Ross' Concerts and Musicals 2009

[Ross]

Since I will be going to a lot of concerts and musicals in the next few months I thought I would start a thread about my experiences with each of them.
I will start with a concert I went to last week in the Christchurch Town Hall. It was the Pink Floyd Experience Show and I know there a few Pink Floyd fans in this forum.

The Pink Floyd Experience James Hay Theatre Christchurch 1st May

The Pink Floyd Experience Band is a tribute band from New Zealand who get great reviews where ever they play in the world. They sound and play just about as good as the original band. They have all the bells and whistles like they have a three girl backing singers, A saxophonist, laser show, a really great lighting show , an animated video playing on the back wall and the circular video screen you might have seen in The Pink Floyd Pulse DVD. So if you didn't know better you would have thought it was the real Pink Floyd concert.

The concert started at 8pm and including the interval it went to 11.30pm so they gave us a brilliant 3.5 hours of Pink Floyd music.
They opened with a white curtain hiding the band while they started to play Welcome To The Machine (from Wish You Were Here album) and then an animated video started playing on the curtain. Then suddenly the curtain drops and you see the band playing and the light show starts, it was great.
The first half of the show covered the early Pink Floyd years and included songs like Astronomy Domine, Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun (UmmaGumma album). Arnold Layne (Relic album). Plus other songs from Animals, The Final Cut, Atom Heart Mother, Piper At The Gates Of Dawn.
They played all 25 minutes of Echoes (Meddle Album) plus Learning To Fly (A Momentary Lapse Of Reason Album).
The second half opened with Shine On You Crazy Diamond and Wish You Were Here (Wish You Were Here Album).

They then played the entire Dark Side Of The Moon album which was great.
They played some more songs from The Wall as well.
For the encore they played Comfortably Numb (The Wall album).
They got a standing ovation from the full house of mostly 40yo plus Pink Floyd fans. So if they ever tour near you you must see them, you won't be disappointed.

[Ross]

A Concert For Mothers Day - Dame Malvina Major 10th May Christchurch Cathedral

After a couple of days stuck at home with illness it was a relief I was much better on Sunday so I could attend this concert. It was a very wet miserable day in Christchurch but the cathedral and the beautiful music soon livened me up.

The Christchurch City Choir opened the concert accompanied by the young organist Jeremy Woodside. They sung Psalm 29 - Give Unto The Lord by Elgar.
Then Dame Malvina Major came onto the stage in a purple gown with a possum fur wrap around her shoulders. Possum is a native marsupial from Australia but in New Zealand it is a major pest but has a very fine fur.
Dame Malvina accompanied by the pianist Iola Shelly sang This Is My Lovely Day by Vivien Ellis and from Bless The Bride. She has a lovely strong voice (no microphones in this concert). The high notes were exquisite. The full house gave her a great ovation.
Then one of her students from Canterbury university, Polly Pott came onto the stage. She was wearing a lovely white gown with sparkles around the waist. She sang Ave Maria by Pietro Mascagni from Cavalleria Rusticana. She sounds like a young version of the Dame.

Dame Malvina then sang Only A Rose by Rudolph Friml from The Vagabond King.
Then she sang Climb Every Mountain by Rogers & Hammerstein from The Sound Of Music. While singing this song she walked down the aisle so everyone could get a good look at her which was great of her.
The City Choir accompanied on piano By Iola and Jeremy then sang several Love Waltzes by Brahms they were called Liebeslieder Walzes.

Then Jeremy played two songs on the organ. First was Sun Dance by Bob Chilcott from Organ dances. The next was Litanies by Jehan Alain from Trois Pieces. I love a good organ.

Then Polly came back and sang a traditional Polish Folk Song called Mother Dear.
Dame Malvina did a great version of Summertime by George Gershwin from Porgy and Bess.

Polly then did a spiritual called At The River.

They then did a duet of Vilia by Franz Lehar from The Merry Widow. They each sang solo different parts of the song and then both together at the end.
They then did a comical version of I Want To Be A Prima Donna by Victor Herbert which got the audience laughing. But the high notes of both singers were excellent.
The concert finished with the choir doing a few spirituals. For the first song there were drums by Andi Gibbs. The song was Joshua Fit The Battle Of Jericho arr. Norman Luboff. Polly also took part, she sang from the pulpit to the left of the stage.
The choir accompanied by Jeremy on Piano, Luke Belcher on Bass Guitar and the drums sang two more songs.
First was Steal Away arr. Norman Luboff and Smiling by Everett Reed.
The main stars all got flowers and Jeremy gave his to his mother which everyone appreciated.

Dame Malvina was selling her latest CD called Malvina My Life In Song which of course I bought.

[martindn]

Hi Ross,

Thanks for that!

Do you (or anyone else) know where we foreigners can get a copy of that CD?

Martin

[roger]

Hi Martin,

Ross may well have some better ideas but, if all else fails, it is available at marbecks.co.nz. CD price is NZ$24.99 which converts to about £9.95. I can't remember what they charge for shipping but I think it is reasonable.

I have used them before and found them to be very reliable.

Roger

[Ross]

May 10, 2009 23:05:26 GMT @roger said:

Hi Martin,

Ross may well have some better ideas but, if all else fails, it is available at marbecks.co.nz. CD price is NZ$24.99 which converts to about £9.95. I can't remember what they charge for shipping but I think it is reasonable.

I have used them before and found them to be very reliable.

Roger

I think that is the best idea. It is not even in the shops yet here.

[Ross]

Les Miserables Ashburton Event Centre 21 May 7:30pm

After work on Thursday I drove down to Ashburton which was where I was born. Ashburton is a town of about 15000, 80km South (50 miles) of Christchurch. It services a large farming community.
I met my mum at the event centre at 6:45pm. The event centre is very new and is the first time I have been there. The theatre seats 500.

All 5 shows were virtually sold out. The local amateur Variety Theatre company did the musical and it was a very well run show especially being the first one.
This is the first time I have seen Les Miserables and I must say I really enjoyed this musical. It reminded me of some operas I have been to in that it had a very good stage props, good costumes, great singers, lots of people died and it went for 3 hours lol.
The young children in the cast were really great singers ( about 10 years old).
The person who played Marius is the head boy for the local college and he was really good.
I really loved the I Dreamed A Dream song and noticed this tune was the theme for a lot of the other songs.
During the interval me and mum had an icecream.
The guy who played Valjean did a really great job and when he sang Bring Him Home some one in the audience yelled out Bravo at the end which I thought was great.
Another great singer was the one who played Thenardier ( The beggar) who was very comical. In fact the only thing that went wrong during the show was at one stage his mike failed but he had such a strong voice that you didn't notice the lack of the mike.
The change of props and scenery where really well done and I loved the fact that the smoke quite often drifted into the audience and made you feel part of the action. The barricade prop was really well done and the cast could climb up the pile of wood etc and so made the fight scene more realistic.
The song at the end, Epilogue, brought a lump to my throat.

The show finished at 10:30pm with the young cast members coming onto the stage first to get their applause. Then the woman and men company followed by the students.
The biggest applause went to Marius, Cosette, the 2 Thenardiers, Javert and of course Valjean.
Got back to Christchurch about midnight.

[comet]

I have been a huge fan of Les Miserables since the LP.

I always thought the Red And Black theme in it should have been used /
/ extended / expanded or repeated more.

:2fun: But maybe the show was long enough as it was.

Empty Chairs is something else.

Glad you enjoyed it

[Ross]

7 Deadly Sins Ensemble Of Southern Opera Christchurch Cathedral 29th May

The Ensemble are 17 members of the local Southern Opera. It includes 7 men and 10 ladies including Polly Ott who appeared with Dame Malvina Major in the last concert I went to in the Cathedral.
The programme consisted of several opera or musical songs representing each of the 7 deadly sins. Most of the songs the cast acted out each song but there were a few they just sang from the song book. It was a very enjoyable concert. Here is the programme:-

[Ross]

The Big Sing Christchurch Town Hall 5th June

This was the Canterbury regional Secondary school Choral contest.
The students are between 13 and 18 years old. The top school choirs go on to the New Zealand finals in August.
This show was a chance to show the public how good each school was. It was also filmed by our local TV station CTV for later viewing.
I enjoyed the show. Each school was of a high standard. The Christ's College 100 member choir was very good. Hayley's old school, Burnside High, had a boys choir as well as a girls choir.
My old school, Ashburton College was also there.

At the end for the finale there was a 100 piece orchestra from the Christchurch Boys and Girls High Schools. All the choirs were seated in the back half of the upper gallery overlooking the orchestra. There was probably 600 in the choir.
They played The Heavens Are Telling from The Creation by Haydn. What a sound between the large orchestra and all the young voices it was a great finish to the show.
But then the choir burst into a rendition of Lean On Me which showed how great a night it was for the students as well.

[Jono]

Hey Ross, are you coming up to Auckland to see Cats? I'm seeing that next week i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif

I'm insanely jealous about Pink Floyd Experience...really wanted to see them, I mean we had two shows in Auckland at pretty sweet locations. Was considering either going and seeing them in Nelson with my brother or him come here, or any of the in-between concerts....but it just didn't happen.. ... After reading the set list I'm kicking myself even more...I've heard they are very good.

Also jealous about Les Miserables... keen to see that musical.

[Ross]

i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif I will be seeing Bryn Terfel on Saturday in the Christchurch Town Hall. I was lucky and got a cheaper ticket ($57) as the next cheapest was $99. I will give a review later. Most of us can remember the videos of Bryn, Jose Carreras and Hayley singing at the Faenol festival in 2003 ( I think).

[Richard]

Hello Ross!

After a bit of searching, I've found the Faenol Festival video HERE. This concert took place on 24th August 2003, about three weeks before 'Pure' was released in the UK.

Richard

[postscript]

Jun 12, 2009 15:18:42 GMT Richard said:

Hello Ross!

After a bit of searching, I've found the Faenol Festival video HERE. This concert took place on 24th August 2003, about three weeks before 'Pure' was released in the UK.

Richard

Unfortunately, Richard, the video link drew a 'not found' url when I tried it just now (18:29, Friday 12th BST)

Peter S.

[jimg]

Hi Peter S

The link worked for me at 18.35 today.

Jim

[roger]

Hi Richard,

Unfortunately, I have a somewhat different problem. I don't get the 'not found' message that Peter sees. Instead, the page opens correctly and the video plays just fine. I guess I will have to be content with that!

Roger