Tommy on Ice... .a review

[Jeff Williams <jeffw@mxim.com>]

Yes, I'm sure all you privileged New York residents have all seen it years
ago, and are debating which MSG show to go to, but out here in stumptown
we got Tommy on Ice, thank you very much.  A lovely evening, girls to boot, 
and Kevin and Melanie showed up at the V.Q.s (hyper trendy yuppie watering
hole, judging by the amount of people pretending like they had it, and those
who did have it but flaunted it in a low class manner) soon after myself and 
my rapidly-getting-quite-drunk-cause-I've-never-been-able-to-handle-my-liquor date.  She pointed out lots of girls in the bar ogling my beautiful long hair,
but that's another story for later.... Kevin was kind enough to have acquired
the tickets, so off we went.

My first impression were:  It cleaned up the story line quite a bit. I really
like the overlays.  I'm A Sensation, Pinball Wizard, and Listening To You/Finale were great.  The audience went coo-coo at the end.  Kinda sedate 
prior to it.  I guess that's what a broadway audience is - I dunno.  I liked
the grown-up Tommy or the adult muse always present at the earlier stages 
of Tommy's life - Like a guiding light, a muse, a guardian, the adult in
the child, the child in the adult, etc.  Even though the ending is different
than the album, plotwise, it seems a day later that it is in fact the same.
Maybe it's all the liquor I drank.  

Musically.  Hoo booy.... Where do I start?  It was, at most times, a lounge-
lizard version of Tommy..  Lacking punch in most places, yet strangely and
surprising coming to life most unexpectedly.  Many guitar chords were being
butchered at the altar of the anti-Pete.  But then Pinball Wizard was done
spot on.  It`s just that the chops, even when right, lacked the punch.  And
it's not that they couldn't play louder-they did, and it started to cook.
But then they took it off the burner.  But like a bad song with a snappy
ending, the raucous ending of the show merited lots of applause, so people
left thinking it was great all over....  Finally, the drummer was at least
no worse than Simon Phillips.  Perhaps a bit better.  Kind of a low sight
to set one's drumming goals, in my opinion.

Vickie and I split just as the show was ending, bidding Kevin and Melanie
our hasty adieu, and were the first out the door, in the car, and on the 
Interstate and to the next bar: The Old Barn, where we ran into a coupla 
English guys, one of whom worked on a college production of Tommy in England!

Jeff