What kind of a silly sentence is that? Obviously, I’m going to try to describe as best I can what I experienced and that sentence was just a way for me to get my creative juices flowing. And indeed, in order to begin well, one must start with the first thought that comes to mind. Of course I see that I am merely stalling for time. But you know, I relish this time. This mad ceremony of tapping and clicking and clacking on my keyboard without having to worry about my News Reporting & Writing professor breathing down my neck mumbling: “Too many words - too many adjectives - get to the point already! That word is judgmental - Your readers won’t know what that word means - simplify - don’t use four words when you can use one.” etc., etc
So. If you don’t mind (and frankly, I don’t care even if you do mind I’m going to write how I want to anyway. It’s my bloody tumblr!) I intend to carry on in this overly embellished and sometimes superfluous diatribe of words for the duration of this post. That sentence did not make sense. Poor word choice. Poor structure. But I won’t bother to go back and change it because I’m not being graded. I’m really not a very good writer sometimes. So, my apologies.
Oh this is glorious! I have taken up two paragraphs in introduction and you STILL don’t know what the purpose of this post is! HA! Where’s your inverted triangle NOW, Mr. Anglen??
Well. To the point. I had the great privilege to see Jason Robert Brown in concert this past Sunday. I have been a fan of his music for about four years. A good friend of mine introduced me to him during a drive down the SR-51 on a partly-cloudy Arizona afternoon. He popped in a CD called “The Last Five Years” and I sat back in awed silence with this stupid grin plastered across my face that really made my facial muscles hurt after we reached our destination and had to turn off the car. I wouldn’t dare to describe his music as ‘sweeping’ or ‘epic,’ for indeed it is almost entirely written for the piano and each song contains about six or seven minutes of sometimes unhummable, sometimes dissonant, sometimes chaotic, but always expertly arranged melodies. And his lyrics! It came as no surprise when I discovered he studied with Stephen Sondheim.
Anyway, his music has been a big part of my life for the past four years, and when I found out he was coming to Arizona to see the Valley Youth Theater’s opening night production of 13 AND teach a workshop AND give a concert I immediately jumped to the nearest internet connection (that’s sort of a humorous mental image) and ordered my tickets for 13 and the concert (unfortunately I was unable to get off of work the day he was teaching the workshop.)
At approximately 4:30 p.m., a lone piano stood in the center of the stage, illuminated by two blue spotlights as the audience excitedly filed in. I took my seat in the third row from the stage, dead center. If I had a habit of biting my nails whenever I was excited, I would have had nothing left on the tips of my fingers but my cuticles. Fortunately, my only nervous habit is squealing and smiling really really huge and occasionally catching my breath in a gasp just to make sure I’m still alive and breathing. So. I managed to calm down in the last two minutes..but then he came onstage. The whole house erupted in applause and whoops and screams.
He is dreadfully handsome. Of medium height and build, a mop of dark brown hair with the deepest of brooding eyes to match, a politely pronounced bent nose indicative of his heritage, and the chin of a Gershwin. He waves and smiles with closed lips as he crosses to the piano and sits at the bench. He takes a sip from his water bottle, (an Ethos water bottle. I remember being very jealous of whatever Starbucks employee got to talk to him..) and stretches his hands and begins to play a song I’ve never heard before. He certainly set the mood for the remainder of the evening. It was a ballad called “All Things in Time.” It was moving, beautiful, understated and poignant - everything I love about JRB.
He then turned to greet us and was delightfully personable. He seems like the kind of guy you could sit down and have a chat with over coffee about anything at all. As the evening progressed he revealed more of his razor-ship wit and sarcastically dry, sometimes self-deprecating humor which made me love him all the more.
“Five o’ clock is such a weird time to have a concert. I’ll be warmed up by the time we’re done.” He did sound a little bit hoarse during his first song and he realized it, but he only got better and better and better and better.
During one of my favorite songs from Songs for a New World called “She Cries,” he messed up the lyrics in the first chorus and stopped, kept vamping, and turned to the audience and went on a two-minute digression about how he messed up the lyrics and told whoever was secretly videotaping this performance for youtube to please edit out the mistake. He had sung “She sings, well that’s the price you pay” when the words are “she sings, oh, she’s got you now for sure.” A humorous moment that delighted everyone in the audience.
He told us a story about one of his good female friends who begged him to write a song for her upcoming wedding. She begged and begged and begged, and he refused and refused and refused. And finally..”So she kept on asking and I kept on saying no, and she kept on asking and I kept on saying no, and she kept on asking and this is the song I wrote.”
It was absolutely beautiful. I wish I could remember all of the lyrics, and you won’t find it on Google or anywhere else but it was about ‘a long, long road you’re on, but you’re gonna be ok.’ Brown had been married before, and it did not end well, but this song was full of humble and compassionate advice - praising marriage for the grand adventure it is, without sugar-coating anything. It was honest. It was very real.
One of the livelier and more unexpected moments in the show was when, without any introduction, he rocked out on a jazzy riff and began to sing in a very Dean Martin-esque, gameshow host tone about Fabulous Las Vegas. Apparently, it’s the opening number of a new show he’s working on based on the 1993 film starring Nicolas Cage “Honeymoon in Vegas.” It’s unlike anything I’ve ever heard from Brown before and it really sounds like he’s coming into his own. He’s experimenting new with new styles and progressions, and he makes it so FUN. There was one terribly hilarious song called “I Should’ve Got Her Out of the Sun” sung by the character Tommy “Sandwich” (his last name is Focaccia) which starts out as a tragic ballad; an old man lamenting the loss of his love, until you realize she was an avid fake-baker with ‘the skin of an aligator’ and had, (presumably) died from skin cancer. Hilarious, unexpected. Delightful. I can’t wait for the rest of the music.
“This is my last song of the night before my encore.”
Brown busts into “Moving Too Fast” and hits every single note. This man is incredible. For his encore, he played the beautiful song from his solo album, “Someone to Fall Back On.” I’ve been listening to that song every day on my iPod and I have decided I liked it better live. His performance was emotionally charged, he really loves his music. It was an absolute delight and pleasure to share the evening with him and his music. So, all in all, it was one of the most enjoyable and meaningful musical evenings I’ve experienced in a long, long time.
Thanks, JRB. :)
I may not be your biggest fan..But I’m pretty close.
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