June 16, 2006 (Friday)
What a night!
I had the good fortune of running into next to no
traffic on the way to the theater, so I was there nice and early.
(Please don't tell my boss that I could have actually stayed at
work a little later.... oh wait, too late.
She reads this site sometimes.
Hi Boss! ;-)
)
As I pulled up in the parking lot, I saw a Brinks
truck driving around back. I
thought maybe it was Donna's bling arriving.....
;-) (I found out later
that it was probably just there to haul away the profits from the
concession stands. $8 bought me a bottle of water and a pretzel.
I think if I had wanted something more, I would have needed to
apply for financing......
LOL)
Now for those who have never been to Westbury, you
need to understand that it's staged in the round.
Which means that Donna can't use the set she uses at
"normal" venues. Well, I guess they could find a way of fitting
it on the Westbury stage, but then at any given time half the audience
would be looking at the back of the set and would completely miss what
Donna was doing. And the rule
is that when I'm in the Westbury audience, the cool things will ONLY
happen when the artist is facing away from me. (And I don't just mean at
Donna shows – it happens when I see other people there too.
LOL) Of course, being
in the round, it means that even if you are stuck in the back you still
have a good view of the show, and it makes for a much more intimate
setting. It also allows for
more interaction from the audience as there are more people close enough
to the stage to be heard when they shout to Donna.
And there was plenty of shouting...... but I'm getting ahead of
myself. Let me start with a
list of songs as I remember them – I probably should have taken notes,
but I didn't. So this will probably not quite be in order.
They started with the band playing an overture (which
is a medley of a bunch of different hit
songs) then Donna came out doing She Works Hard For The Money.
Before I go on, I'll mention one little detail that I know is very
important to some of you. Donna was wearing heels – no more flats. I
remember the outcry last year when she was wearing flats, so I'll give you
a minute to cheer for the heels. (Is
it pathetic that I never used to pay attention to little things like shoes
until I started hanging around with you foot fetishists? You people have
corrupted me! LOL)
Moving along, she did MacArthur Park, Could It Be
Magic, This Time I Know It's For Real, Once Upon A Time, I Love You,
Smile, With A Little Help From My Friends, On The Radio (with 3 divas from
the audience helping out), Natural Woman, Enough Is Enough (with her
sister Mary), a long medley of Try Me, I Feel Love and Love To Love You,
Dim All The Lights, Pearls, Bad Girls, Hot Stuff, and Last Dance. And
somewhere in the middle of all that, Bruce took the stage to sing Le
Imagine Cafe – without the Elvis shirt this time though.
Hopefully I haven't forgotten anything.
We were also treated to a couple of impromptu
surprises. Someone across the
theater from me asked for Rumor Has It and Donna sang a couple lines
accapella. The audience
picked up on the beat and clapped in time to the rhythm – even after
Donna stopped singing. So she stood there and danced a little for us. That
was pretty cool. And
then later, after a couple people shouted "Spring Affair"
(repeatedly at regular intervals through the show – you guys know who
you were! LOL) she sang a
couple lines of that too.
Now I have to say something about Love To Love You. I
know she was doing it last year, and I remember the excitement when the
first report came in saying that Love To Love You was back in the show.
But then, with all the shows I went to last year – NOT ONCE was
that song in the set list. I
was starting to think that it was some sort of hoax you were all playing
on me. LOL
So I guess it was finally my lucky night! And I have to tell you,
that bass line sounds awesome pumping out of a concert sound system. (And
what was ever more awesome was watching my friend nearly pass out with joy
when the song started. He missed out last year too!
LOL)
A couple of the other stand out moments for me were I
Love You and Smile – both for personal reasons.
(I won't go into details, but I Love You has had special meaning
for me for a number of years now, and Smile just sort of fit after the
stuff that's been going on in my life the last week or so.) Pearls was
also phenomenal. I know the Florida fans have already raved about Donna's
vocals on that one, but I'd like to add that the vocals are beautifully
supported by a wonderful string arrangement and a really poignant guitar
solo. When I heard Sade's
original version a few years ago, I said "okay, this isn't bad,"
but when I heard Donna's version last night, I said
"WOW!" (Full marks to Randy Mitchell for that guitar solo –
great job!)
All in all, it was a great night. Donna was relaxed and happy.
The audience was boisterous and completely into the show.
Those two things together always make for a great show.
:-)
And that brings us to......
June 17, 2006 (Saturday)
On Saturday I was meeting up with a different set of
friends. Once again, I lucked out with traffic although a couple of my
friends were not quite so fortunate. (Phil, I guess that you didn't know
that the LIE is usually just one long parking lot?
;-) ) We decided to
grab some food at a local deli which was an experience in and of itself.
Are any of you out there Monty Python fans? If so, you will
understand when I say that the deli was run almost as well at the store in
the cheese
shop sketch. But the food
was okay once we were able to figure out what they actually had there.
LOL Then it was a
short walk back to the theater where we arrived just in time for the
comedian. He was good, but we were there to see Donna.
:-)
On Saturday the set list was exactly the same.
The audience was a little (make that a lot) more mellow though.
Although the guy in front of me was doing his best to make up for the
calmer ones. He spent most of
the night doing some pretty ummmmm.... interesting dancing.
(He was even dancing to the slow parts of some of the songs, which
I found really unusual.)
There really isn't too much I can say about
Saturday's show that I haven't already said about Friday's show. As I said before, the set list was exactly the same – only
this time we didn't have people shouting out random song titles. (Well,
except for one time right after Enough Is Enough when somebody yelled Take
It To The Zoo. Donna didn't
sing any of it, but she remembered where it came from.
I'd be willing to bet that a lot of people in the audience didn't
though. LOL) All in all, they
were great shows with just the right mix of the big hits, classic tracks
that don't get performed all the time and some really nice covers.
The only little quibble I have (other than I would
have liked the show to last 4 or 5 hours longer......
;-) ) is that I'm not sure how well Pearls is going to work at a
casino show stuck in between Dim All The Lights and Bad Girls.
Gambling crowds seem to have shorter attention spans and if you
don't whack them in the head with a strong beat every 2 seconds or so,
their minds wander back to the slot machines.
LOL But then again, if
they don't want to listen – that's their loss.
;-)
I'm posting some of my pictures on the bottom of the
page. I just want to say that
the sparkly white dress Donna wears for Last Dance is gorgeous.
In all the pictures I've seen of it from both Florida and Westbury
– not one really does it justice. Maybe
THAT'S what the Brinks truck was delivering!
LOL
-
Cathy, from Long Island and Cyberspace |
