A Prairie Home Companion at the State Fair
Sep. 5th, 2015 04:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davidschrothWe went to A Prairie Home Companion at the State Fair last night, in the company of both ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
minnehahas.
We ended up sitting in seats that were not the one's we had purchased - the ones we had purchased were at opposite ends of the Grandstand, so we ended up sitting together in a location that was both further from the stage and more toward the middle of the Grandstand.
Wehadn't been seated for very long when Garrison Keillor started singing Early, leaving us wondering how the show could be over before it had even started. The song is clearly better suited tochasophonic's voice than it is to Mr. Keillor's.
And then the show started. There was some talk about hom many places the show had been to on the recent tour, which lead into a set of lyrics about the tour set the the melody of Six Days on the Road. It was pretty funny, but what *really* made the song for us was watching the lady at the front of the Grandstand who was signing the show sign the lyrics as they were sung.minnehaha K averred that on some of the lyrics the signer had to be just making signs up as she went along. She was fun to watch during the entire show, although I spent a little time wishing that the show had hired pieeyed to do the signing.
Otherwise, it was a another Prairie Home Companion (I imagine it will be rebroadcast tonight). There was Guy Noir, and Duane speaking on the telephone with his mother about his new girlfriend, the pig farmer, and a bunch of Fair-related bits. The Steep Canyon Rangers seemed technically proficient, albeit not actually engaging. During the intermission, Garrison wandered through the audience leading a sing-along with a bunch of songs most of the audience knew (excepting Home on the Range, where it was pretty clear that he was the only person who knew any of the lyrics outside of the chorus). I rather wish that he had included This Land Is Your Land among the songs he chose to lead; it would have fit much better with The Battle Hymn of the Republic that he ended with (and it was clear to me that the choice of that song to sing was an explicitly political decision).
Overall, I think the first half of the show was better than the second half, but I'm glad we went.
minnehahas. We ended up sitting in seats that were not the one's we had purchased - the ones we had purchased were at opposite ends of the Grandstand, so we ended up sitting together in a location that was both further from the stage and more toward the middle of the Grandstand.
Wehadn't been seated for very long when Garrison Keillor started singing Early, leaving us wondering how the show could be over before it had even started. The song is clearly better suited to
chasophonic's voice than it is to Mr. Keillor's.And then the show started. There was some talk about hom many places the show had been to on the recent tour, which lead into a set of lyrics about the tour set the the melody of Six Days on the Road. It was pretty funny, but what *really* made the song for us was watching the lady at the front of the Grandstand who was signing the show sign the lyrics as they were sung.
minnehaha K averred that on some of the lyrics the signer had to be just making signs up as she went along. She was fun to watch during the entire show, although I spent a little time wishing that the show had hired pieeyed to do the signing.Otherwise, it was a another Prairie Home Companion (I imagine it will be rebroadcast tonight). There was Guy Noir, and Duane speaking on the telephone with his mother about his new girlfriend, the pig farmer, and a bunch of Fair-related bits. The Steep Canyon Rangers seemed technically proficient, albeit not actually engaging. During the intermission, Garrison wandered through the audience leading a sing-along with a bunch of songs most of the audience knew (excepting Home on the Range, where it was pretty clear that he was the only person who knew any of the lyrics outside of the chorus). I rather wish that he had included This Land Is Your Land among the songs he chose to lead; it would have fit much better with The Battle Hymn of the Republic that he ended with (and it was clear to me that the choice of that song to sing was an explicitly political decision).
Overall, I think the first half of the show was better than the second half, but I'm glad we went.
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Date: 2015-09-06 04:15 am (UTC)I think Keillor was trying for songs that everyone knows, of course. He seems not to know that everyone on the planet knows Take Me Home, Country Roads, but perhaps that had something obnoxious to do with ASCAP or even the key of each song he lead. The "Diamond Vision" screens could have been used to good effect for the sing-along. Remember "follow the bouncing ball"?
K.
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Date: 2015-09-06 05:33 am (UTC)