Les Miserables

Who am I?  Can I conceal myself for evermore? Pretend I'm not the man I was before?  And must my name until I die Be no more than an alibi?  Must I lie?  Who Am I? I'm Jean ValJean!  Who Am I?  24601!

Do you hear it?   Or do you just hear the people sing, singing the song of angry men, It's the music of the people who will not be slaves again!   When the beating of your heart echos the beating of the drums, there is a life about to start when tomorrow comes!

Or as I shared with the girls the night before this event...One day more, another day another destiny, This never ending road to calvary, these men who seem to know my crime will surely come a second time, One day More

And the songs just keep coming.  I am a fan of almost every song through the whole show, and since last time they were in Birmingham, just me and Mom got to go, I was so excited for the girls to get the experience of seeing Les Miserables on stage.   While our seats were on the back row on the far left of the concert hall, we moved up in the balcony to the large section of empty seats closer on the left hand side.   So still some "opera" glasses could come in handy, but we could almost see facial features.   

Prior to our arrival, I took the girls out to our normal fancy broadway dinner at Arby's.   Ruby was so excited and happy, but not her typically anxious self.   No one said anything about it, but then she said "I love going to shows with Dad...I know he will be there early".   Perhaps a created a monster, but maybe there will be one lady that comes from our house that actually isn't late everywhere they go.  

Before the show at the concert hall, where we had plenty of time, we went over to look at the merch, and the girls found some really cute charm bracelets from the show.   Magan got a magnet, but seemed to be eyeing the $75 jacket.   We saw some of Davis' girlfriends, and sat and chat with them for awhile.   

The show was amazing.   In general, Hugh Jackman will always be hard to beat, but this Jean ValJean could hit some high falsetto notes that Hugh did not come close to.   I dreamed a dream was so good and just such a wonderful song full of emotion.   We all were a little disappointed at the Ebony song, which always sends me back to college watching Joey Potter sing it for Dawson in Season 1.   Belle specifically picked out red and black to match that song.   

Act 2 at the barricade has never been as good as Act 1 and the big songs there, but it was made a little difficult when a man I referred to as "Big Head" decided to come with his girlfriend and sit directly in front of me and Ruby after intermission.   I can't stand when those people move closer when they didn't have that ticket in the first place...well, maybe when they sit in front of me.   This dude did NOT want to be there, and could NOT stay still, looking at his phone every 10 minutes to check time and email.   

And then it ended, and we all got up and cheered.   3 hours for the show with intermission, so it was very late, but we all laughed and talked about our favorites on the walk back to the car then home.   Mom and Ruby's is "One Day More", Mine was "Bring Him Home", Belle's was "Red and Black".   Me and Ruby really liked how they did the Javert death scene.  And we were all blown away how they did the tunnel scene at the end making it look very realistically like Valjean had carried the boy a long way.   Really cool, I don't remember that from last time.   And while Sam and Noel could not be with us on this night, they did get to see it on Saturday.