RIVERDANCE - or "kill me, kill me now"

RIVERDANCE - or "kill me, kill me now"

I admit, my first thought after being told by Garrett that he'd scored free tickets to Riverdance was to politely say 'no thank you' then kick him square in the crotch thus taking him by surprise so that I could escape this fate worse than death.

But then I began thinking. 'You know they've been around for a long time, there's obviously a reason they still perform to large sold out audiences. I enjoy celtic music and culture in general, this could be fairly entertaining. Perhaps a chance to learn a little about something I don't know much about."

Just in case anyone is wondering... I was wrong.

THE MUSIC-
Riverdance took celtic music drug it out into a dark alley shot it in the back of the head and then let Kenny G hump it's dead corpse.
Some of the music was canned but the musicians pretended to play anyway. There was an entire song that was an alto sax and jazz flute duel. 'nuff said.

THE DANCING-
Ok so they can move their feet real fast. Eh.
Again some of the tapping sounds were canned, which seemed really really weird to me.
There was a urban tap dance vs. celtic dance number that was impressive and at the same time hysterical as you could see they were trying to show the difference between classic and modern dance. Only the tap dance were moves right out of the late 80's movie TAPS.
It also consisted of the most yawn-inducing 'flamenco' on the face of the planet and "love" dance numbers more dispassionate than watching a 10$ hooker and a fat 60 year old John going at it in a seedy motel room. There was one dancer who was supposed to be wooing the main female and ate shit on stage. That was rather entertaining.

THE SINGING-
What the fuck? Seriously? Nappy time! Several people standing around on a dark stage with their heads cocked to one side to look into the audience. Generic voices, homoginized music, sappy lyrics and no movement. The first black man to appear on set happens about 3/4 of the way through the show. He gets off an old slave ship, dressed in old slave clothes to sing an old slave song. I don't think I was the only person wondering WTF that was all about. At least he had a great voice.

So in summary, fuck Riverdance for taking 2 hours of my life I will never get back but a big thank you to G for the amusing experience,for squelching torrents of laughter during the slow songs, for the beer during intermission to make the second half a little easier to sit through and for keeping me in my seat instead of making a big ugly scene every time that torturous jazz flute rose above the tappity tapping.