The segment of my last blog dealing with American Idiot:
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-Having that Green Day date last is actually a great segue into the fact that Teresa and I finally got to see the American Idiot Musical last night. I have to say, I had many great reservations about this show. To understand why, one has to understand what the AI album means to me. When it came out in 2004, I went through an obsessive phase with that record. I listened to it in full every night for about 6 months, and analyzed every aspect of the lyrics and liner notes to try and piece together the story. Because of this, I was nervous from Green Day standpoint. Also added into the mix, I'm a HUGE Broadway buff. I've seen hundreds of shows, listened to the soundtracks of hundreds more, and worked in theater, so I was also leary as to whether the music could translate to Broadway. I'm very happy to say that both sets of misgivings were unfounded. I won't get into spoiler details of the plot, but the source material of the story was kept, and almost every song was kept with the same thematic meaning as it held in the original album (with a notable exception being Extraordinary Girl, which is about an entirely different character than Whatsername) and the tracks from 21st Century Breakdown were integrated seamlessly. The set design and lighting was exceptional, possibly the best I've seen in a Broadway production, or at least a close second to Next To Normal. From a casting standpoint, I have no complaints whatsoever. The five leads were exceptional, and the ensemble was actually way above my expectations. The band (which is on stage the entire show, and consists of two guitarists, a bassist, keyboardist, drummer, and upright bassist) were exceptional as well, and did a great job of replicating the sonic textures of the album. All in all, I'd very overwhelmingly recommend this show to anyone who has either an interest in Green Day, or an interest in theater.
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