that deaf, dumb, and blind kid

last night i went to see tommy with beej and mike yin. beth, ashley, aaron, and ram also went but they had nice tickets and we had ass second tier tickets. the show was good overall and i only have two complaints:

1. as beej said, the pit sounded like they were playing in a tin can, which was kind of true because they were playing in an actual pit under/in front of the stage, and the drummer was in a box. i suppose having a real pit and performing a rock opera don't mix too well. the sound from the band gets too muffled by being inside the pit and of course has to be amplified through the sound system-- generally bad sound quality. so the sound wasn't that great.

2. manley pope (who played tommy) needs to have some better diction when singing. i couldn't understand a word he sang throughout the entire first act. and that makes the show a bit confusing because it's pretty much all sung. good thing i've read the script and knew what was supposed to be happening. also, manley pope was significantly taller and older than everyone else on stage. or at least he was taller than everybody and older than all the other people playing teenagers. it's hard to have a guy who is and looks older than 30 play a 17ish-year-old. he was a pretty good actor though, and had a good voice for the songs. his dialogue kind of reminded me of that vague kind of voice one usually associates with the dumb surfer dude on the beach in any movie that takes place in california in the summer.

anyway, overall the show was good and i enjoyed it. the set was very well done; simplistic, but having the projection screens in back and the tvs surrounding the stage was neat. i really liked the choices of color in the costumes and set. at first i felt that more could have been done with the lighting to make it more rock showesque, but after the second act opening, i changed my mind about that. again, overall a good show. it was an even better show when we moved from the stupid second tier seats to sit in the orchestra section for the second act. much better view.

the most frustrating part of the evening was trying to get out of the parking garage, which took about 30 minutes. we aparently parked in the absolutely worst spot possible. oh well. everyone but mike and i went to the after party. beth couldn't take all of us, and mike isn't 21 yet, so i decided to go back home and drink with gerrit and connor instead.

when i got home, connor was already drunk, having done about 5 shots after playing frisbee for two hours and not eating or drinking anything afterwards. they made pasta which was room temperature by the time i got there, but still delicious. the daily show is amazing. i'm glad we watch it almost every night.

tonight is gerrit-catherine-and-connor-go-drink-on-the-south-side-night (and maybe other people too; i don't know), and that promises to be a good time. tomorrow i have to present at the lab meeting, which means i will be saying a lot of "i tried this but it didn't work" which sucks. but things could be worse. maybe something will work today, who knows.

pudgy fluffy is still sleeping, lucky guy. i wish i could sleep all day too.