matt rutherford

Glee Live! Tour
May 20, 2010
Gibson Amphitheatre
Universal City, CA

By: Nevra Azerkan
Rating:

On May 20, 2010 at the Gibson Amphitheatre, the Glee cast performed their first L.A. concert on the tour. Opening for them was The LXD, also known as The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers, which features Glee cast member, Harry Shum, Jr. The LXD, formed by Step Up 2 and 3D director, Jon Chu, is a web series that you can watch on hulu.com. I definitely encourage everyone to go watch the series because these dancers really live up to their name. Seeing them perform live was a mind-blowing experience. The choreography was insane. Some of those moves did not even look real. So if you have the opportunity to see them live, don’t miss out.

After The LXD finished, girls dressed up as Cheerios came through the audience passing out bags. Then a video was played with Sue Sylvester explaining her disgust of the Glee Club and in true Sue Sylvester fashion, she was providing barf bags for the audience. The Glee cast came out shortly after and performed many of songs sung on the show including (in no particular order): “Push It”, “Don’t Rain On My Parade”, “Beautiful”, “Sweet Caroline”, “Lady is a Tramp”, “Defying Gravity”, “Bust Your Windows”, “Bad Romance”, “Dancing with Myself”, “Its My Life/Confessions”, “Halo/Walking on Sunshine”, “Jump”, “Stand by Me”, “Getting What You Want”, “The Boy Is Mine”, “Don’t Stop Believin’”, “My Life Would Suck Without You”, “True Colors”, “Somebody to Love”, and “Like A Prayer”. Vocal Adrenaline (minus Jonathan Groff who was in the audience) performed: “Rehab” and “Mercy”.

In between some of the numbers, a few cast members, usually Kurt (Chris Colfer) and Brittany (Heather Morris) would talk to the audience in character. I think Brittany was everyone’s favorite as her ditzy character says some of the most hilarious things and the crowd was eating it up. We were also treated to videos featuring Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) and Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison).

As far as costumes and staging, the costumes were just like the ones used on the show: matching and fairly simple (except the Lady Gaga number!). The backdrop on the stage was computer animated and with the lighting really gave the stage a special look with every song. There was some pyrotechnics and glitter shooting at the end as well.

Overall, the Glee cast performed exceptionally. They are all very talented and everyone who was expecting to hear the music from the show to sound exactly the same got even better. Lea Michele really steals the show. Not only is her voice amazing, but with her Broadway background she really knows how to own the stage. I had hoped that Jonathan Groff would have made a special appearance on stage, but he stayed in the audience. I’m sure word got out to someone that people were hoping for a Rachel Berry and Jesse St. James duet and so at the show the following night he did get on stage and sing with Lea. The Gleeks sang along to all the songs and the energy was running high. The show flew by and by the end of the night everyone was disappointed when we had to leave our faux McKinley High.

Let’s hope for another Glee Live! Tour after Season Two. If that does happen, I encourage them to add more dates and places as well as free signings before the show. This time around, they had a VIP package that was $300 for VIP seating, a Glee gift bag filled with Glee merchandise and to attend an exclusive pre-party show that did not specify if the full cast would be there to meet with fans. I love Glee, but $300 seems excessive especially with no prior guarantee that you would meet the cast. Until another tour is announced though, we will just have to get our fix once Glee returns to TV.