A Little Night Music - 40th Anniversary Concert

Hello!

After so many musical posts concerning “Wicked”, I am writing something a bit different. Yes, it’s another posts about a musical and yes, I will eventually get back on track and talk about my holiday in Italy and return in London, but this happened last night and as usual I can’t leave musicals un-reviewed for long! I promise my post about Italy is half done and I’ll upload it as soon as possible. Coming back to university has been crazy because there’s so much to do... academically and not!

Anyway, I had never heard anything about this musical before last Friday night when I read the name on the facebook page of an artist called Anna O’Byrne. She is my second favourite, if not absolute favourite, Christine from “The Phantom of the Opera”, even though I came to know her thanks to a recording of “Love Never Dies”, the sequel of Phantom (more about this in later posts, when I get up to date). I fell in love with her voice, and her performances in general, and she quickly became one of my very favourite musical theatre personalities. So, I was going through her facebook page trying to find out what she was doing at the moment and I stumbled upon this series of post talking about the 40^th anniversary concert of “A Little Night Music”. I did a quick research and it turned out the show would be on for a one-off on the following Monday, which would be yesterday! After a couple of calls with my parents, I worked out a solution that worked for all of us... the ticket for the concert would be an early birthday present from my aunt :) Yep, I had a ticket an hour or so later and I was beaming because I’d get to see Anna!

After a lovely afternoon that will be talked about in later posts, I made my way to the Palace Theatre, where the show was going to take place, with a quick stop at “The Theatre Cafe”. I had heard so much about this place on twitter and I really wanted to get my own Wicked-cup :)

Little detour aside, I reached my seat and I almost felt dizzy for the height... I do not suffer heights, but that balcony was very steep and a lot above the ground. I felt like I could fall anytime I tried to stand up, like for the final standing ovation! I was so excited about the show, because I had read the plot and it sounded entertaining :)

Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to all my expectations. The plot was very good, funny and well-developed in the musical, but I found the songs were not catchy and I ended up hoping for the show to end half way through act two... I was convinced by it, despite some amazing performers!

Below I’m just commenting a few artists, who impressed me for different reasons.

Anna O’Byrne (Anne) – she sang very little, sadly, but whenever she did she was astounding! Her vocals are so beautiful and crystalline and... and... and oh my goodness, she is incredible *_* I found myself smiling anytime she’d sing even just a note! She interpreted a young, naive and silly girl and had to change her voice to act and she did very well, in my opinion :) So, even though the show wasn’t amazing, it was all worth it to see her!
I met Anna at stage door afterwards and she was sooooo sweet! We took a picture together and I reckon it’s one of my best stage door pictures, because she is really actively taking part in it :) She also signed my programme, of course.

Fra Fee (Henrik) – handsome boy, no doubts about that. However, I didn’t like his voice, despite how amazing lots of other people found him... I suppose it’s personal taste... I met him at stage door as well and he was pretty kind, even though in a rush!

Laura Pitt-Pulford (Petra) – she surprised me and in a very positive way. I was totally not expecting her to sing as amazingly as she did, not after a show in which she barely had a few lines... but Petra’s song near the end of the show made me attentive to the performance again! “The Miller’s son” isn’t a song I particularly appreciate in itself, but her vocals were impressive, to say the least. She got so many cheers and applauses at the end of the number!

Jamie Parker (Count Carl-Magnus) – I like his voice better than any of the other males on stage, but that’s all I have to say about him.

Joanna Riding (Countess Charlotte) – Oh my gosh, she was hilarious haha I couldn’t stop laughing every time she said her lines, like the rest of the audience. She was just too funny in her tone of voice and acting! 

Despite not being totally taken by the show, I still think it was worth the ticket because I saw Anna being amazing and a few other things that I really appreciated :)

A few more photos...

At stage door with Michael Colbourne
(whom I also saw in Les Miserables as Enjolras)

Programme signed by Anna O'Byrne,
Fra Fee and Michael Colbourne

A few shots from the show (from Anna O'Byrne's facebook)

 

Epica's concert

Ciao everyone :)

A special post goes to the concert I went to on Saturday night, after the Open Day. 

Background: weeks ago, as I had mentioned in a previous post, Isabela and I were looking for concerts by artists we both like or that we thought we could both like and we stumbled upon the tour dates of Epica. Epica is a symphonic metal band I have liked for a couple of years, thanks to a friend of mine, especially because their singer (Simone Simons) has one of my favourite voices ever! Anyway, Isabela didn’t really know the band, but she agreed to give them a try after listening to a couple of songs and we bought the tickets :) Like for Elisa’s concert, though, I wasn’t really prepared and I had barely heard a couple of songs from the most recent album by this band!

Before the concert: since the door of the venue were going to open at 6.30pm, we had planned to be there by 5.30, but we ended up arriving at 6.15! when we got to the front of the building, the Forum, it looked like there wasn’t any queue at all... until we turned the corner and we started walking along a looooong line to reach the end :P It went past a whole block hahaha So we stood there for about half an hour, having a sandwich for dinner and listening to the few recent Epica songs I had on my phone! Someone really didn’t want us to learn the new cd, because neither Isabela nor I could find it on our mobiles... and we both were meant to have it since I have the physical cd and I had copied it to my pc and then to our phones!

Concert: this concert was a lot more than I expected! I thought it was going to be Epica’s concert, with a band that I didn’t know (Dragonforce) opening for them. Instead, when we entered there was another band playing, called Neonfly, and it turned out that they were the actual opening band, whereas Dragonforce and Epica were going to share the concert itself! That was unexpected and at first I wasn’t really pleased, but it worked out very well ;)

Neonfly – they are a heavy metal band, a genre I normally don’t listen to. However, I ended up really liking them! They were very enthusiastic and entertaining, their music was good and one of the band members (a buy who was playing the bass, I think) had an awesome hair *_* 

Dragonforce – again, an heavy metal band even though not as heavy as Neonfly. They were AMAZING!! A couple of the band members were sooo funny with the faces they made while playing to entertain the audience and their songs were absolutely great! I am definitely going to check them out soon :) They played for about 1h20 and I didn’t even get bored for a moment, despite not having gone there for them. However, I have to admit that I was looking at the watch a few times because I wanted Epica to come out on the stage so much...
Oooooh yes, an important things to say: Isabela and I were exactly in the middle of the floor... and at some stage some guys started moshing just next to us and pushing us to the sides! I was so worried they would hit us and hurt us, but apart from a couple of minor hits we were always fine! Actually, they even did us a favour because they pushed us towards the front and we got very close to the stage.

 

 

Epica – finally, at 9.45pm, it was their turn to walk on the stage. From the moment Dragonforce had stepped away, I had been anxious for Simone to come out because I really wanted to see her live, since I have loved her hair soooo much for two years and I wanted to see if it looked as good in persona s it does in pictures. It does. She is beautiful and her hair is absolutely gorgeous!! Hair aside, though, she was amazing for the whole concert! She made a couple of little mistakes, but compared to the rest of her performance they were so insignificant to me. Come one, she has to go so high in most of her songs that I can sort of understand her making mistakes sometimes! Her voice was so sweet and incredible and I love her so much :) And she was just a  few metres from me... Epica as a whole struck me less than the previous two bands, but that’s n new for me as for me Epica always meant Simone’s voice, and she was great, so that’s all that mattered to me! The things is, they are not good as entertainers as the others are, Simone especially. She is a singer, not a performer, but that’s all that counts for as far as I am concerned – I love her for her voice!

 

 

The venue: the Forum wasn’t as nice as Koko, but it was still beautiful! I am sued to the big stadiums were I normally see concerts in Italy... so these places look amazing to me! The Forum looked like a theatre pretty much and I loved it! 

 

After the concert: by the time the concert ended, we were dead! It had been a four-hours long concert and we had been standing for about five hours, counting the queue...

Elisa's concert

Good evening :)

This post is dedicated to the first concert I have seen here in London, on the 30^th of November: Elisa’s. Of course the first concert I would see in England would have to be of an Italian singer :P 

Background: Why did I go to this concert? I used to be a huge fan of Elisa and I have been to two of the concerts before, including one with my aunt for free because she works in the music industry. However, I hadn’t listened to Elisa’s music for a couple of years before the concert, but I accepted to go to see her with my aunt again, because I thought it’d be nice to spend some time together :) It was meant to be me, my aunt and two of her friends, but she couldn’t come for work problems and Maria Stella took her place! 

Before the concert: Maria Stella and I met at my place around 5pm, we had a quick dinner and we joined my aunt’s friends in Camden, in front of Koko, the concert venue. After queuing for a short time, we were told that we could go in, since we had our free tickets (always thanks to my aunt!). While they were checking our bags, they asked me to leave my water and Maria Stella her muffin... but we both got away with them because they pitied us after we looked at them with “puppy faces” hahaha Thank goodness, otherwise I would have been so thirsty all throughout the concert!

Concert: Anyway, before the concert started I was worried I wouldn’t know any of the songs she was going to sing, because I hadn’t heard any of her latest songs, apart from a couple. I couldn’t have been more wrong! In nearly two hours and a half of concert (she never took a break!) she sang only three or four songs I didn’t know and then I knew everything else *_* She played ALL my favourite songs, including “Together”, “Luce”, “Gli ostacoli del cuore” and “Eppure sentire”, and plenty of others I love like “Gift”, “Labyrinth”, “L’anima vola” and “Ti vorrei sollevare”! But the best surprise came at the end, during the bis. When the first notes started, I thought I didn’t know the song... then when she started singing I suddenly realised it was “It is what it is”, my favourite among her less-known songs and one of my absolute favourites *_* I was so not expecting it that I didn’t even recognise it! I am still amazed at how great the concert was :)

 The venue & the people: Koko, in Camden, is such a wonderful concert venue! It’s very picturesque inside and I loved the decorations that surrounded us. There were about 1400 people and... well, everyone was Italian apart from about 10 people! I mean it! Elisa asked how many non-Italians there were and she counted about 10 hand raised :P

The bar

After the concert: after the concert, we had some very interesting (?) adventures! We stayed outside Koko waiting for Elisa to come out for signatures, but she didn’t come out in the next half hour so the four of us had to leave to avoid missing the last underground. Apparently we had waited too long, though! We got to the station and the train had already gone... so we caught a taxi to Kings’ Cross, where we split. Maria Stella and I took the Tube to Liverpool Street, the only available one, and we kept our fingers crossed that there would be a Central Line train to Mile End. No luck :( We had to go out and wait for a night bus to university... meaning that even though the concert finished at 11, we got home around 1am, frozen and starving LOL