GLEE road trip

I just posted all my pictures from the GLEE road trip on facebook, but I thought it'd be fun to share some details/stories from the weekend in my blog.

We drove to southern california last Thursday and spent all of Friday in Hollywood. The highlight was doing the Walk Of Fame, Grauman's Chinese Theater, and the Kodak Theater (home of the Oscars). There are a ton of people dressed up in costumes - Darth Vader, SpongeBob, Superman, Bumblebee from Transformers, etc - that will take pictures with tourists (and they're real happy if you slip 'em a dollar afterwards). One of the college girls, Kayla, and I started dancing and all of a sudden - Indiana Jones ran in and started dancing with us! So fun!


We drove to Universal Studios and walked around City Walk. We found the Gibson Amphitheater and bought GLEE t-shirts. Ahhh!! It's almost time! We went in and found our seats. There were all ages, an equal number of guys and girls (that was a surprise), families, friends - what a fun crowd. Everyone was wearing GLEE shirts, either bought or made. Ones that said "Finn-tastic!" or "I heart Puck" or "Property of New Directions". Two girls were even dressed up like Sue Sylvester in red track suits, sneakers, whistles, and clipboards (all they needed was a megaphone).

GLEE songs were playing in the background, quotes from the show ("I'm like Tinkerbell...I need applause to LIVE!") were up on the screens, and about 10 minutes before the show started, a bunch of Cheerios (cheerleaders) came out into the audience and started passing something out to people. "Wait, are those barf bags?" someone in our group asked.

The opening act was LXD (Legion of Extraordinary Dancers), a dance troupe and they were really good! The guy who plays Mike Chang is in the LXD so that was probably the connection. After that, the lights went out and Sue Sylvester showed up on the screen and told us we were all idiots to pay money to see these GLEE kids live in concert. She did us a favor and sent her Cheerios out with barf bags (yes, they were barf bags!) because we were definitely going to need them.

Then the camera panned out and Mr. Schuester was sitting next to her. That's when I lost it and started screaming like a 12 year old girl. He said, "Oh come on, Sue. I think the kids have already proven themselves..." After some banter between the two of them, Mr. Schue wished New Directions a great show and the screen went black. The lights went out. The first chords of "Don't Stop Believing" began, the curtains opened, and the 6 original members of the GLEE club (Finn, Rachel, Mercedes, Artie, Tina, Kurt) were there!! As they sang, the other 6 GLEE clubbers (Quinn, Santana, Matt, Puck, Brittany, and Mike Chang) came out and joined them.



Let me see if I can remember all the songs they sang:

1) Don't Stop Believing (whole cast)
2) My Life Would Suck Without You (whole cast)
3) Push It (whole cast)
4) Don't Rain On My Parade (Rachel and cast)
5) Beautiful (Mercedes)
6) Sweet Caroline (Puck)
7) That Boy Is Mine (Mercedes and Santana)
8) The Lady Is A Tramp (Puck)
9) Defying Gravity (Kurt and Rachel)
10) Bust Your Windows (Mercedes)
11) Bad Romance (Kurt and the ladies)
12) Dancing With Myself (Artie)
13) It's My Life/Confessions mash-up (guys)
14) Halo/Walking On Sunshine (ladies)
15) Rehab (Vocal Adrenaline)
16) Mercy (Vocal Adrenaline)
17) Jump (whole cast)
18) Faithfully (Rachel and Finn)
19) Any Way You Want It (whole cast)
20) Just Like A Prayer (Rachel and cast)
21) Hello (Rachel and Jesse St. James)
22) True Colors (Tina and cast)
23) Somebody To Love (whole cast)

Their costume changes were crazy! For almost every song, they were wearing the outfits they wore in that episode. For example, for "Jump" they all wore their pjs. For "Don't Rain On My Parade", Rachel wore that black dress with the red sash. For "Bad Romance", the ladies and Kurt came out in their Lady Gaga outfits.

I loved hearing the preview of their regionals song. It's a Journey medley with "Faithfully", "Any Way You Want It", and "Don't Stop Believing". Another highlight was when Rachel came out on stage and introduced Jesse St. James. WE WENT CRAZY! No one knew he was going to be there. I heard he only is going to sing at the LA shows, so we felt very special. He and Rachel sang "Hello" by Lionel Richie. So dang beautiful.

Ok, let's talk about talent. I was wondering how they would sound. I mean, haven't we all heard albums and been impressed with vocals and then we see the band (or person) in concert and realize, "Wait, they're not as good live." Dang you, Auto-Tune and computer fix-ups! But seriously, these kids are just as talented as they are on TV! I was especially impressed with Kurt, Puck, and Mercedes' voices. Mercedes usually belts it out on her songs, but when she sang "Beautiful", her voice was very sweet and clear. I had never heard it like that before and I really enjoyed it.

And of course Rachel's voice is off the hook! She is a Broadway vet, you can tell. When she hit that super high note at the end of the ladies' Halo/Walking on Sunshine song, she opened her eyes real wide afterwards like, "Oh my gosh - did I really just hit that note?" And we all cheered. She also brought it during "Don't Rain On My Parade". And her and Kurt's rendition of "Defying Gravity" was especially touching.

Just overall impressed impressed impressed. Such a fun concert experience! It was so fun/strange seeing them live. I see them on TV and then, wait! They're right there! They're real! And they're so funny and sweet and friendly. I hope they do another concert tour next year, because this was just too fun not to do again. Here's their finale - "Somebody To Love". Thanks for reading, friends!