Hamilton An American Musical: What am I missing?
Is there anything in your life where everyone is giddy about it and you just go...HUH!? Welcome to my life and "Hamilton".
I try to keep an open mind about a lot of things. I'll watch tv shows that I know I'm not going to like. I listen to this generation's music...occasionally...at least for a song or two before I go pffffft. I even watch Soccer.
I get it how people love certain things and others don't understand why...see The Beatles and my parents in 1964...but that really was a generational thing. I'm cooler, hipper than that...well maybe not but I still like to think so.
Now on to this Hamilton dude. I took American History in school. I know the story. Revolutionary war, founding fathers, Aaron Burr, Duels...hey nothing I like better than a duel. So that's a good thing. This could be right up my entertainment alley...maybe.
Plus people I know and like have been going gaga about this play. A few went to New York City to see the original cast and have written about it in orgasmic terms. When tickets became available for the Chicago production, people went nuts. Internet ticket outlets were overwhelmed with crazy wanna be show goers. It's been playing here since October and it seems like I know someone who is going to see it every night. Every. Single. Night.
And that's all they talk about.
I think I reached my breaking point last week when my dear blogger friend YouKnowNeen, who I'm hoping will still be my dear blogger friend, went to see the show. She even wrote a blog about her experience. Yeah...more giddyness...but cute giddyness. When I questioned her about Hamilton, she informed me we were going to have a long talk about this. OH MAN!!! Well the good and bad news about this was she didn't make the event where the scheduled chat was going to occur. The bad part is I missed her....AWWE! The good part...I missed the long discussion...PHEW!
BUT.....
All this has got me to the point where I needed to find out what this Hamilton phenomenon is all about. I needed to know what I was missing.
I missed a good opportunity over the weekend. There was a lottery to give away tickets for $10. TEN BUCKS PEOPLE!!! I'd go to almost anything for 10 dollars...almost. Too bad I didn't know about this until it was over...sigh.
So what then?
Step number one....listen to the soundtrack. I went to those old reliable sites YouTube and Wikipedia. Did YouTube have any Hamilton tunes? Oh Man did they! Plus Wikipedia gave me the track listing so I can follow along. All righty now....let's get going.
Then I saw how long the soundtrack was. Forty-Six songs! FORTY-SIX!!!!!! How can people know all the words to these forty six songs? One hundred and forty two minutes and change. My math knowledge isn't quite as good as my history knowledge but I was able to quickly convert this to Two Hours and Twenty-Two Minutes of Hamilton. YIKES!!! That's a lot of dueling.
I then looked at the setlist for the song titles. Hmmm...I know some of these tunes. "Helpless" by Neil Young. "Satisfied" by The Rolling Stones. "Stay Alive" by the Bee Gees (I'm not big on disco but one is okay) and "Hurricane" by Bob Dylan. WHAT!!!? Those aren't the songs? Well this is a little disappointing.
Time to start listening....for the next TWO PLUS HOURS!!!!
Hey...I'm not going to lie....I can't listen to anything for two hours but I did get in 15 songs. One third of the way through is not too bad...and I liked what I heard. Not giddy giddy I need to see this show tonight liked but I'm kinda good with it....kinda. Tomorrow, I'll listen to a little more and I figure I'll be done with the soundtrack by Christmas. Baby steps!
Talking about Christmas, maybe someone will put some Hamilton tickets in my stocking...even the $10 tickets. I might even take one of my Hamilton-giddy friends, although I'm pretty sure the gushing would be a little overwhelming...especially for three hours.
But really...are we sure it wasn't the Stones doing "Satisfied"?
One of my other blogger buds, MBA MOM went to see Hamilton in New York. Here's her story about the show.