Hmm. How do I bring this write-up together? I guess I'll start with the tickets.
Two weeks ago, when I was at The Patchogue Theatre for the Broadway Fright Night concert, Gary Hygom, the Executive Director of the venue, kicked off the show with some coming attractions for upcoming events. Now I had seen in some of the theater's lit that they had a show coming up celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the classic Who album Tommy, but I hadn't really given it much thought. There weren't any in-depth descriptions of the show, and as much as I love Tommy, just saying the name wasn't going to be enough to get my butt into a seat there.
On that night, however, Hygom described the show in a little more detail, and it piqued my interest. First, I learned that Steve DeAngelis, the same guy who put together the Broadway Fright Night show, was going to be involved in Tommy. Much as he did with Fright Night, he was going to be supplying a number of Broadway singers to sing various parts of the show. (I thought they originally said four, but it actually turned out to be three singers.) Since Denise and I went on to enjoy the Fright Night show, this made Tommy a little more attractive to me, in that I trusted that the singers DeAngelis provided would be of high quality.
This only partially did the trick, though. Because as much as I loved that original Who album Tommy, I never felt that the subsequent attempts to turn it into a show fully worked. Yes, there was some inspired casting at times. Tina Turner made a great Acid Queen, and I've enjoyed other castings over the years, including Elton John as the Local Lad (who sings "Pinball Wizard"), Ringo Starr (and later Phil Collins) as Uncle Ernie, Billy Idol as Cousin Kevin, etc. But I never felt that Tommy ever fully worked as a film, or a Broadway musical -- certainly, nothing ever fully captured the genius of that original double album with the members of The Who playing and singing all of the songs. So having a handful of Broadway singers singing the various parts wasn't going to be enough the sell me a ticket.
But then Hygom closed the deal when he mentioned that local prog rock band Wonderous Stories was going to be performing the music.
Those of you who know me know that I'm all about the original music scene on Long Island, and original music in general. I seldom pay much attention to cover, or tribute bands. Yes, they can often provide a fun night of music (or of nostalgia) if they're good. But I'd usually rather try to catch a band playing their own new music.
But if I am going to go out of my way to see a cover band, Wonderous Stories would be my first choice. Wonderous Stories was founded sometime in the 1990s by local musician Kenny Forgione. They specialize in the great progressive rock music of the 1970s, as is obvious from their name (taken, of course, from the classic Yes song). On a typical night, they cover all of the iconic songs of that era. One of the most fun things about them, however, is their specialty nights, where they'll cover a prominent LP, such as Genesis' The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway or Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon from beginning to end. I don't get to see these guys very often, partially because they play in Nassau County way more often than they do in Suffolk, and partially because their damned website never seems to let me subscribe to get notices for their upcoming shows. But this is a band worth seeing.
So the notion of seeing Wonderous Stories perform Tommy from beginning to end, supported by some Broadway singers provided by Steve DeAngelis, was suddenly much more attractive to me. Denise was interested too. So the next day after the Fright Night concert, I went up on the Patchogue Theatre website and brought three seats in my favorite section of the second row. They were intended to be a tack-on to Denise's birthday present, which was that coming Monday.
Alas, great plans sometimes go awry. So even though the tickets were intended to be a part of Denise's birthday present, Denise had forgotten that she had another commitment on that same night -- a birthday party for one of her friends from her eighties group. She had rented a hotel room in New Jersey near the party for herself and another friend.
So, my "date" for the evening wound up being my brother-in-law (who is friends with Kenny Forgione -- although I'd seen Wonderous play before, the first time I actually met Kenny was at his house), and my niece, the no-longer-so-little show kid.
So, yesterday afternoon, Denise took off for the wilds of New Jersey. (She got there like four hours later, thanks to heavy traffic due to a series of accidents. I hate New Jersey.)
I hung out, fed my kids (Thank God for pizza!), and left the house at about 7:30 for an 8PM show. (I love the Patchogue Theatre). I thought maybe because it was cold last night, Patchogue Village wouldn't be so crowded, but no such luck. So after cruising the theater parking lot once or twice, I headed out to my usual spot in my ophthalmologist's parking lot across the street.
When I arrived in the lobby of the theater, I found that I had to skip my usual bottle of water, because the line at the concessions counter was just ridiculous. So I headed into the seating area, and found my brother-in-law and niece already at the seats. There I learned that my niece had actually performed in something or other with one of the three Broadway singers before, which helped to pique her interest in the show.
I started trying to explain to my niece what Tommy meant to her father and I (and all of the other geezers who packed the theater). But although she's a pretty polite kid, I noticed her eyes glaze over with that kind of "old people are talking, please kill me look" that teenagers get, so I let it go.
As I looked around, I have to say that the crowd was pretty impressive, especially considering I'd been able to buy second row seats just two weeks earlier. But Denise tells me that Wonderous was hawking the show pretty good on their Facebook page, and I had the feeling that a lot of the crowd (maybe even the majority) was there to see them. The main auditorium seemed to be completely full, except for the last few rows of seats in the left and right wings. And as best I could see, there was a pretty good crowd up in the balcony, too.
There weren't really programs for the show (just generic Patchogue Theatre booklets), but I had printed up my own one-pagers for our little group.
Here were the listed performers, other than Wonderous Stories:
Justin Matthew Sargent: Spiderman, Rock of Ages, Jesus Christ Superstar (he was the one my niece had performed with).
Lana Gordon: Chicago, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Lion King.
Michael Wartella: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Tuck Everlasting, Wicked.
Both Kenny Forgione and Tommy Williams of Wonderous Stories also sang a significant portion of the show. (Williams is apparently also the musical director of The Patchogue Theatre, which I hadn't previously been aware of.) (Editor's note: I heard from Kenny Forgione after the show, and apparently Tommy Williams was the musical director for the night, but is not the musical director for the Patchogue Theatre. Apologies for the error.)
Before too long, the lights went down, Gary Hygom introduced the show, and the band hit the stage. In addition to their regular five members, Wonderous had added a 4-piece brass section for this show. (Wonderous has been around for so long that they pretty much know the entire Long Island music scene, so they can always get cool guest performers to play with them.)
So, being a glass-half-empty kind of guy, I'll give you the negatives first. (There definitely were a few, but spoiler alert, this was still a pretty fun show.)
1. I could tell that the full cast for this show hadn't had that much of a chance to rehearse the whole thing together. Wonderous knows most of Tommy pretty well, but a couple of the Broadway singers forgot lines at times, or weren't sure exactly where to come in. I won't say it detracted from the show that much, but having "performed" Tommy from start to finish dozens of times as a teenager by myself in the solitude of the living room of my childhood home (while my poor younger brother hid in his room upstairs), I clearly knew the lyrics better than these guys. (As, I must admit, did quite a few other members of the audience.)
2. The Broadway singers all had good voices, although a couple of them were a bit too preeny for my taste. Ms. Gordon could kind of get away with it, as (let's face it), the Acid Queen is a bit of an over-the-top part (although Mrs. Walker is less so.) But when Roger Daltrey plays the part of Tommy (whether just for a song or two in concert, or playing the full show), there's a kind of sweet sincerity about him which I suspect is one of the things that makes Tommy work. But Sargent sang the part as a hot-dogging rock star, constantly making guitar face and just generally Jaggering it up. It wasn't that big a deal -- this was intended to be more of a fun concert than a serious attempt at drama, and he clearly was having fun with the role. But when I watched him, I definitely thought to myself a couple of times that I wished I had some eggs to go with all that ham.
I guess those were really my only negatives, though, which overall really isn't that bad.
Now for some positives:
1. Wonderous Stories. I'd never seen them perform Tommy before, and I'm glad I finally got the chance to.
2. Michael Wartella -- there were a couple of things I thought he really nailed, especially the part of Cousin Kevin. He had a lot of fun dragging an imaginary Tommy around by a lock of his hair, or intimidating poor Kenny during the second verse of the "Cousin Kevin" song. (For the record, Kenny made it clear that he, in fact, wouldn't enjoy it if Cousin Kevin turned on the bath, ducked his head under and started to laugh.)
3. Good versions of songs that aren't usually my favorites. This cast really made me enjoy a couple of the songs that aren't usually my favorites in this rock opera. They totally rocked out on "Christmas", and as I mentioned, their version of "Cousin Kevin" was also first-class. Also, they lived up to their word and actually did perform the entire piece from beginning to end, including "Welcome", which even The Who themselves never performed on the couple of occasions when I saw them do Tommy.
4. Making me hear things I haven't heard in years. Unfortunately, one of the sad things that happens with the music you love best is you tend to listen to it so much that eventually, you can't really hear it anymore. Psychologists call this "habituation". I call it sucky. Wonderous's performance of Tommy last night really made me hear, for the first time in ages, all of the psychedelic elements of this great work. Most of us tend to think of The Who primarily as a hard rock band, or sometimes (in the case of their two rock operas) as a progressive rock band. But in Tommy, there's quite a bit of '60s psychedelic rock in the mix, too. It was exciting for me to really hear that again.
5. The crowd. My brother--in-law and I were definitely no worse than median-aged in this crowd. But these old fogies were rocking the eff out! Especially towards the end, there were war whoops aplenty, arms (and sometimes canes) raised in triumph, and a just a lot of energy in the room in general. For many, it was what the great philosopher Max Bialystock described as "one last thrill on the way to the cemetery". I'm pretty sure I was sitting directly behind Norma Desmond. (I never saw her face, but the hat fit.) But she, and all of the other old codgers surrounding me, were moving (to the extent that they still could move) to the music all night long. This was one of those cases where the crowd really helped to make the show.
6. The encore -- Once Tommy had concluded, the full cast rocked it up with a cover of "Baba O'Riley", before Wonderous closed out the night with their version of "Won't Get Fooled Again". It ended things off nicely.
So yeah, overall, even though this wasn't a note-perfect night of music, it was a very successful one.
I don't have any tickets for The Patchogue Theatre again until March. But there are some upcoming classical shows I'm tempted by, so who knows?
As for Wonderous Stories, in addition to playing regular Wednesday night shows at KJ Farrell's in Bellmore, and a regular monthly gig at The Warehouse L.I. in Amityville, they're playing the night after Thanksgiving here in Patchogue at 89 North (where I may have to just go check them out again.)
Anyway, peace and music, my people!
