Rain

If there is one thing you need to know about me it is that I love the Beatles!  I have loved them for as long as I can remember and, even though I have seen Paul McCartney several times, it always makes me sad that I never got to see the Beatles live.  The best that I can do is see a tribute band but there are some really great ones out there.  I've seen 1964 several times, I saw Classical Mystery Tour with the Utah Symphony last summer, and yesterday I got to see the Broadway show Rain which might be the best Beatles tribute concert I've ever seen!  Part concert, part theatrical experience, this show actually makes you feel like you are seeing the Beatles perform in various venues!  There are large screens projecting images such as the Ed Sullivan Show, Shea Stadium, and Abbey Road Studios.  I loved it!  I especially loved it when the screens showed footage of screaming fans from actual Beatles concerts next to footage of the crowd screaming at Kingsbury Hall!  Steve Landes (Johns Lennon), Paul Curatolo (Paul McCartney), Alastar McNeil (George Harrison), and Aaron Chiazza (Ringo Starr) look and sound so much like the Beatles that it is easy to imagine that you are seeing the real thing!  They began the show dressed in the signature matching suits and Cuban-heeled boots the Beatles wore on the Ed Sullivan Show and sang "She Loves You," "Please Please Me," "From Me to You," "I Want to Hold Your Hand," "A Hard Day's Night," "I'm Happy Just to Dance With You," "If I Fell," "Yesterday," "The Night Before," "Day Tripper," and then they got the crowd up and dancing to "Twist and Shout."  They changed into the Sgt. Pepper's uniforms and sang "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band," "With a Little Help From My Friends," "Eleanor Rigby," "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds," "When I'm Sixty-Four," "Penny Lane," "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band (Reprise)," and "A Day in the Life."  After the intermission they were dressed like hippies and played "Magical Mystery Tour," "Strawberry Fields Forever," "Across the Universe," "Blackbird," "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da," "In My Life," "Here Comes the Sun," "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "Come Together," "Get Back," "Revolution," and "The End."  Before the show they had the audience request a song from a list provided on Twitter and Facebook and they ended up playing "Norwegian Wood" which is the song I requested!  For the encore, they sang "Let it Be" and, of course, a rousing rendition of "Hey Jude."  I loved hearing the entire audience singing the chorus!  It gave me goosebumps!  I really enjoyed the selection of songs included and I was very impressed that all of the music is actually played on stage (A fifth member of the band, Mark Lewis, is on stage performing keyboards and other instruments to recreate the Beatles' sound).  I especially loved McNeil's guitar solo on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps."  I thoroughly loved this show and I highly recommend it to Beatles fans!

Note:  Most of the audience members were my parents' age but I was happy to see quite a few kids who were singing every word!

Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet

View of downtown SLC from the windows of Abravanel Hall

Last night I returned to Abravanel Hall (after what seems like a very long absence) for a Utah Symphony concert featuring excerpts from Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet and performances from actors with the Utah Shakespeare Festival.  Several years ago I attended a similar performance featuring Mendelssohn's incidental music from A Midsummer Night's Dream and excerpts from the play performed by noted Utah Shakespeare Festival actors.  It remains one of my favorite Utah Symphony concerts and I knew this production would be every bit as good so I have been looking forward to it for weeks.  I think Prokofiev's score is incredibly dramatic.  I particularly enjoyed "Montagues and Capulets" because it is so stirring yet it features an evocative theme played by the flute in the middle.  I also really liked "The Death of Tybalt" because it is another stirring piece with a bold theme played by the brass.  In between the musical numbers, corresponding scenes were performed from Shakespeare's classic tale of star-crossed lovers by Betsy Mugavero as Juliet, Claire Warden as Lady Capulet, Sarah Shippobotham as the Nurse, Luigi Sottile as Romeo, and Peter Lohnes as Friar Lawrence.  These scenes were directed by David Ivers, who is one of my favorite performers and directors from the Utah Shakespeare Festival.  I liked the selections, especially the famous balcony scene because Sottile's characterization of Romeo was quite playful which I thought was very interesting.  The combination of Prokofiev's music and Shakespeare's text, not to mention the outstanding performances, certainly produced an enjoyable evening of entertainment (which was definitely needed after a long week).  I hope that the Utah Symphony and the Utah Shakespeare Festival continue their collaboration for many years to come.  This concert will be performed again tonight and if you are anticipating this year's festival as much as I am, this might tide you over!  Tickets can be purchased here.

Note:  My favorite moment of the evening came courtesy of a large group of high school theatre students sitting near me.  I saw them arrive on their bus and they seemed so excited to be there.  After the concert one of them said, "That was sooooooo good!"  It makes me happy when I see young people enjoy the performing arts because it has brought so much enrichment to my life!

The Jungle Book

Last night my family and I saw an early screening of The Jungle Book and let me tell you now that it is absolutely magical!  My whole family loved it and my Dad even said that he wants to see it again as we were walking out of the theater!  This movie is a live action version of the stories written by Rudyard Kipling about the man-cub Mowgli and his adventures in the jungle and it is very much informed by the 1967 animated classic (If, like me, you grew up watching the animated version you will love this movie).  Mowgli (Neel Sethi) is an orphan who was left in the jungle and raised by the wolves Akela (Giancarlo Esposito) and Raksha (Lupita Nyong'o).  When the tiger Shere Khan (Idris Elba) learns that the wolves have been raising a man-cub, he threatens them causing Mowgli's protector, the panther Bagheera (Ben Kingsley), to tell him that he must leave the jungle and join the man-village.  After an attack by Shere Khan, Mowgli gets separated from Bagheera and he has adventures with Kaa (Scarlett Johansson), a giant python, Baloo (Bill Murray), a bear, and Louie (Christopher Walken), a giant orangutan.  When Mowgli learns that the wolves are being threatened by Shere Khan, he returns for a final showdown.  The voice cast is absolutely perfect!  Ben Kingsley, who also narrates the film, is a wise Bagheera, Idris Elba is a truly frightening Shere Khan (more about that later), and Christopher Walken is a suitably bizarre King Louie, but Bill Murray absolutely steals the show as Baloo and hearing him sing "The Bare Necessities" is worth the price of admission alone!  The visual effects are simply stunning!  Even those who are not fans of CGI are sure to be impressed by the beautiful images on the screen.  I found the animals to be absolutely enthralling, particularly the baby elephant.  I loved this movie and I highly recommend it for families, but I think it might be a bit scary for really young children (many children were taken out crying during my screening).  There are some incredibly frightening scenes with Shere Khan that actually made me jump and both Marilyn and I covered our eyes during some of the scenes with Kaa.  However, I am sure that this movie is destined to become a classic and you definitely want to see it on the big screen.

Jazz Game with Tashena

While I sometimes miss the little girl who used to love to play Barbies for hours on end, I have to admit that the teenage Tashena is also pretty fun.  Recently she told me that she really, really wanted to go to a Jazz game so, clearly, we had to go to last night's game against the Dallas Mavericks because it was the last home game of the season.  I am so glad that Tashena talked me into going because it was intense!  The game had huge playoff implications for both teams as they were both battling to clinch a spot.  The crowd was loud and rowdy and Tashena and I definitely added to the noise.  The Jazz stayed with the Mavericks with some electrifying three-pointers from Joe Ingles to end the first quarter and they ended the second quarter down by just four points.  It was so much fun listening to Tashena analyze the game.  In the third quarter the Jazz were down by as many as eleven but then went on an 8-0 run to get back in the game.  The Vivint Arena was absolutely out of control cheering for the Jazz at this point and it was so much fun to watch Tashena take it all in.  There is nothing like a Utah Jazz crowd when they are playing well!  In the fourth quarter the Jazz could not seem to make a basket no matter what they did.  Gordon Hayward eventually got a nice three-pointer and made two foul shots to bring Utah within five in the last few minutes but it was not enough and they ended up losing to Dallas 101-92.  It was a heartbreaker because the Jazz lost control of their own destiny and now need to beat the Lakers and they need the Rockets to lose to the Kings to clinch the final playoff spot.  Needless to say, we were a bit more subdued walking out of the arena than we were walking in, but I had so much fun at this game.  It was almost as much fun as playing Barbies!

Fun at the Bees Game

Saturday night Marilyn and I took Sean and Tashena to a Salt Lake Bees game against the Sacramento River Cats.  We had so much fun!  The Bees played really well (with a dramatic home run in the third inning) and eventually won the game 6-0, but being with Sean and Tashena is what made this night such a good time.  I sure do love them!  We got laughing so hard that I could not breathe and I think we were more entertaining to the people around us than the game was.  At one point Sean was taking a bunch of selfies with Marilyn's phone and the lady behind us started photobombing.  Good times!  After the game there were fireworks which is always a lot of fun. It did eventually get a little bit chilly but sitting outside in the sunshine and watching some baseball made me get really excited for summer!