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May 25, 2004

Surreal. That is the word

Surreal. That is the word I choose to describe seeing Heather Headley in concert last night. For those who don't know, I went through the whole "college theatre department" experience with Ms. Headley. So, seeing her on the stage of the New Amsterdam Theatre, with a PACKED house in the palm of her hand, was surreal. When Clay Aiken came out (oh yes, Clay Aiken came out), it nearly killed me. Dead. I've been unable to come up with an analogy really. It was too much to see this girl who used to endure endless chorus rehearsals along with everyone else (sometimes), having the American Idol (an insane phenomenon unto itself) as a "guest" (an awestruck one at that) in this concert that was already too much for me to take. Just craziness. CRAZINESS.

Of course, the girl was phenomenal. Her personality so lends itself to the concert setting, the audience just eats her up. And clearly, her voice is incredible. She did an incredible version of Stevie Wonder's "As" as well as a great cover of Gladys Knight's "Neither One of Us." And the audience gave a standing "O" for her performance of "I Wish I Wasn't" (from her album).

I have a lot of friends who are successful to mildly successful, all of them as talented in their own way, and I'm sure it's only a matter of time until I see them in equally as surreal a setting. And I suppose that could have been any number of them last night. But I'm pretty damn proud of Heather - I think all of us who saw her steal show after show in the time she stayed put @ school feel that way. Like this little secret we had is out - and in a big way, and damn, isn't it just CRAZY??

Also, I must add what Dwayne reminded me of - that it was awesome to see so many people there for so many different reasons and everyone having a good time. In his words, when she started in on the evening, she said she "wanted to do a little Aida, a little Lion King" - the orchestra section went crazy. Then she said "and a little from my album, and some gospel" and the Mezzanine and Balcony went crazy. Good stuff.
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Posted by nikl at May 25, 2004 12:42 PM

Comments

This is a test comments. Josh's comment last night was "I love Heather Headley too." Which wasn't my point.

Test complete.

Posted by: nikl at May 27, 2004 02:11 PM

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