A while
back, my aunt emailed me a news article announcing that the Minnesota Orchestra
was adding a second concert date with Leslie Odom Jr., having so quickly sold
out the first. Now, I hadn’t even heard
he was doing one concert with the
Minnesota Orchestra, let alone two, so as soon as I saw the email, I called up
my aunt all, “What are we going to do about this?”
Back by
both the orchestra and his own five-piece band, Odom put on a hell of a
show. He opened, naturally, with “Wait
for It,” then promised more Hamilton would
be coming later – he couldn’t frontload the show with Hamilton, he explained, because he knew there’d be a “mass exodus”
as soon as he sang everyone’s favorite songs.
It was a
great, varied concert, full of jazz standards and old hits. Among others, he sang “Autumn Leaves,”
“Forever Young,” and several Nat King Cole numbers, including
“Unforgettable.” I’ll fully admit to
being unfamiliar (or at least not overly familiar) with quite a few of these,
as my music knowledge is mostly weirdly-specific eclectic pockets with a
scattering of random bits of different genres mixed in. But even though concerts are often the most
fun when I know the songs, I like this too, getting exposure to great songs I
don’t really know.
The
second act of the show was more Broadway-oriented, so I did have more
familiarity there. Odom did a very cool
rendition of “The Guilty Ones” from Spring
Awakening – preemptively warning us that it was about to get very sexy onstage
– and gave a gorgeous performance of “Without You” from RENT. He closed out the show
with more Hamilton, solo versions of
“Dear Theodosia” and, of course, “The Room Where It Happens.”
It goes
without saying that Odom sounded incredible.
His voice is so smooth and velvety, his upper register so pure and
well-controlled. He did a good job
playing to the whole crowd, including the side balconies, and his band was a
lot of fun to watch as well.
Odom’s
stage banter was on point. He did quite a few mini-medleys, two or three
songs at a time that would flow into one another, but in between, he had all
kinds of amusing anecdotes and observations.
He side-eyed anyone who claimed to be Smash fans, told the story of his youthful dream to be in RENT (and then trying to figure out what
to do with the rest of his life after that dream came true!), and questioned
how there came to be people in the audience who’d never even listened to Hamilton before. All in all, a fantastic show by a great
performer.
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