Last Night at the Apollo

Brian scored some sweet tickets to Amateur Night at the Apollo, so at 7:30 last night we were seated at the historic theatre where the many notable entertainers, including Michael Jackson, Ella Fitzgerald and my fave Aretha Franklin got their start.  Ben Vereen was the host for the evening. 

I should back up and say the reason Brian scored the tickets was that his friend Darryl was competing in a show made up entirely of teachers from NYC schools.  And that the audience was primarily made up of their STUDENTS.

You may already know that the Apollo encourages audience participation-- if you like them, you clap.  If you don't, you boo, and a character/dancer/entertainer comes on and stops whoever is doing whatever and mocks them off-stage.   

Now, imagine the dynamic. High school teachers performing for high school students who have the power to boo them off-stage.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it was a blood bath.

A bluegrass band barely made it through its introduction.  Spoken word poets were seriously discouraged from even starting.   Tap dancers and a modern dance troop were summarily dismissed.   A woman came out and started singing Gershwin's 'Summertime' and I was fearful for her life.  She didn't even get through the first word before the whole place erupted in boos. 

The ones who did make it through were one absolutely amazing spoken word poet (I'd never seen good spoken word, and it is awesome!), one dance group that was so weird and strangely sexual that you just had to watch, an excellent saxophonist who had the strategic advantage of being able to drown everyone out by putting his sax to the microphone and saturating the audio sphere, a band who was ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE but sang  'Come to My Window' with such a piercing sound that you couldn't here anything for five minutes after, an old white guy who sang a bluesy song with references to drugs, sex and alcohol (which I guess made him cool), a girl who hoola-hooped (never seen it before: blacklight hoola-hooping), and Darryl.

Darryl is a young, smooth looking, immediately likable African American who sang 'Take it Slow' with a perfect touch.  Seriously, he was the only guy who walked on stage all night that I didn't brace myself for the terror to come-- he fit the venue, he chose music the kids knew and liked, his voice was amazing, and he knew how to perform.

And that's why he won.  At the end of the night, the audience cheers for who they want to win, and they wanted Darryl.  He now gets to compete for a chance at 10,000.  And I got to go home and listen to Bach.