Good on you, Gleeks!

When I first heard that Glee Live was coming here, I was semi-interested but tickets were real, real expensive. I decided I wasn't going to pay a ton of money to see these kids sing live, when I can see them sing on my TV every week... BUT if they were free, I most certainly wouldn't say no. As it turns out, my work was offering 2 tickets to the June 13th show at The Palace. I decided to request them, never thinking I would actually get them. Guess what? this girl scored herself a pair of really great seats.

I decided to take my soulmate, Dawn, since we have had our year long tradition of "Glee Nights" (and because she's awesome). After sitting in horrendous traffic, we arrived at the show a little after 730pm (FYI: show started at 730). We were starving, so we decided to get food before taking our seats. While ordering our delicious sandwiches, we missed out on the "opening act" which was a dance crew of some sort. There were girls and boys dressed as MicKinley High cheerleaders walking around the concourse area trying to get everyone pumped up and that was kind of cute and kind of cheesy. They passed out "Barf Bags" before the concert started, courtesy of Sue.

We checked out the merch stand and it was all very expensive cool. $65 isn't too much for a sweatshirt, right? $40 for a tank top is a bargain, isn't it?? Crazy prices aside, the stuff was very fun. They even had shirts from the "Born This Way" episode, where each one depicted a trait that makes the person insecure (IE: "Likes Boys", "Can't Dance", "Trouty Mouth"). I would have purchased something if I was rich. Alas, I am not.

Naturally, while waiting for the show to start, we people watched. There were lots of homemade shirts, Warblers ties, tweens, moms with young daughters and quite a few boys. On the screens, they showed quotes from the season and pictures of the scenes in which the quotes took place. That was fun. The tweens would scream with excitement every time a steam shooter was tested or if there was the tiniest of movements behind the stage.

When the lights went down, they showed a video of Sue and Mr. Schuester bickering and introducing the Glee club. It was cute and clever and definitely put the crowd in the mood for the show. The Glee kids came out rocking with "Don't Stop Believing". They were full of energy and excitement and they sounded great. There were 2 stages: the main stage and then a smaller stage toward the back of the arena. Sometimes while they were finishing up a song on the main stage, they would be setting up for the next number on the smaller stage. There were tons and tons and tons of lights and visual effects and background pictures that would correspond with the songs. It was just plain fun!

I was most excited when The Warblers showed up and I got to see Darren Criss sing live. I have such a crush on that boy. He was so fun and sounded fantastic! He bounced around the stage like he owned it and you could tell he was having so much fun. I was most surprised by Chris Colfer. I find him annoying and whiny on the show but on stage, he was wonderful. It was so nice to see him sing without having a cryface the whole time. The only one missing was Dianna Agron. She tweeted this morning "Detroit! I'm terribly sorry I couldn't be at the show tonight, it was out of my power. I WILL be back tomorrow. Much love, Di". The only thing that would have made the concert better was if Jesse St. James popped out from behind the curtains. He didn't. Sad. They only performed one of their original songs ("Loser Like Me") and ended the evening with "Somebody to Love" by Queen.

The evening wrapped up around 950 and then we sat in the clustrfrick that was the parking lot for a real long time. On our way out, we noticed that stretching the entire length of the driveway (from the Palace entrance, all the way out to the street) were fans. Tons and tons of fans, waiting on the sidelines for the Glee dudes to come out. I have been to 47 billion concerts at The Palace and I have never, ever seen that. It was like they were waiting for a parade. We didn't stick around to find out if they were able to meet anyone because we were tired and already partially deaf from all the screaming that we had just endured, but it was kind of neat to see the effect that this group of kids, who do a television show and sing covers of songs has on people.

All in all, I was very impressed with the concert. Honestly, it was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. After a really crappy season 2, I guess I had forgotten how much fun these people could be. They all stayed in character and played to the crowd really well and reminded me why I love the show so much in the first place. The fact that it was free made it even better, but they really put on a great show. We were constantly entertained and smiling and it was just a feel good experience. There was one teeny tiny moment where Dawn and I thought some of them may have been lip synching... but there was lots of dancing going on, so I suppose we can give them a pass for it. Maybe.

Here is one of my favorite performances from last night:




FYI: My next concert review will be none other than NKOTBSB...