We Will Rock You
Last night, Ele and I went up to the Dominion Theatre at the corner of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street to watch We Will Rock You. And Rock Us they did. I wonder if there is any comeback under the Trades Descriptions Act if one attends a showing of We Will Rock You and does not feel sufficiently Rocked at the end of it?
This was my birthday present from Ele, and it was amazing! I highly recommend going to see it. The cast are incredible singers, and the band were just superb. It was also very funny, but it should be, having been written by Ben Elton. We had seats up at the front (row C) of the circle and had a great view.
One thing that got me thinking though, is what is the correct way to perform the hand-clapping to the title track? The conventional wisdom, as practiced by the cast, is the clap-clap-hands apart method. But, I know better. I was told by extremely high authority (and this authority is Brian May himself), that it is supposed to be stamp-stamp-clap.
Many years ago, when I was younger and carefree, and actually had time to play the guitar, I went to a music exhibition at Wembley Exhibition Hall. There, all the main instrument, amplifier and accessory makers were showing their wares. I had intended to buy a 4-track recorder, and did, but came back with another guitar as well. Anyway, part of the exhibition was a talk given by Brian May in a small-ish auditorium. A few hundred of us gathered there to hear the great curly man speak about his guitar (which he built himself), and he told us all about its features, and what amps and pedals he uses. To finish with, he did the solo from the end of We Will Rock You (the song, not the musical), and got us all to do the stamp-stamp-clap bit, as he explained that this was what it was intended to be all along, but somehow it never seemed to work out that way when they played it live.
So last night, when everybody was clap-clap-hands aparting, I was stamp-stamp-clapping, smug in the knowledge that I was doing it as the man intended. And very conscious of the fact that everybody else in the entire theatre of 2000 people, including the cast, was doing it the other way.
This was my birthday present from Ele, and it was amazing! I highly recommend going to see it. The cast are incredible singers, and the band were just superb. It was also very funny, but it should be, having been written by Ben Elton. We had seats up at the front (row C) of the circle and had a great view.
One thing that got me thinking though, is what is the correct way to perform the hand-clapping to the title track? The conventional wisdom, as practiced by the cast, is the clap-clap-hands apart method. But, I know better. I was told by extremely high authority (and this authority is Brian May himself), that it is supposed to be stamp-stamp-clap.
Many years ago, when I was younger and carefree, and actually had time to play the guitar, I went to a music exhibition at Wembley Exhibition Hall. There, all the main instrument, amplifier and accessory makers were showing their wares. I had intended to buy a 4-track recorder, and did, but came back with another guitar as well. Anyway, part of the exhibition was a talk given by Brian May in a small-ish auditorium. A few hundred of us gathered there to hear the great curly man speak about his guitar (which he built himself), and he told us all about its features, and what amps and pedals he uses. To finish with, he did the solo from the end of We Will Rock You (the song, not the musical), and got us all to do the stamp-stamp-clap bit, as he explained that this was what it was intended to be all along, but somehow it never seemed to work out that way when they played it live.
So last night, when everybody was clap-clap-hands aparting, I was stamp-stamp-clapping, smug in the knowledge that I was doing it as the man intended. And very conscious of the fact that everybody else in the entire theatre of 2000 people, including the cast, was doing it the other way.
posted by Nej at
12:56 pm
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