If I stand starry-eyed

Ah, tonight finally came and I saw Sarah Brightman in concert. For those of you in the know, I'm a total fan girl, but I was put to shame by some serious hardcore fans at tonight's concert. First of all, I had the best possible seats. I was seated about 100 feet from the stage at worst, in the row right behind the people who forked over $125. I owe thanks to Liz for that, because after talking to the people on either side of me, I learned that we all bought tickets on the very first day available and Liz was the one who convinced me to get my ticket that day; hence, our very wonderful seating. Also, seated in front of us was Frank Peterson, Sarah's producer. Two of the hardcore fans got his autograph, but I managed my dignity. I can spare no love for Frank, when there is Sarah.

The show started about 15 minutes late, and after a musical interlude, Sarah appeared on the stage, dressed all in white. The crowd went insane and even I felt verklemped. I was sitting close enough that I could see her face very clearly. She opened with three songs from "Harem": Harem, Beautiful and It's a Beautiful Day . On stage with Sarah were eight female dancers, dressed in black charara-type outfits and dancing in Hindi filmi style.

After these three songs from "Harem," she abruptly changed gears and performed one songs from "Eden": Dust in the Wind (apparently this is the first live performance, despite this song having been two albums ago). Then it was back to "Harem" for two back-to-back love songs, " The War is Over, in which Sarah played the piano, and then Free, which has to be my least favorite song on the album, but performed live, I did like it a lot. I thought "The War is Over" was spectacular, especially with Ari Ari Bach (?) who performed with Sarah. From "Eden," she performed Anytime, Anywhere. Then it was back to "Harem" for A Stranger in Paradise (from which the title of tonight's blog entry is taken).

The music for Nessun Dorma (found on both "Classics" and "Eden") had barely begun before the crowd erupted and people were on their feet. It was Sarah's first standing ovation of the night. Again, not a favorite song of mine, but her vocal strength, the ability to sustain a note for long period of time, the richness and emotion -- I can see why this is a crowd pleaser as well. The same is true of another standard of Sarah's, Nella Fantasia. The only song she sang from "La Luna" (my favorite album) in the first half of the concert was La Luna itself. From her bestselling "Time to Say Goodbye," she also included No One Like You and the very first non-Phantom song I heard of Sarah's, Who Wants to Live Forever. That took us into intermission.

During intermission, I struck up a conversation with the people around me and learned that they were serious fanboys/fangirls. I thought me, who owns every Sarah CD from Phantom on, and has watched every PBS special, I thought I was hardcore. But this one guy, he buys the American/English/Canadian/etc versions of her albums, just because every album is slightly different. Another guy was on his fourth concert. A girl went and got Frank Peterson's autograph and I was completely befuddled: why would you get the sound guy's autograph anyway? The girl's mother explained to me that it was Sarah's producer and her daughter, who looked about 16 or 17, had been into Sarah since 7th grade.

The second half of the show was much more visual. I'd say the first half had some neat special effects, some nice lighting, but the second half was when things really fell into place. "Harem" was on the menu once again with Arabian Nights and a electronica version of What a Wonderful World -- which featured Sarah singing in a swing. Also, another song from "La Luna," was featured in this set, A Whiter Shade of Pale. When the heavy beat of Phantom of the Opera began, the crowd went absolutely insane. Along with a brief excerpt from "Angel of Music" and "Little Lottie", Sarah sang "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again" in full. Somewhere in there, I think there was Lascia ch'io pianga (off of "Classics" or "Eden"). It was one of the operatic classics, in other words, and most of them -- with the exception of "Nessun Dorma" and "Nella Fantasia" get jumbled up in my head.

The alleged last song of the evening was my mom's favorite Sarah tune, the blockbuster hit, Time to Say Goodbye. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. And we were on our feet, yelling, screaming, clapping and it took a good 2-3 minutes before Sarah came back to do an encore with my favorite song from "Harem," The Journey Home, written by the incomparable A.R. Rahman. Shweta Shetty, a Hindi pop singer, backed up on this song. We then called for a second encore, which turned out to be another favorite of mine, A Question of Honour (from "Fly"). During this last song, Sarah actually flew through the air, the lights were flashing and confetti streamed down from the ceiling. I'm fangirl enough to admit that I grabbed a few pieces of confetti as I was leaving the building.

All in all, a very good concert. It's just amazing how good her voice sounds in person. She can go from a little girl voice to a deep, powerful operatic soprano all in the same song. The lighting and special effects were cool as well and the Middle Eastern/Indian theme carried well, even with some of the older songs like "Time to Say Goodbye" and "No One Like You." I thought the back-up dancers were good, but the band/orchestra/ could occasionally be overpowering.

I was mildly disappointed that Sarah didn't perform my theme song (but that would have been a stretch anyway, since it's a 'hidden' track on "La Luna") and I was really hoping for Music of the Night from her "The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection", but alas, that did not happen.

I was surprised to see so many selections from "Eden," and only a couple from "La Luna." The ones from "A Time to Say Goodbye" were true classics and of course, the emphasis was rightly so on "Harem". No songs from "Dive" or "The Unexpectes Songs" were performed and only one from "Fly." However, even given all that, it was a good mixture of new favorites with old. In sum, I enjoyed myself thoroughly and consider myself a very happy fan girl tonight.

In the morning, after I've gotten some rest, I will tell you about my driving foibles. But for now, this fan girl is going to sleep, but will leave you with a few last lyrics from "The Journey Home" (which, btw, samples from "Taal"):

The journey home is never too long
When open arms are waiting there
The journey home is never too long
There's room to love and room to spare