Mamma Mia - 9:30 pm - 8/5/2005

Our gift for our mother on Mother’s Day was a ticket for a musical called Mamma Mia, which has as an inspiration ABBA’s music. As my dear father didn’t want to accept the other ticket I went with my mother.

Well ABBA remembers me a lot of South Africa, as much as Modern Talking and Queen (don’t talk with me I was only 5/6 years old, what option I had other than listening to my parents music?). Mozart and Phantom of the Opera remembers me my first contact with music chosen by me. Michael Jackson and Thriller, I’m Bad and Guns and Roses, remembers me summer holydays in Nantwich, England. Anyway they are all better then Marco Paulo (and Portuguese know what I mean;)), who reminds me of the trips to the beach, Foz do Arelho, when I was a child. I was quite amazed at the number of songs I actually knew (nearly all) and although I don’t appreciate this type of music I must say the musical is very well done. The whole story fits the songs, as if the songs are just an extension of the actor’s lines and it has a light British humor.

And I bet the choreographer is a woman or gay, men didn’t have that much to appreciate, now women… ;) Lots of young lads only with tight underwear or body board suits and none of them with a body too built ;) A nice sight for this time of the year ;p

The thing I found most interesting was the band/orchestra (kind of a hybrid between both). It had a maestro, computers, keyboards, electric guitars, classic guitars and bass, the rest of the instruments’ sounds, I suppose, where kept in the computer and most probably the musicians at the keyboards were responsible for the flutes and other which we could hear… It was the first time I was able to see all the gadgets of this technology as the musicians were unfortunately covered and I could not see the rest of the process (only in the break).

Anyway my mother just loved it, she even gave me a huge kiss and hug at the end of the show. We really don’t realize how lucky we are in having the opportunity of seeing most of the bands we enjoy live, even in Portugal, where unfortunately many bands seem to ignore us or maybe they just think we are also Spaniards ;)

It was nice to see loads of people of my parents age, even people of my grandparents age, getting up in the end and clapping their hands and you could see they were really enjoying themselves, as if something had awaken in them, something which was fast asleep for such a long time. Respectable adults screaming and whistling, even dancing as if they were teenagers/youngsters once again…

In the end as much as I don’t enjoy ABBA, I must say it was a fun show to watch and seeing my mother so happy was well worth it J

P.S.- Then came Come as You Are and my life and music taste changed radically, thank God, although I still love classic music ;)