So here\u2019s the type of consummate pro Broadway star Idina Menzel is.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the middle of her concert, on a sweltering mid-summer night at the Charlotte Metro Credit Union Ampitheatre on Friday. She\u2019s sitting on the front of the stage setting up the stirring anthem \u201cNo Day But Today\u201d from Jonathan Larson\u2019s \u201cRent\u201d that starred Menzel. Larson died unexpectedly the day of its first preview.<\/p>\n
The song, she said, reminds her to embrace the moment, of what\u2019s important in life. \u201cLike a nice breeze. I\u2019m in Charlotte, sittin\u2019 with my peeps, singing songs.\u201d
\nIdina Menzel reminded the crowd to hydrate, adding, \u201cIt\u2019s hot out here…We all look pretty hot.\u201d
\nNext thing you know a child approaches the stage with something for her. Not missing a beat, Menzel continues, \u201cHaving (someone) show up giving me weird stickers of Elsa,\u201d her character from the movie \u201cFrozen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then another kid got her to sign a shoe and a third child handed up a book about Menzel\u2019s Broadway smash \u201cWicked\u201d to autograph. She obliged them all before finally returning to the soulful song.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s the type of show you got. Lots of energy, lots of asides about her life, lots of her songs that are, well, popular.<\/p>\n
Menzel began the evening strutting on stage and wielding a pair of mallets she pounded on the drums as she and her band launched into \u201cQueen of Swords,\u201d one of several tunes from her self-titled new album. She also drank plenty of water during the evening, urged the crowd to hydrate and early on, discarded the black jacket she had been wearing at the start.<\/p>\n
Menzel offered up plenty of signature showtunes, including \u201cSeasons of Love\u201d from \u201cRent\u201d (\u201dYou know the song?\u201d she playfully asked the cheering audience) and \u201cI\u2019m Not That Girl\u201d a \u201cWicked\u201d number.<\/p>\n
Having recently co-starred in the TV remake of \u201cBeaches,\u201d she naturally sang \u201cWind Beneath My Wings,\u201d then segued into the soaring \u201cDefying Gravity\u201d from \u201cWicked.\u201d The final notes felt just a hair off, but still rousing.<\/p>\n
Idina Menzel sang several songs from \u201cWicked.\u201d She said her all-green makeup as Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, \u201cwas pretty but you know it\u2019s a pain in the butt.\u201d<\/p>\n
A welcome surprise was \u201cDon\u2019t Rain On My Parade,\u201d where Menzel made a custom fit of Barbra Streisand\u2019s \u201cFunny Girl\u201d show-stopper.<\/p>\n
Throughout the two-hour-plus show, Menzel interjected asides between or even during songs. She\u2019s like your over-sharing but friendly co-worker, if that person is a crazy talented stage icon who frequently can belt \u2018em to the back row.<\/p>\n
Before being side-tracked by the Elsa sticker for \u201cNo Day But Today,\u201d Menzel noted, \u201cIn case you brought the only straight man to the audience, and he has no idea who the hell I am, you can give him a little nudge and tell him this is a song from \u2018Rent.\u2019\u00a0<\/span>\u201d<\/p>\n Her chatter also accounted for several random things I learned about Menzel:<\/p>\n ▪\u00a0<\/span> Her all-green makeup in \u201cWicked,\u201d where she played Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, left yellow streaks in parts of her raven hair for awhile.<\/p>\n ▪\u00a0<\/span> The ever-engaging singer recently got engaged, to actor Aaron Lohr.<\/p>\n ▪\u00a0<\/span> When not in \u201cmommy mode\u201d (she has a son with former husband Taye Diggs) she likes putting on tight jeans, wearing a pony tail and kicking back on her tour bus with \u201cmy PB and J, my crackers and my \u2018Game of Thrones.\u2019 It\u2019s really exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n ▪\u00a0<\/span> The weirdest thing she ever autographed: a bowling ball.<\/p>\n During the show, Menzel tossed in covers from such performers as The Beatles (\u201cDear Prudence,\u201d which she paired with \u201cDo You Want to Build A Snowman\u201d from \u201cFrozen\u201d), Simon and Garfunkle\u2019s \u201cBridge Over Troubled Water,\u201d a little Aretha Franklin (\u201cRock Steady\u201d) and perhaps most randomly, Led Zeppelin\u2019s \u201cBlack Dog.\u201d<\/p>\n Menzel delivered plenty of hugs, including to a girl dressed as her character, Elsa.<\/p>\n For the first of two encores, this time accompanied just by pianist Clifford Carter, she turned to the Cole Porter standard, \u201cEv\u2019ry Time We Say Goodbye.\u201d<\/p>\n The finale, \u201cI See You,\u201d came from her new album. It refers to a South African greeting where someone says, \u201cI see you.\u201d The other person pauses, takes stock and responds, \u201cI am here.\u201d<\/p>\n Menzel thanked the audience for accepting her and allowing her to work through her issues in her music and on stage. \u201cSo I just wanted to say thank you for that. And I see you. And I am always here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So here\u2019s the type of consummate pro Broadway star Idina Menzel is. It\u2019s the middle of her concert, on a sweltering mid-summer night at the Charlotte Metro Credit Union Ampitheatre on Friday. She\u2019s sitting on the front of the stage setting up the stirring anthem \u201cNo Day But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[45],"class_list":["post-672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-45"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Idina-Menzel-7.21.17-6143-Lede.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-aQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":674,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672\/revisions\/674"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}