Home for the Holidays 12/7/13
This was a benefit concert to benefit youth who are homeless because they have been thrown out of their homes by their families, because they are LGBT. Apparently 40% of homeless youth are in this category. If I understand correctly, it was organized by Cindy Lauper.
I found out about it, because I'm a Grobanite, and Josh Groban announced that he was participating.
I saw another benefit concert this week, Tim Janis at Carnegie Hall featuring James Galway and Jackie Evancho. That was an absolutely amazing classical pop crossover concert that I totally enjoyed every minute of, and which I still haven't blogged about. I feel guilty about that and hope to get to it soon. In that concert, I never had to even touch my ear plugs.
I had sort of expected this second benefit to be like that, because Josh was participating.
THE BAD PART
Wrong. It was mostly very loud rock and rap music. I had to wear ear plugs most of the time, but even that was not enough, because the bass was so loud it rattled my bones and teeth even with the ear plugs in.
The worst offenders in this respect were a cute, young couple called Matt & Kim. The woman played drums and danced on the equipment. The man played synth. They both sang. And they amplified beyond reason. They did several songs. I hated their performance, passionately, though I had to admire their cuteness and high energy.
Another fairly loud performer was Big Freedia, which I originally heard as Frieda. I'm not sure if this was just a straight guy with long hair, a transvestite or a transexual, but s/he was tall with a deep voice. At first, I thought this performer might have been a beneficiary of the charity that we were supporting, but they did not say so.
In any case s/he performed with what appeared to be a clearly female dancer, who was shorter. This was either hip-hop or rap. I'm not sure what the difference is.
The dancer was very enthusiastic. She spent a lot of time with her hands on the floor upstage and her butt in the air, facing the audience, and shaking her butt. She was excellent at this, and did it in various other positions quite acrobatically, while the taller performer sang/rapped -- and also sometimes turned his butt and shook it. My friend who I came with remarked that she thought this performance degrading. Perhaps. I'm not sure. The shorter performer was definitely skillful at what she did, but, somehow, after awhile, it seemed pretty boring to me.
The lyrics were incredibly repetitive. This pair later did a song with Cindy Lauper that was clearly the most boring song I have ever heard, as "Big Freedia" repeated the same line over and over and over for about three or four minutes. Cindy Lauper tried shaking her butt at the audience as well, but was not as good at it as the other two.
Other audience stood up and seemed enthusiastic for both Matt & Kim and for Big Freedia, once again making me feel like a space alien amongst other music fans.
Other fairly loud performers were Lucas Silveira and the Cliks; the Hives (which I originally misunderstood and tweeted as "The Baha'i's) who wore funny fur hats
THE NEUTRAL PART
Then there were some performers who I sort of liked.
One was Nelly Furtado. She once sang a duet with Josh in the past, though not at this concert. Her band was still loud & and still had to wear ear plugs, but at least she was closer to the genre of music that I like. She was on several times. She's gained a bit of weight, seemingly.
There was a performer who sang one quieter song and one loud song. That was Ingrid Michaelson, who actually sang "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," which was was the not too loud song. She had a very idiosyncratic way of singing, which didn't do much for me. Then she sang a louder song that I did not recognize.
I see in my notes that there was a group called "Hunter Valley Town" or something like that, who I can't even remember. I see from the program that they're really "Hunter Valentine." Things were happening so fast that it was hard to keep track of them. I'm opening up a video of them on youtube and seeing that they are a female group, which is nice, but as I'm listening to the video I'm getting very bored very fast, so I suppose that's why I didn't remember them.
Cindy Lauper also performed, both alone and with some of the groups. I really admire her for having apparently been an organizing force in this concert and a great person, but I can't say as I would pay to hear her sing. She was at least not my least favorite performer, tho, again, I certainly had to have ear plugs on for her.
THE GOOD PART
While I felt the concert was marred by being too loud and raucous and having a lot of music that I did not like, there were a few performers who I really enjoyed.
Rosie O'Donnell did a lovely standup routine, where she brought in her stories about her children and her wife. I was distressed to learn that she's had a heart attack. She says she's lost weight, but she's not exactly thin yet.
Another person I really liked was Matt Nathanson, who did three songs. One with the Indigo Girls, one called Pink Shirt (actually later I learned maybe it was Kinks Shirt?), and his big hit "Come and Get Higher." Here's the video for that last:
But I have to say that his video does not do him justice at all. He's hugely hot, and he's grown his hair shoulder length, which I prefer. I totally recommend going to see him. He's amazing.
Here's a video of another number that he did, and which is more recent and more what he looks like now
He's definitely gotten hotter. I would definitely go to another performance by him, even if I did have to wear ear plugs. His singing style is more pop and he dances in a very sexy manner indeed.
I liked the Indigo Girls, as well, who did a nice type of folk rock performance.
P!nk opened the show with a nice rendition of "Time after Time," which was unfortunately marred by loud bursts of static from the amplification system. That was irritating. You open with your hottest star and then you don't have the amplification system debugged? There were problems with the amplification system during Rosie's monolog as well, when music suddenly came through in the middle.
Also, after P!nk, we got to see Susan Sarandon hosting for a while, which was cool, because I had only recently re-seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show, at Hallowe'en, so she was fresh on my mind. I realized that her participation in that very early cinematic treatment of the LGBTQ issue must have left her committed to continued work toward ending oppression of these groups. Of course, in the movie, she is a frightened victim of loss of innocence, but the real actress is very upset about the idea of LGBTQ youth being thrown out of their homes.
The main host, Carson Kressley, I'm only just finding the name of in the program. He was funny. He made a lot of jokes about being gay and wore sparkly shoes, about which he proudly remarked "My shoes are gayer than your shoes." He particularly won me over by remarking in a very cute way on how hot Matt Nathanson was.
Another thing that was really cool was that we were allowed to go to the bathroom as often as we wanted during this concert, which was good, because it was three hours long.
NOW ABOUT JOSH
About fifteen of us met for dinner beforehand and then went and waited by the stage door for him. He came in about 7:30. He faked us out by coming in a small car rather than an SUV. Maybe he's decided to be more earth friendly.
I completely forgot that I had resolved to get a picture with him the next time I saw him, but I had him autograph the back of one of my e-ticket printouts. There was a woman there who had a big box with some kind of chain that had been made by 80 fans. She gave it to him and he actually took it, which has not always been the case at the start of concerts. I hope he looked at it. I didn't see that he tweeted about it. Usually he notes something like this that is a concerted effort by many people. Maybe someone should contact Gayle about it to make sure he knows what it was.
He was wearing a tweedy blazer, a white dress shirt with an open color, and his typical pants. He looked very much his usual self, with glasses. He was not wearing a coat, which seemed in appropriate for the very cold weather, but he was not outside for very long. He was sweet as usual and remarked that this was going to be a fun concert.
He sang four things.
The first was a bit of musical improv about shaking booties, which was probably about Big Freedia. I would have liked that to go on a bit more, as it was funny.
Then he did "Changing Colors," which is his standard song about being tolerant and open minded. He did it flawlessly, as usual. I'm afraid I couldn't focus much on it, because I've heard it so often, but I certainly could tell that he did it perfectly.
Then he debuted his new single. "Your Hideaway." It was exciting to be at the debut of a new single, for sure. I think I'm going to like this song, but I couldn't decipher the lyrics with those acoustics, so I'm going to have to listen to it more, after it's released -- or maybe on YouTube -- to figure out what it is about and whether I like it.
Then he sang "Imagine" with Cindy Lauper. This started out fairly well, but ended with a repetitive chorus of "We Hope You'll Join Us," which I did not like at all. I had an interesting conversation with people on twitter, some of whom liked it. I wondered if Josh had been overly influenced by Big Freedia. Unfortunately, Josh's awkwardness with dancing really came through during this performance.
On the whole, his voice was in excellent shape, except that his falsetto seemed thinner than usual. He sang powerfully. Fortunately, I did not have to wear ear plugs for his part, so I could at least appreciate his voice.
He was almost the last performer, but he did not stay for the end, so that, when we went to the stage door to greet him on leaving, he was already gone. A few fans had not gotten tickets and waited outside the door for him so they could greet him as he left. One of them tweeted me that she could hear him singing from outside.
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The program was mostly ads, but they had pictures of most of the performers. Here is that part.
The president of the charity also spoke, but they don't have her picture. If you want to donate to help homeless LGBTQ youth, here's the website
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Ironically, on the way home, I passed through the 42nd street subway station and there was a Beatles tribute group called the Meetles there, with quite a following. I walked by just as they were singing "imagine." I liked their version better than Josh & Cindy's. I didn't have change, so I gave them $20. They were much more pleasant to listen to than most of this concert that I paid over $100 per ticket for.
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Side Details.
The scalper thing was very annoying for this concert. It was hard for fans to get tickets during the supposed fan presale, because the scalpers dominated the website. Then, of course, they tried to sell the tix at elevated prices. Then, the day before the concert, there were several hundred tix still available, so they lowered the prices to near face value. That might have worked for people nearby, but for people from out of town that was very hard.
People who did come from out of town had a hard time finding hotels. Apparently, there's quite an influx of Christmas shoppers into New York City at this time.
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Summary of this concert experience:
This really tested my loyalty as a Grobie, I would say. It was totally not the sort of concert I would have gone to if Josh hadn't been performing. I had to wait until nearly the end to hear him, and by then I was so exhausted and tortured that I could not enjoy it as much.
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I might mention I was near the back of the orchestra, under the balcony. Not sure how this might have affected my listening experience.
