Fabulous Memories

Well, Ravinia owes Betty Buckly a HUGE debt. She was SO FABULOUS, I got over being pissed off and am not pursuing venting my anger at them. No shitty emails or anything, just understanding that now I know there is no more free parking for Martin Theatre concerts and I will plan accordingly. I do have to wonder though, how come for the concert that I didn't care about, everything went so smoothly, even with the anxiety around my car, but for the concert I was really looking forward to, it was like having to brave the 9 circles of hell to get to it? The first time I saw Madonna was the same way, as was the Barbra Streisand concert, Mika, and to a lesser extent, Liza. Would there really be anything wrong with having an easy time getting to a concert I'm looking forward to and having the concert turn out fabulous so that I really have a fantabulous experience? As Princeton says, "Why does everything have to be so hard?" Anyways, enough dwelling on the sucky part of the day, the important thing is that Betty was fabulous. There wasn't much of a crowd in the theatre, which was disappointing (she was sold out in 2000 and about 3/4 full in 2005, but this time I don't think the theatre was even half full), but there was a huge ass lawn crowd. I don't think I've ever seen so many people on the lawn for a Martin concert, so that was nice to see, I just wish they would have coughed up the money to come inside and packed the place. I guess that's one of the side effects of forcing people to buy a subscription series instead of allowing them to get individual tickets. However, the benefit to me was that I was about 10 rows back from the stage and dead center, so it was perfect. She was so wonderful. In 2000 she was very chatty, telling lots of stories from her career, and did a great selection of mostly Broadway songs with some of her jazz and contemporary songs thrown in, that all mixed well. Most of the music has been preserved on her Stars and the Moon, Live at the Donmar Warehouse CD, although they cut out all the stage chatter and some of the Andrew Lloyd Webber songs. However, when she came back in 2005, it was a very different Betty. She did very little talking and focused mostly on jazz and contemporary songs, and most of them were downers. I appreciated what she was trying to do with the show, but the audience got pretty restless, and after she finished the second act, a lot of them got up and left before she even came back to do Memory as her encore. That could have a lot to do with why the crowd was so sparse this time. This time, she was back to her 2000 self. She was very chatty (and told a great story about Patti getting peeved with her doing Meadlowlark), and while she did do some jazz/contemporary songs, the focus was back on Broadway. She opened in full Barbra mode with As If We Never Said Goodbye (knocking it out of the park) and just kept going. She did Mama from 1776, which was fabulous, as well as He Plays The Violin, and best of all, she did When No One's There from Carrie, which was the highlight of the show. It was such a great night, she is truly a musical theatre treasure. I just wish at some point she'd come back and perform in the pavilion with a full orchestra, which she hinted at in 2000 but has yet to actually follow through on. She wrapped up around 6:15, and I trudged back to my car, and noticed that they finally had buses running, I don't know when they would have started, but they really would have been cutting it close to the beginning of the concert. Of course, I didn't realize this until I was halfway back to my car and couldn't catch one, but I'll keep that in mind for next time. Now, on to New York and some more divas and terrific shows. See you on Friday at Starbucks boys!