"New York, you're perfect, don't please don't change a thing. Your mild billionaire mayor's now convinced he's a king. So the boring collect - I mean all disrespect - in the neighborhood bars I'd once dreamt I would drink." ~lcd soundsystem

LCD Soundsystem played what is supposed to be their last concert ever last night. I'm hoping they come back. The show was at MSG, and I really wanted to go, but I couldn't get tickets. The lead singer of LCD Soundsystem tried for tickets when they went on sale out of curiosity, and he couldn't even get them. He was pretty pissed. So was I, because it would have been amazing to be there. I couldn't even get tickets to one of the added Terminal 5 shows. I've loved the band for awhile. "All My Friends" is one of my absolute favorite songs. They played it last night. It killed me to read about the show this morning. They unsurprisingly ended the show with "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down" (posted above). Yeah, it kills me to think about it.


Wow, I haven't written in awhile. Now I don't even know where to start. I think show reviews is as good a place as any, so here goes. I've seen a few Broadway shows recently, so I'll talk about those.

The first was Catch Me If You Can. It was a fun night of theater. I think the show was a bit long and could use some trimming. Some cuts might help add some excitement to it; for a show all about a chase, I didn't really feel the sense of thrill that I was expecting. The score is fine but nothing all that special. The sets and costumes are atrocious. What stood out to me was the acting. As Frank Abagnale, Jr. (the Leo DiCaprio role), Aaron Tveit is wonderful. He's incredibly charming and he's perfectly cast. I've loved him since Next to Normal (he was the original Gabe on Broadway), and I'm so glad to see he's moved on to something else that showcases his talent. I won't be surprised if he wins the Tony for Best Actor in a Musical this year. Norbert Leo Butz plays Carl Hanratty (the Tom Hanks role), and he does a great job, too. He sounds like Tom Hanks. He has one big number and it sounds a whole lot like "Great Big Stuff" (one of his songs in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, for which he won a Tony). Kerry Butler doesn't have much to do, which is too bad because I love her. She's one of my favorite musical theater actresses. She knocks the park out of "Fly, Fly Away," her big number.

(Sidebar: I'm very glad that the original siblings from Broadway's Next to Normal are currently working on Broadway. Seeing Aaron in Catch Me If You Can and seeing his N2N sister, Jenn Damiano, in Spider-Man recently made me really miss N2N. It also made me feel bad that Jenn Damiano ended up in the criminally underused role of Mary Jane in a disaster of a musical. I'm sure it will be difficult for both of them to find shows as good as N2N, but I'm glad that Aaron has at least found this great role.)


Next up was The Book of Mormon. Where do I even start? This is the show of the season. It will clean house at the Tonys this year. It's gotten fabulous reviews all over the place, from The New York Times (Ben Brantley loved it) to Josh Schwartz (who tweeted: "Book of Mormon may be the best thing I've seen on Broadway... not to overhype..."). I respect Josh Schwartz's opinion immensely, so it was cool to see that. Anyway, this show is brilliant. First of all, it's from the creators of South Park, and it's hilarious. It's not as crude as I expected it to be, though. It's actually full of heart. It's smart and moving and I can't say enough good things about it. It's just wonderful. Go see it. I did standing room, and it was totally worth the two-hour wait (and the view from standing room is great).


Finally, I saw the play High, starring Kathleen Turner. I wasn't crazy about the play. It was too formulaic and yet also inconsistent in terms of character. I enjoyed seeing Kathleen Turner onstage, and Evan Jonigkeit is an incredibly talented young actor giving a fantastic performance, but I wouldn't recommend this one.