The Baseballs

It's way over midnight here in Sweden and I can't sleep, soooo perfect time for a blog post. I haven't really done a lot today, I had the idea of cleaning up around the flat but it never happened but i'm hoping to get around to do it sometime this week :)

I had a very nice weekend though. Me and my sister Emma went for a shopping spree in Stockholm city centre, she had spotted two pair of shoes in H&Ms new collection she wanted to buy I wanted to find a birthday present for my boyfriend, who's turning 25 in the end of this month! Emma didn't find the shoes but bought a faux leather jacket and a "boyfriend shirt" instead and walked home happy. I also found something to give to my man, even though I can't write it here yet as I suspect he might be peaking in here once in a while :) We also met up with our mother who made other errands in the city, and together we headed to Beyond Retro on Drottninggatan for a look. Looking round the shelfs of old stuff, trying on hats to some good old 50's rock n roll. The Sunday was mainly spent at home talking to my boyfriend, even though I also sorted out a present for a good friend of mine as her birthday isn't in too long. Hopefully she will be pleased with it! :)

In another 9 days I will be back in Germany, this is due to his birthday but we're also going to see The Baseballs which are playing in Hamburg during that weekend! I got the tickets from my boyfriend as a valentine present all the way back in February and now it's finally time. A friend of mine from Lithuania will also fly to Hamburg for the concert and will stay with me and my boyfriend over the weekend. Very exciting! For anybody who wonders who The Baseballs are, here you have them;

It's a German band containing of three guys. They take modern songs and give them more of a 50's sound. Very catchy of you ask me! :) The guys are also extremely friendly. I've seen them three or four times so far and managed to catch two of them (Digger and Sam) quickly before a concert almost two years ago. I will admit I almost got a bit starstruck but the guys were really nice and were more than willing to have their picture taken with me (but sad enough I look a mess on them! lol) Ah well, they might show up here at some point anyway. I'm sure i'll also post photos after the gig!  

Unfortunately I don't have anything more interesting to blog about or any nice pictures to post, but I hope this will do for now. 

Love, Kristina

Love Never Dies

I'm not exactly a good blogger I would say, but here I am. I've been busy doing other stuff, and whenever i've had time to blog I've never had anything to blog about. Got back from Germany last week after spending a week there. Me and my boyfriend celebrated 6 months together so I got a three dishes dinner cooked for me along with a very pretty necklace. I may post a photo of it in the upcoming days :)

Anyhow, I thought this post would be about "Love Never Dies", the sequel to "The Phantom of the Opera", Andrew Lloyed Webber style. I never was that interested in seeing it to begin with to be honest, thought that Webber should have just left the Phantom alone after the end in the original. But as I came across a DVD recording of the Australian cast performing this piece I thought I would give it a try. 

The story is taking place 10 years after the first production. The Phantom never died, instead Madame Giry and Meg brought him to the US, to Coney Island to be exact. There he created his own circus for "freaks" and runs the place. Of course he never got over his Christine, and lures her (and her husband Raoul and son Gustave) to come over to Coney Island to sing. Secrets are being revealed, hearts broken and tragedy strikes.

My feelings about this production is a bit mixed. When it comes to the characters i'm completely lost. Raoul went from "prince charming" to an alcoholic gambler, Madame Giry from a protective mother to wanting to pair her daughter up with the Phantom, Meg went from an innocent ballet girl to a singing "oh lala girl" and prostitute and the Phantom from an manipulative murderer to a rather lovable heartbroken man. The only person who was somewhat the same was Christine! Many characters almost seemed to develop backwards and there was a lot that didn't make any sense at all. When it comes to the story plot I kind of liked it, even though it was a bit cliché in a way. What really saved this production was the music. The music was amazing and for the last couple of days i've kept several of the soundtracks on repeat. The actress who plays Christine (Anna O'Byrne) is outstanding, a beautiful voice and give the role great justice. Ben Lewis who plays the Phantom had to grow on me a bit. I think most Phantoms i've heard have had tenor voices, while i'm quite sure that Ben is a baritone. Now after a few days I must say that I really have fallen for him, he's almost in the same class as Ramin Karimloo (from the London production) who's one of my big favorites. I'm not that hard to impress, everyone who sings better than me (which is about 95% of the population of the earth haha) I find more or less amazing. One thing that bothers me about Ben's Phantom is that he gives me a lot of Dracula wibes, speaks very deep, slow and mysterious and moves a lot like I would expect Dracula do. He also uses a lot of very odd hand gestures, and he's got a rather creepy stare. Yes, Dracula wibes with other words. The boy who played the son of Christine was extremely talented. About 10 years of age, could song in tune, act and was a real cutie! The weakest vocals came from the actress who played Madame Giry, I didn't like her voice at all, it was very raw in some way. Apart from the majority of the vocals being outstanding the visuals were breathetaking! The set was very creatively made and the clothes were a real pleasure to look at. It was with other words very clear that this was a very expensive production with a lot of work put into it.

Even though the production had some flaws I would say it's a very good one! If you ignore the fact it's a sequel to "The Phantom of The Opera" and just sees it as a production of its own, without trying to make sense out of the characters from the previous theathre/film, it's actually a very good piece. I did enjoy it, and the music in particular. The songs will continue going on repeat for a while now :)

These are four of my favorite songs from the musical (the Australian cast). There are so many more great soundtracks but I leave it like this, at least for now :)

Love, Kristina