Beauty & the Beast with @joshgroban and @HERMusicx

 It's been a long time since I really watched TV on a TV.  I've watched things on YouTube that were previously on TV, but not on the TV itself. 

This Beauty & the Beast thing with Josh Groban I made an exception for.  

I'm having trouble with processing this.  There was a lot going on.

1. Historical discussion about the evolution of this show
2. Clips from the original animated movie
3. Sketches from the people who were developing the original movie
4. People on stage performing now or recently
5. Recent live audience
6. Dancers

I don't think there was anything from the recent live action version -- tho I could be wrong.

Sometimes the sketches became backdrops for the stage.  

There was an announcer who described visual sequences that didn't have words.  I'm assuming that this was an accommodation for visually impaired people.  I'm not sure how it helps them to hear "purple and orange sky," but whatever.  I liked that, because if I got up and went to the kitchen, I didn't necessarily miss stuff.

Also, it was interesting hearing the announcer  describe the dancing.  I don't necessarily know how to describe dancing.  I would have to think about it.  The announcer gave succinct summaries.

The dancers that were depicting the wilting, magic rose were especially interesting.

I didn't know what to expect from the various celebrity singers who were booked for this.

I was particularly concerned that H.E.R. uses a fair amount of melisma in her  own stuff and I didn't particularly want to hear that with the show songs from this show.  I was relieved that she sang the stuff fairly straight -- except that she has an unusually deep, rich voice for a woman, so it did sound sound somewhat different from what I might have expected, tho still very much within the expected character.

It was very cool to hear two singers singing in the bass range -- both Joshes did.  Josh Groban played the beast and Joshua Henry sang Gaston.  We used to think of Josh Groban as a barytenor, but I don't think that describes his voice now.  He can really project very deep notes that he didn't used to be able to do.  

There's been so much emphasis on tenors in popular music of late -- or even baritones singing falsetto -- that we don't often hear deep, rich bass notes. This was a real treat.

I really listened attentively to Shania Twain singing "Beauty and the Beast."  I used to have no real understanding about why certain singers were considered better than others in popular music.  I still sometimes have trouble with that.  Some of the rough sounds that are very fashionable just really irritate me.  But here was Disney choosing this singer, out of all the singers they might have had, to sing the most iconic song in one of their most iconic shows -- so I wanted to hear what they chose.

She was certainly expressive.  There was a lot of variation in tone -- not just one type of sound.  It was either belted or whispery -- never legit.  She definitely sounded good.

When Josh sang "Evermore" it was interesting, because I felt that he had more dynamic range and much richer bass notes than before.  It was frustrating, tho, because I was listening to it on a small TV and the background music just sounded really tinny and distracting from his singing.  I do have Disney Plus right now.  I'll have to listen to that again.  

Josh then sang in a somewhat higher register when he stopped being the beast.

Still, the witch, when she cast her spell said something about him being 21 when the spell would end and Josh just doesn't cut it as 21 at this point.  His voice was substantially higher when he was 21.

As usual, I am likely to amend this later.

---------------------

I went and bought the album from the itunes store.  I have resolutely refused to buy a monthly account. 

I'm now sitting and comparing the new recording of Evermore with the 2017 recording that Josh did at the time the live action movie was coming out.  The new recording benefits from the techniques that Josh learned when performing in Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812.  He brings in some talking and growly tones, where the prior version was sung entirely musically.  The new version brings out more emotion.

---------------

Josh just put out the final number, with him and H.E.R. singing "Beauty and the Beast."  It occurs to me that Josh's hair didn't just grow so long -- that he must be wearing a wig.  

I'm sure Josh admires H.E.R. He generally does admire fellow artists.  Still, this particular scene doesn't show much chemistry.  They seem distant and professional -- not as if they had just declared their unending love.  

--------------

I was looking at the Evermore video --  without the commentary, which apparently ABC inserts to accommodate blind people -- and was much more struck with the dancers representing the rose petals.  This really was a brilliant interpretation.

One of my friends commented that he hated the beast costume.  It is true that Josh isn't that great a mover.  The beast costume was a tricky thing to make work.  I wonder if a better mover could have taken better advantage of it.  I didn't think too much about it -- because it was only shown briefly.  

Josh said that he liked the costume, tho my friend felt he had to say that to appease viewers.  

I notice that when Josh sang Evermore they didn't have the costume on him.   When I was looking at his costume, I really noticed his barrel chest, expanded from so much singing all his life, contrasted with his otherwise slight build. That's something that might be addressed with shoulder pads, I think.

@joshgroban @BethelWoods

 

Josh at Bethel

I had declared that I would never again go to another Josh Groban concert, after my experience at Nassau Coliseum where the sound was painfully loud and the lights they shone in our eyes were painfully bright.

Then he had 5 livestreams, during the lockdown, which I justified because I could control the volume. 

Then he announced that this summer he would have Lucia Micarelli with him.  

I first noticed Josh when I was asked to sing O Holy Night in 2009 for my religious group.  I didn’t know the song, so I searched on YouTube and found Josh singing it.  

That made me curious about Josh and I started watching videos about him.  That quickly led me to excerpts from the awake DVD and Lucia.  I was stunned by her solo.  The video from the DVD has been taken down.  It had millions of views.  That’s too bad for Lucia, who loses that online credit.  They don’t think about the effect on the artist when they take down a video with millions of views.  Here’s a fan video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iXuif5JXjs  You'll notice that her passion and energy is such that she shreds her bowstrings.

Josh recently put up the Kashmir audio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxBFOYyLC7g

When I saw that video, I felt like the first time Michael Jackson moonwalked.  It seemed so utterly transformative compared to anything I had ever heard before.  The audience went wild.

I did get the DVD.  It’s an amazing thing, that DVD, but one of the things that really impressed me was how Lucia was half Korean – half Italian, Josh was half Protestant – half Jewish (like me), and Tariqh I don’t know, but I wonder how an African American has a Turkish name.  Was his father Turkish?  I felt that the three of them personified the melting pot.  I felt that the vision of them playing so beautifully together was a vision into a brighter, unified future.  

I was extremely disappointed to learn that Tariqh was an ongoing part of the act, but Lucia was not.  She got to tour with Barbra Streisand after that.  That was a good gig, after all – and went on to other things.

I did go see Lucia with Chris Botti at the Blue Note, where she had a lot of wonderful solos.  I got to see a solo concert by her at the Unitarian Society near Central Park.  But I hadn’t gotten to see her with Josh.

Also, the concert was outdoors.  My friend and I could have gone to Jones Beach, but Bethel seemed cheaper.  Outdoors, so less COVID risk, and Lucia – I decided to go.

My personal travel was seemingly cursed.  My car had issues and was in the shop, so I had to pay more to rent a car for 2 days than I spent on the tickets.  When I got the car, I wasted a lot of time trying to start it – as it had a push button start, which I didn’t have experience with.  Then, when I got there,  I discovered I had brought the wrong envelope – the one with the ads, not the one with the tix – fortunately fixed at the Box Office.

Another unpleasant thing was that I noticed the day before the concert, perusing the Bethel website, that our section price had been reduced from $100 to $60, so we would have been better off buying at the venue rather than the fan presale.

We were quite late and missed most of the pre-show.  That was probably just as well.  I’m not a big jazz fan.  It probably wasn’t my kind of music.

Josh had announced a few days before that Tariqh was out sick, with COVID.  I was getting Lucia, but not Tariqh.  Not what I had hoped for.  Tariqh has been such a fixture in Josh’s concerts.  They did get a sub.  I did think that I heard at least one case where he was somehow out of sync.   Josh praised him, though.  Obviously, he had not had much prep time.

It was too loud.  I needn’t have expected differently.  It wasn’t as bad as the concerts I attended at The Beacon and The Prudential Center, where the sound was so distorted that Josh literally sounded awful.  One of the concerts at The Beacon, the one with Cindy Lauper, was so distorted that I couldn’t understand a single word of the single that Josh was premiering at that concert.

Here, I could understand the words. Still, I did feel that there was distortion , which gave an unpleasant edge to Josh’s normally mellow voice.  I don’t think that that sort of issue comes through on the YouTube videos.

I did wonder if I would be happier out on the lawn, farther from the speakers.  I might have gone if I wasn’t worried about rain.  They were renting out lawn chairs.

Also, the sound mixing was poor.  When Josh was playing the piano during February Song, after the orchestra got loud, I could see Josh pounding away at the keys, but I could not hear a single piano note over the over-amplified orchestra.  I generally couldn’t hear the choral parts at all, either.

Also, when Josh was singing a duet with Lucia, as is common when he sings with Altos, it was hard to hear her.  He drowned her out.  He sings loudly.  She sings quietly.  The audio engineers didn’t adequately compensate.  The duet with Eleri was better, because she’s a soprano and that is more distinguishable from an auditory point of view.

I love the way Lucia sings: quiet and subtle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXt-8UMg9i4

Josh is often loud.  He can drown out most other singers.  He recently did a duet with Leslie Odom, who sings quietly.  Predictably, the audio engineers didn’t adequately compensate, and Odom was mostly not audible.  Josh seems to be plagued with bad audio engineering.

I did have ear plugs for a couple of the songs at the beginning, but later either I got used to it or they turned the volume down.  I don’t understand why Josh has loud rock settings on his music.  That’s not really the kind of music he does or the kinds of fans he attracts.

We did get lights in our eyes a bit -- but they were fortunately not blindingly bright.

BTW, I hope people will go on Lucia’s Facebook page and see her dressing room duets with Eleri.  Those are fun.

Lucia's solo was a discordant modern classical piece.  I like that type of music, so I enjoyed it.  She is always passionate and carries out complex pieces with speed and precision.  Her sound is often unique.  In the Awake video, she was concert mistress, playing first chair on all the pieces.  Here, no, she was only brought in as a guest soloist. Still it was nice to see her. 

Despite my complaints about the sound, I was often mesmerized.  I have heard so many of these songs so often.  It felt like going home for a holiday visit when I was in college -- back to something reassuring, familiar -- almost a dreamy illusion that we were having a visit.

I have met some of the band members on occasion.  The backup musicians are often eager to be known by fans and are quite friendly.  Josh has to be more careful.  Apparently, he’s had death threats of late, which has made his security tell him not to be out hobnobbing with fans.  He used to.

There's something in having been a dedicated fan for so long that I feel I know him.  We’ve met a few times.  We used to occasionally exchange tweets, when he was still on twitter.  It felt so familiar to be there.  I no longer feel a desire to get to know him better.  I’ve seen enough to realize that I might well not like him at all.  It’s better just to listen to the music.   

Still, I remember when he used to sit on twitter, not tweeting, reading fans’ tweets – and then occasionally surprise us by saying something that indicated that he had been reading.  He was there with us, late at night, part of our conversations online.

One time I got a message from a moderator on his website that someone told me was actually him.  

He left twitter. It’s often a negative, hostile place.  I miss him there. I still sometimes send him a message, like I used to, hoping that his staff will show it to him.  But I still feel like there’s some kind of connection.  Maybe he would remember me if he saw me.

He’s been reaching out to fans on Instagram.  He’s missing the interactions as well.  I can see that.  

This time he couldn’t see me.  I was pretty far from the stage.  He wouldn’t have known I was there.  I know he used to read this blog – but I doubt that he does now – better things to do.  But still I had that feeling like it was a reunion of sorts, me with someone who I called my ¾ friend, because he tweeted, I answered, and ever so occasionally he would reply back.  

Now if you answer a celebrity on social media you get these creeps pretending to be the celebrity trying to talk to you.  It’s like torture.

But I remember interacting with him -- and that made me feel that somehow I still was.

Generally, tho his voice is noticeably lower, I feel that Josh is sounding better after the shutdown than before.  I think Adam Lambert is as well.  I think their voices likely needed that rest.  Josh has gotten a lot of the kinks out of his higher notes, while having much louder, richer lower notes.  

He started late: 8:45.  By the time he sang “You Raise Me Up” people were ready to go.  I was thinking “Don’t you know he usually does an encore?”

He decided that he would sing Impossible Dream anyway, while people were still there.  

It was a weird synchronicity on twitter that he asked us what musical theater song we would like him to sing.  I tweeted, figuring it was to some assistant, that I didn’t know nearly so many musical theater songs as he, and wasn’t likely to be able to make a constructive suggestion.  The only thing that I could think of was Impossible Dream.  

He issued it as a single the next day.  It felt like quick service, tho I strongly suspect it was a coincidence.

He got a standing ovation for that. 

He was born to sing that song.  I can’t even begin to tell you how powerful it was.  It really made the concert.  

My friend told me that he had been afraid to sing it.  He does tend to get afraid.  Maybe that fear makes him sing better.  He was awesome.

He didn’t sing “To Where You Are,” my friend’s favorite.  I guess he’s moving away from depressed songs.  But that one is important for people who have lost loved ones.  I think he should sing it.

The staff at Bethel were really wonderful & helpful – particularly for my friend who was using a walker.  

The food was not good.  There weren't healthy alternatives.  I don't know why venues aren't upgrading their food service to be more health conscious.

Phallic totems

 This is a link to an article about needle attacks from Wapo

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/07/needle-spiking-europe-britain-france/

This is a screen shot of my comment

#Guns #PhallicTotems #NeedleAttacks #Ridicule #RidiculeThem

Sapphic Bulgari Video

 And now for something completely different:

I really enjoyed watching this ad. It's so beautiful.  It was playing while I was transferring some large files on we transfer. Then I went to watch it again on YouTube.

I couldn't help noticing the discussion under the YouTube video. The commenters were debating as to whether it was a lesbian video. Someone said that the actresses and director had "admitted" that it has "sapphic overtones."

It doesn't feel that way to me. Zendaya looks more natural; but, to my eye, Anne looks more like she's posing. It look like an authentic couple to me.

Another interpretation is mother/daughter. Anne is about 15 years older than Zendaya. You can hear that in her voice. I suspect she must've been smoking or drinking a lot. Also you can see it around  her eyes and in the veins on the backs of her hands.  I'm remembering a new story recently were some nut job murdered a mother and daughter because he thought they were lesbians because they were hugging and kissing. Atrocious. In any case, some women do have kids at 15.

I think, though, that the more likely interpretation is harem. Who is the intended audience of this ad? Is it really the women? Or is it the man who's going to buy the jewelry for them? And is that man polyamorous? Does he fantasize about his older wife and his younger wife getting along together that well?  The stereotype is that older and younger wives don't get along, but it doesn't have to be that way, especially in fantasy.   Is he perhaps a wealthy Muslim oil sheik, who can really afford to buy the store? Also, many polyamorous men do like the idea of being with lesbians, at least in fantasy.