I love attending live performances. It’s a testament to how wrecked I feel through every winter that I’ve yet to post any live music reviews on my own blog and it’s almost two months old. Well, situation rectified as this week there were two amazing concerts at the Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts that I couldn’t miss!
Last night my sister and I heard Telly Leung and Anthony Rapp in a combined concert. Telly Leung is a Broadway star best known for roles in the revivals of Godspell and Flower Drum Song, plus he’s been with Rent on tour, and on the tv show Glee. He’s very talented and entertaining but since I wasn’t there to see him, it was a tough hour-long set. Instead of wowing us with traditional Broadway fare, he sang a number of overworked arrangements of non-Broadway music that I certainly recognize as accomplished vocal performances, but just weren’t good arrangements. He sang with a band, but the mix in the house wasn’t great. Hands down my favourite song he sang was Before The Parade Passes By from Hello Dolly, which he had seen Carol Channing sing live(!) and she inspired him to pursue his Broadway dreams. Very moving.
When it finally started at 9:15pm, the second half of the concert featured the sensational Anthony Rapp and a guitarist friend of his who was truly outstanding. I could share his name if they’d printed a program! Anthony Rapp is the original (and best) Mark Cohen from Rent. It wouldn’t be an understatement to say I’ve had a love affair with this show for almost two decades now. If you can hear the words “December 24th, 9pm, eastern standard time” and not hear Anthony’s voice, well, that’s a reality I can’t imagine. Anthony is a unique talent; his turn of phrase, the way he can dig so deeply into a lyric, his uncommon tone, wouldn’t fly from just anyone. He’s a real singing actor, and he brought me to tears with his takes on Losing My Religion (his audition song for Rent), Falling Slowly (from Once), and to a near standing ovation for his cover of Radiohead’s song Creep. I hate Radiohead but that song is amazing. It’s so great to hear someone else sing it! I’ve been privileged enough to see Anthony in Rent twice in New York (about a decade between shows), three times in the Rent reunion tour in Toronto, and once in his solo show, also called Without You. Without You isn’t Mark’s song in the show, but has become a hallmark of Anthony’s as a dedication to his beloved mother, and the creator of Rent, Jonathon Larson, both of whom tragically passed on. My only complaint about Anthony’s part of the show was that it was too short, although since he’s in town for the tour of If/Then, I suppose it was wise to sing a reasonably short set before eight more performances the rest of the week! I’m looking forward to seeing If/Then with my sister next week. I’ll definitely review it. And I’ll come back to Rent in future posts, as it indelibly affected my listening life.
YouTube videos with quality audio of Anthony’s solo performances are hard to find, so here’s the recording of Without You from his solo album of 2012. Cue tears at 2:38. No one can sing this piece like he can. With love, light, and song… ~Melissa~
Listen here: Without You * by Jonathan Larson * from the musical Rent (1996)