Glee Live! In Concert In Philly: Screaming Girls! Confetti Cannons! Fireworks!
Tickets? Check. Earplugs? Check. Warblers jacket? Foam finger? Homemade, pink and cheetah print, Darren Criss 4Ever sign? Check. Check. Double check. Last night, the Glee conglomerate rolled through Philadelphia. The Glee Live! In Concert (presented in association with Samsung and AT&T) is a celebration of the show, its young stars, the music, and—obviously—a way to make more money. (Don’t believe me? Well, let’s just say that the show started with a video hawking their new app and DVD.) And while I found it hard to muster even a modicum of excitement before the concert, I quickly got swept up in the moment.
(And no, I was neither recognized, mobbed, assaulted, or slushied for recently daring to suggest that Glee be canceled.)
Glee Live! is 90 minutes of confetti cannons, t-shirt launchers, smoke, fireworks, flares, 24 songs, at least 16 mentions of Philadelphia, interstitial video footage of Matthew Morrison and Jane Lynch, a fake choir room digital backdrop, and thousands and thousands of screaming girls. And their moms. And some men. The young cast, seemingly and impressively, performed quite a bit of the music live. It would have been easy for producers to include only the covers of recent Top 40s. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised that they included older songs, like Lea Michele and Chris Colfer’s “Get Happy/Happy Days Are Here Again” and Amber Riley and Naya Rivera’s “River Deep-Mountain High” (in my opinion, two of the best musical moments on Glee so far).
Other standout moments: Heather Morris’s “Slave 4 U” (could she be a better dancer? I always feel sorry for everyone else on stage because you cannot stop watching her); a trio of Warblers’ songs including “Teenage Dream” (one of Glee’s biggest singles); and Kevin McHale’s “Safety Dance” (the only moment where he gets out of the wheelchair).
In 90 minutes, producers were able to capture the heart and the enthusiasm of the early show. My hope, again, is that producers are working on translating this into the third season storylines.
