Darren Criss at the Largo
Notes from Darren’s Show at the Largo 6/11/18
1. The show was at the historical Largo. A gorgeous venue. Darren was geeking out about seeing shows there as a youth and how excited he was to play at it. Very full circle. No video recordings were allowed.
2. His parents and Mia were a row behind us. They’re adorable. I sat next to Joe Moses? Before Darren started he turned to my friend and I and asked, “Is that Harry Potter?” That was cool!
3. Darren, of course, hit up the vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and piano throughout the show. He said all his equipment was jacked up from the tour, so his acoustic guitar had this feedback that was driving him crazy. At some point, he borrowed the bands guitarists guitar to play, because his worker better. He started trying to play “I Dreamed a Dream” on it, but gave up and went back to his acoustic.
4. The bad pianist was amazing. He played the keyboard and piano at the same time. Like?! How.
5. He kept going on about how their only real rehearsal was sound check before the show. In a true Darren fashion.
6. His solo set was like a clusterfuck but in the best way. This guy literally has a songbook in his head? Including like so many Great American Songbook numbers. You never know what’s gonna show up. He said he enjoyed playing songs related to each LMDC tour city stop so much, to make each city a little special, he wanted to play them for us. I think the Nashville/ Patsy Cline number was my favorite and I think his dedication was for Mia.
7. He played “Gloria” from the American Crime Story soundtrack. He gave us a history lesson and how he talked about imagining Versace hearing it in his shop in Milan when he was about Darren’s age. He talked about how he and his Spanish-speaking cast members spoke Italian on set, but how he probably spoke the best Italian. He started singing “Gloria” in Italian, since that’s how it originally was written, then switched to English.
8. “Cough Syrup” has become one of my favorite songs to see/ hear him perform. The power and emotions he puts into it is unreal. You could kind of hear the toll the tour was putting on his voice at this point, though.
9. Before playing “Teenage Dream” he tinkered around in the piano and told everyone not to sing along. He ended up doing this quiet then loud, then quiet, then loud rendition, which was phenomenal. I liked that he took the song we knew him for and made it fresh and new. I love how he makes songs his own.
10. The planned encore was “Get Back To Hogwarts”. It was hilarious. He played all the characters and before each one entered, he gave a synopsis. He talked about being a “half-Asian kid” and jokingly said he “wasn’t racist” before Cho Chang entered and talked about how there was only one other Asian person in the department, so they wanted to do a bait-and-switch and make her a Southern blonde. A totally fun song!
11. The audience was mostly middle aged. I really liked that for a change. Of course there were a few screaming girls in the front row, but they were mostly controlled. The mix of guys/ gals might have been 60/40.
12. Overall, I really liked the atmosphere. I somewhat wish there was video of some of the songs, but the Largo said they may post some pics or something. Dude must be dead on his feet from the tour and show, but somehow he’s already at an interview this morning?
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