LET THE SUN SHINE IN

I've never been a fan of Hair.  It was groundbreaking in its time, but I never really "felt" it all these years.  I sang the title song once in some performancey thing I did and I thought it was all a little too before my time.  I knew all of the songs that had become mainstream like "Aquarius," "Let the Sunshine In" and lesser known songs from the show (if any were considered "lesser known") like "Easy to Be Hard" and "Frank Mills" but the show as a whole never really did anything for me...until recently.

 

Hair has come back.  It is in its second revival and now playing 8-shows-a week at the Al Hirshfield on Broadway and the cast is killing it!  Wow.  Gavin Creel is a personal favorite of mine and I've been loosely following the show since its Central Park revival last year and even more closely since Creel took over the role of Claude from Jonathan Groff.  Cut to April 30, 2009 -- "the Tribe" from Hair appeared on the Letterman show recreating a 40-year-old performance from the original Broadway cast at the Ed Sullivan Theater.  To say they were just fantastic is an understatement.  I LOVED it and I've never loved Hair in any incarnation.

After seeing this performance, I turned the corner on my opinion of Hair.  Yesterday, the album dropped (in digital release) on iTunes and I have been ob-sessed with it.  For the first time, this show has a great energy and spunk to me...and I've never heard that from  any recording or performance before.  I've gotta say, there's nothing like Gavin Creel's voice - the man is amazing and his Tony nom is much deserved (as is Will Swenson's - LOVE him too)!  This is how much I like Hair: I'm actually rooting for it over my old favorite West Side Story (in the best revival of a musical category) in this year's awards.  If I can go there then it must be really special!

 

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