Friday evening, a friend of mine and I went to the Greek Theater here in Los Angeles to hear a woman of extraordinary talent, Idina Menzel — or as John Travolta once called her, Adele Dazeem. If she keeps this up, she's going to be more famous than he is.
Boy, she's good. The lady has an amazing voice on her and I don't think one false note came out of her mouth during the two hours she strutted across the stage and belted out one tune after another. She was accompanied by a eight-piece band and while I would have liked the "mix" to lower their volume a hair, they were just about as sensational as she was.
Many of her song selections were new to me — including some she wrote — but the audience loved 'em all, especially the ones they/we knew before. When she performed her signature numbers from Rent (her first Broadway show), Wicked (her biggest Broadway success) and Frozen (the Disney movie), a wave of Sure Thrill rippled through the Greek.
For "Let It Go" from Frozen, she sang most of the tune, then brought onto the stage an ad hoc chorus of audience volunteers in the 6-10 age bracket to help her with a section of it. Some of the children were volunteered by their parents and so were (appropriately) frozen at the concept of singing in front of thousands of people. It was quite charming and I couldn't help thinking that at least one of those kids decided then and there on a career in show business.
The show was supposed to start at 8:00, though my tickets were on the TicketMaster app on my cell phone and they said 6:30, which was the time the doors opened. We got to our seats at 7:50 and then waited. And waited. And waited. At 8:38, I posted a snide remark on this blog and I guess Idina was reading it and said, "Evanier's getting pissed. We'd better start" because the show started at 8:39.
I don't get why they do that. I heard someone in the row behind us say, "It's because they want to sell more refreshments" but at 8:05, my friend and I both wished we could go out and get something and didn't because we were afraid of missing the start of the show. If we'd known we had 33 minutes, we'd have spent more money.
That was my only real complaint. Ms. Menzel is a superb entertainer, and not just when she's singing. Her talking between numbers was charming and often quite hilarious and the audience just adored her. People kept shouting out "We love you" even though they were too far from the stage for Idina to hear them. Some shouted it close enough and everyone felt that way. Her tour continues and if she comes near you, you could go and have the same wonderful time we did.
And come to think of it: If her name isn't already as well-known as John Travolta's, it will be by the time this tour is over. Here, from another stop on that tour, is a mash-up of two numbers that shows you why…