Glee Concert Review

Many people have been asking me how the Glee concert that I won tickets to went, so I should probably recount the experience before I permanently block it out.

While I’m tempted to call it awful, that’s not entirely fair. 90% of the people in attendance loved it, so it’d be more accurate to say that the concert was not too my taste. And in that sense, it was a shame.

Look, I’m a Glee fan. Admittedly, my interest has been waning, but I think it started as an excellent source of satire and cheesiness. At times, the dialogue is outstanding, and even the shoddier plotlines are peppered with clever one-liners. As for the musical numbers, I’m torn. I’m super nostalgic, so when they sing an old song that I love, I’m usually in, especially when they put a creative twist on it or camp it up like some hilarious karaoke performance. But when they sing what I presume are Broadway tunes (boring!) or any other ballad lacking crazy choreography where the point is to just sound nice, I’m pretty disinterested. There were approximately twenty a cappella groups at my college, and do you know how many of their shows I went to see? Zero. I only saw them by accident when they’d sing next to the line for free snacks. And that’s a cool idea, even, just as long as they know we were all actually there for the snacks.

But there’s another way to watch Glee: unironically. There are people, even some friends, who watch the show and care about the high school characters’ romantic relationships, only understand the surface humor, and buy all of the songs on I-Tunes. While I think that’s a stupid way to watch it, I actually think it’s brilliant that Glee has found a formula where it can different things to different people. But my main problem with the concert was that it was entirely geared toward the latter group of fans, people who watch because “Kurt sings like an angel” and not because it’s a funny send-up of high school life and contemporary pop culture. Granted, if you’re going to market to one group of fans, it should be those who watch it at surface level because they’ll be the ones who buy expensive tickets and then $70 Glee sweatshirts at the arena. But you’re headed for a major backlash from the witty crowd who will see the commercialization as a complete sellout.

Before departing for the show, my roommate told me that there would be a lot more people my age there than I was guessing. Actually, there weren’t many people my age, but I had misjudged the amount of middle-aged women that came with friends rather than their kids. Never underestimate housewives inappropriate adoration of singers half their age – it’s half the reason American Idol is still on the air. Other than that, the audience was pretty much as I expected. I had gays to my left, moms to my front, and preteen girls behind me. The girls were the worst. They screeched at everything, including events as insignificant as the lights dimming. Had I had a sharp object, I would have gladly Van Gogh-ed myself for some sweet relief from this constant irritation.

Fortunately, Alice had brought us earplugs. Initially, I was resistant; earplugs at a concert strike me as lame, but since I already felt thoroughly lame in this arena, I obliged. How thankful I was! The show was pointlessly loud. And while I might put up with that for Outkast, I didn’t share the same enthusiasm for someone covering “Sweet Caroline.” Periodically, I would pull one of the plugs out to see if the volume had gone down any, and the result was near deafening.

Also annoying; everyone stood for the duration of the concert. Didn’t they realize how much money we spent - well, myself excluded; I didn’t pay for them - how much money they spent for these seats? Enjoy the seats! Plop your teeny bopping teenybopper asses down!

At one point, a bunch of girls dressed as cheerleaders flooded the audience with free keepsakes: a Glee barf bag. Apparently, the joke is that Sue thinks the show is so awful you’re going to want to hurl. Except that the whole thing reads way more like a bulimia joke, especially since Sue is constantly telling her cheerleaders to lose weight by any means necessary. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t think it’s appropriate to hand an impressionable young audience tools for an eating disorder.

I never buy drinks at concert venues because they’re ridiculously expensive, but fifteen minutes into the show, I told Alice that I needed a beer. It couldn’t be helped. Not only did it help relax me, it became a status symbol of sorts amongst a sea of people who weren’t even of an age to have a fake ID, let alone being of the legal age to drink.

Surprisingly, at least some of the vocals were clearly live: if Finn were lip-synching, I’m sure he would have sounded somewhat in-tune. Merecedes was great, though, and Santana sings way better than I remember on the show. Quinn had no solos and might not have ever been singing for real. She might have even been less utilized than the black guy. You know, the black guy who is just always in the background being his black guy self and filling out the show’s PC-rainbow. I actually heckled him with “Say your first line!” since, to my knowledge, he’s never uttered a single word on the show, but I’m sure my words couldn’t be deciphered over the girly shrieks.

There were still definitely numbers I enjoyed. The “Bad Romance” cover, complete with themed costumes, is probably the closest I’ll get to a Gaga concert, so I relished that moment, and I was excited to see them encore with Queen’s “Somebody to Love” because that song is epic, but for the most part, the performances were just retreads of what we’ve already seen on TV. The fact that they perform in character and act like dorks for kids reminds me of the Sesame Street Live stage shows my parents would take me to as a kid. I’m sure they find the contractually obligated concert tour to be part of the experience at the moment, but I guarantee that as these actors’ fame increases, they won’t find it so fun having to spend their summer hiatuses this way in upcoming years.

Well, I hope they can stomach it, anyway, because even with free tickets, I won’t be going again. If I could offer some advice to the Entertainment Weekly contest runners: when you’re dealing with tickets to a show this cheesy, don’t select winners who take pride in crafting clever insults. I couldn’t help but be critical, it’s in my blood!