," bit when Van jumped straight to "I think he forgot to shower today, also." Also? (ha.) it has bugged me, every single time I see the show that the line is "I think he forgot to shower today, also" instead of "I think he forgot to shower today, too." It sounds awkward to me, and I just can't get over it. This is perhaps because 90% of the time I use also to start a sentence. Case in point:
Also, and I found this really odd: as far as I can tell, Van doesn't play the guitar in "September." Now, I don't know what Van actually does with his time, as a standby. And I can see how you might not want a less-than-good guitar player being featured like that, but I really feel like he could have learned to play one song in the past four months.
Van also needs some walking-realistically-with-a-crutch lessons.
Other than that, though, he was great! /sarcasm. Really though, he did a lovely job, and if he was actually playing Tunny with frequency to get the fiddly bits worked out, I'd be just as big a fan of his as I am of the cast that performs every night.
This is the second time I've seen Gerard on for Theo, and the second time I've seen him throw the hat somewhere completely random. Each time I've seen Theo, the hat's gone directly to the left-hand guitar player, and he puts it on his head. (I don't know if he's #1 or #2. I should ask the Tumblr hivemind.) The first time, Gerard threw it and went to the other guitar player, and both the guitarists made WTH faces before handing the hat over. This time it just arced right behind him, so I assume someone picked it up or stashed it somewhere.
Except for the part where I am not going to go see the show just to watch Gerard, I sort of want to go again when he's in his own track to pay attention to whether his character's the same while milling around. He was really over-the-top last night, the few times I noticed him.
I remember just not liking Gerard in "Holiday" the first time, but last night was fine. Gerard's "Too Much Too Soon" is more broadly comic than Theo's is, but then Gerard is a much littler guy, so it's easy to imagine Alysha just throwing him around, rather than her being in a more evenly-matched struggle with Theo.
Random Theo things I learned while filing out of the theater: Apparently Theo was in the audience in the mezzanine, watching the show. I know Aspen has tweeted about watching from there. Courtesy of fun fact #1, I also learned fun fact #2, which is that Tony Vincent took the headshot of Theo that's in the playbill. Why so crazy-looking, Theo?
I have just realized while typing this up that I'm not sure that I can tell Omar and Joshua Kobak apart, or match either of them with their headshots. I thought I'd gotten over my all-the-male-ensemble-look-alike phase, but apparently not. There is also a good chance that I confused Omar and Sean Wing in one-or-more of the shows I saw when Sean was in the cast. Why so many average-looking brown-haired white boys? And this makes me sad because I am thankful for that wonky blond strip in Chase's hair.
Side note: Joshua Kobak's website really amuses me. It's got this fancy (slow-loading) video background. Actually it's got several different backgrounds that have scenery whizzing by or someone (him?) riding a motorcycle. It's got music that I couldn't figure out how to mute, and is only tab-navigable in the broadest sense. That's okay though, because there's almost no content. It sort of reminds me of one of the incarnations of Patrick Stump's website that way. I haven't checked Patrick's in ages, though. Maybe there's more/different there now.
Declan's back! Hooray! Andrew Call and Ben Thompson are still my favorites, though.
This is the first performance I've seen that Chase Peacock has been in, and (sort of as I expected) he's fine, but unremarkable. It would have been nice to see one performance with the whole OBC from the recording, but I'm not sure they were ever all on stage together on Broadway, except perhaps in the earliest previews. I think Chase came back just as Wallace was coming in for Joshua Henry, and I'm pretty sure that was while Declan was out with his injury. Anyway, during "We Are the Waiting" (aka the One Where Everyone's In Their Underwear) Chase had a giant ace bandage wrapped around his left knee. Aw, pookie.
In other different-ensemble news, Omar (I think... based on the in/out list over the weekend) was on for Gerard. The last time I saw someone else in Gerard's track, I really want to say it was Joshua, because I feel like I remember the sharpness of his face, but... I have no idea now. Omar didn't play the tympani for Gerard in "We're Coming Home Again" like maybe!Joshua did the last time I saw Gerard on for Theo, which: good call. It sort of cracks me up that Gerard's a drummer, and I have no idea why.
New Male Swing Sydney was on for Ben, New Female Swing Corbin was on for Leslie. I recognized a lot of Leslie's choreography and attitude in Corbin's performance, but not so much Ben's in Sydney's. They're both big, big guys, though.
Sydney lists American Idol in his credits, and some googling told me that he was on Taylor Hick's season, top 48. That's the list of the people who get split into three rooms and one whole room (at least) goes home, I think? He looks familiar, but I can't say whether I remember him from Idol or not. I definitely watched at least Hollywood week that year, and maybe the auditions.
And here, have some more totally random stuff that I noticed for the first time last night:
Carmel (the conductor) breaks out the accordion during "Nobody Likes You." That's actually listed in the band credits, which I have never bothered to read.
At the end of "Tales of Another Broken Home" (I think...) the image up in the TV screens is of a happy-family mom-dad-and-kid walking along, and mom is about to step on a bear trap. I expect that I'll be noticing images for the first time pretty much forever.
The Playbill cover image has changed over just black-and-white now, instead of black-red-and-white. I wonder if that's earlier or later than average?
So I went to see American Idiot again yesterday, because Van Hughes was on as Tunny Monday and Tuesday. (for just the second/third time, I think, the first being a couple months ago when Stark was stuck out of town due to air travel problems) This time, Stark was off shooting The Miraculous Year. Also, discount tickets and one of the seats available was first-row mezzanine, which is by far my favorite seat in the theater for watching the whole show. Someday I may go for the far house-left seats and stare at Michael Esper for 90 minutes, but last night was not his night.
The past week has been crazy change-up week, with injuries and illnesses and bears, oh my! Okay, not as much with the bears, but there have still been all sorts of people on in other people's tracks.
Mary's been out forever (I heard she has mono?) but I'd already seen Libby (do a great job!) on as Heather, so that wasn't much of an incentive to make a special trip, but the chance to see Leslie on as Heather was definitely added incentive for last night. The night I saw Libby on as Heather, I was distracted, seriously, seriously distracted, by how much time Heather and Will spent making out on the couch, and I still don't know if that was different from shows with Mary, or if I just happened to pick up on it. What I noticed most last night there was a moment where Leslie put her hand on his arm during "Novacaine" and Michael flinched her off and curled even more protectively around himself and his guitar. It was just heartbreaking.
I like Leslie's Heather, a lot more than I liked her Whatsername. I don't find that surprising, since she just has to live up to Mary, who's great, but made it a slightly more restrained singing/acting role than a throw your whole body into it role. Any bits of overthinking awkwardness detract from Whatsername, but they'd just play into Heather, if they were there.
Rebecca totally killed me at the beginning of "21 Guns" last night. She's always amazing, but I feel like everyone was much more effectively fragile in their fragile moments yesterday.
This just in: I have just realized that the spelling of the song title Novacaine is not the same as the trade name of the drug, Novocaine. Now I want to know whether that's just random misspelling that no one ever bothered to correct, or whether it was done for legal reasons. Or artistic ones that I don't understand.
I think there were people in the audience singing along to "Novacaine" last night, and I wonder if it's just that I could hear them because the song's so quiet, and they were singing all along, or if it was just that song, or if I'm just hearing things.
Because a good thing bears repeating: Michael Esper/Will, still the most precious, self-destructive thing in the history of ever. Sigh.
Wallace Smith was pretty unremarkable and totally competent as Favorite Son. It's nothing on him, it's just that I don't think anyone could measure up to Joshua Henry for me. I'd need Wallace to dial up his charisma and find some more power in his voice to match on "Favorite Son" but he did a perfectly lovely job in "Before the Lobotomy" and that's my favorite male vocal in the whole show, so well done.
There was some Twitter kerfluffle over the weekend between Aspen Vincent and John because he tweeted an apology to the fans that he was sick and couldn't go on, and she took it badly. IDEK. Anyway, not that I think John ever really slacks off, but I really felt like he was making effort above and beyond last night.
On to the supposed point of why I was going to post about this - Van Hughes. Honestly, despite the fact that I knew Theo was out (due to some sort of injury) and that Theo wouldn't cover Tunny anyway, when Van first stood up, I had to wonder if it was Theo. Their faces are a little similar, and both Stark's and Van's Tunny's work the crazy eyes during the opening number. Once the hat came off, Van looked a lot like Benji Madden (or Joel, I suppose. This is perhaps due to the fact that I just saw them on When I was 17. And as a fun side note, I didn't even realize that two of the guys in Good Charlotte were brothers, much less twins.) The people behind me on the way out thought that Van looked like Joshua Jackson, which I guess I can see.
I totally would have made the trip to see Van on as Johnny if I'd known about it in time, but on the heels of the uncharitable thought that John's sort of my least favorite, I thought he really worked it last night. Either he still isn't feeling well (likely) or there was something wacky about his mic or the sound (possible) but his vocals were reedier than usual. There were moments early in the show where it was distracting because he just didn't sound right, and a few moments of really wacky over-enunciation, but whatever was going on, it made for a much more contemplative, and to me more powerful, second half of the show.
I hate to criticize, but it makes me sad that Van blew almost his first line. They skipped over the "That motherfucker," "Literally," bit when Van jumped straight to "I think he forgot to shower today, also." Also? (ha.) it has bugged me, every single time I see the show that the line is "I think he forgot to shower today, also" instead of "I think he forgot to shower today, too." It sounds awkward to me, and I just can't get over it. This is perhaps because 90% of the time I use also to start a sentence. Case in point:
Also, and I found this really odd: as far as I can tell, Van doesn't play the guitar in "September." Now, I don't know what Van actually does with his time, as a standby. And I can see how you might not want a less-than-good guitar player being featured like that, but I really feel like he could have learned to play one song in the past four months.
Van also needs some walking-realistically-with-a-crutch lessons.
Other than that, though, he was great! /sarcasm. Really though, he did a lovely job, and if he was actually playing Tunny with frequency to get the fiddly bits worked out, I'd be just as big a fan of his as I am of the cast that performs every night.
This is the second time I've seen Gerard on for Theo, and the second time I've seen him throw the hat somewhere completely random. Each time I've seen Theo, the hat's gone directly to the left-hand guitar player, and he puts it on his head. (I don't know if he's #1 or #2. I should ask the Tumblr hivemind.) The first time, Gerard threw it and went to the other guitar player, and both the guitarists made WTH faces before handing the hat over. This time it just arced right behind him, so I assume someone picked it up or stashed it somewhere.
Except for the part where I am not going to go see the show just to watch Gerard, I sort of want to go again when he's in his own track to pay attention to whether his character's the same while milling around. He was really over-the-top last night, the few times I noticed him.
I remember just not liking Gerard in "Holiday" the first time, but last night was fine. Gerard's "Too Much Too Soon" is more broadly comic than Theo's is, but then Gerard is a much littler guy, so it's easy to imagine Alysha just throwing him around, rather than her being in a more evenly-matched struggle with Theo.
Random Theo things I learned while filing out of the theater: Apparently Theo was in the audience in the mezzanine, watching the show. I know Aspen has tweeted about watching from there. Courtesy of fun fact #1, I also learned fun fact #2, which is that Tony Vincent took the headshot of Theo that's in the playbill. Why so crazy-looking, Theo?
I have just realized while typing this up that I'm not sure that I can tell Omar and Joshua Kobak apart, or match either of them with their headshots. I thought I'd gotten over my all-the-male-ensemble-look-alike phase, but apparently not. There is also a good chance that I confused Omar and Sean Wing in one-or-more of the shows I saw when Sean was in the cast. Why so many average-looking brown-haired white boys? And this makes me sad because I am thankful for that wonky blond strip in Chase's hair.
Side note: Joshua Kobak's website really amuses me. It's got this fancy (slow-loading) video background. Actually it's got several different backgrounds that have scenery whizzing by or someone (him?) riding a motorcycle. It's got music that I couldn't figure out how to mute, and is only tab-navigable in the broadest sense. That's okay though, because there's almost no content. It sort of reminds me of one of the incarnations of Patrick Stump's website that way. I haven't checked Patrick's in ages, though. Maybe there's more/different there now.
Declan's back! Hooray! Andrew Call and Ben Thompson are still my favorites, though.
This is the first performance I've seen that Chase Peacock has been in, and (sort of as I expected) he's fine, but unremarkable. It would have been nice to see one performance with the whole OBC from the recording, but I'm not sure they were ever all on stage together on Broadway, except perhaps in the earliest previews. I think Chase came back just as Wallace was coming in for Joshua Henry, and I'm pretty sure that was while Declan was out with his injury. Anyway, during "We Are the Waiting" (aka the One Where Everyone's In Their Underwear) Chase had a giant ace bandage wrapped around his left knee. Aw, pookie.
In other different-ensemble news, Omar (I think... based on the in/out list over the weekend) was on for Gerard. The last time I saw someone else in Gerard's track, I really want to say it was Joshua, because I feel like I remember the sharpness of his face, but... I have no idea now. Omar didn't play the tympani for Gerard in "We're Coming Home Again" like maybe!Joshua did the last time I saw Gerard on for Theo, which: good call. It sort of cracks me up that Gerard's a drummer, and I have no idea why.
New Male Swing Sydney was on for Ben, New Female Swing Corbin was on for Leslie. I recognized a lot of Leslie's choreography and attitude in Corbin's performance, but not so much Ben's in Sydney's. They're both big, big guys, though.
Sydney lists American Idol in his credits, and some googling told me that he was on Taylor Hick's season, top 48. That's the list of the people who get split into three rooms and one whole room (at least) goes home, I think? He looks familiar, but I can't say whether I remember him from Idol or not. I definitely watched at least Hollywood week that year, and maybe the auditions.
And here, have some more totally random stuff that I noticed for the first time last night:
Carmel (the conductor) breaks out the accordion during "Nobody Likes You." That's actually listed in the band credits, which I have never bothered to read.
At the end of "Tales of Another Broken Home" (I think...) the image up in the TV screens is of a happy-family mom-dad-and-kid walking along, and mom is about to step on a bear trap. I expect that I'll be noticing images for the first time pretty much forever.
The Playbill cover image has changed over just black-and-white now, instead of black-red-and-white. I wonder if that's earlier or later than average?
