Almost 24 hours later, and I'm still in happy obsessive land, though I will admit, my calves and lower back are a bit sore from standing still for 5 hours in flip flops. Ryan Star's cd release party was awesome! To be fair, I don't really go to concerts all that often, so I don't have much to compare it to...actually? I have been to a total of three other concerts - Billy Joel, INXS, and The Allman Brothers. None of these really compare to the small venue of the Filmore at Irving Plaza, so I guess this was a totally new experience. But I digress. Please bear with my slight fan girl giddiness.
I got to the venue around 5:30pm, and after signing a giant banner that was being presented to Ryan, I hopped in line to wait for the doors to open. My friend Andrea joined me around 6pm (after traveling all the way from Boston for less than 24 hours just to go to the concert, such dedication!), and we continued waiting for at least another half hour. The concert was supposed to start at 6:30pm, but the doors only just opened around then.
The venue is pretty cool - it's a small space that is mostly standing room only, with a small balcony around the three outer walls. As we were standing waiting for the show to start, Andrea and I tried to figure out the dynamic of the crowd - as happens often with the pair of us for some reason, we were among the youngest people in the room. There were a bunch of other twenty-somthings...but there were also people that were clearly in their forties and up. We were pretty confused by this, as we figure that his appeal is probably aimed at people in their twenties and thirties. By the end of the show though, we managed to figure it out; when he was fifteen, Ryan was in the band Stage, and many of the fans there had been following him since that time (Back of Your Car is actually a Stage track originally). Ryan is now thirty-two...which means he's been performing since I was around four years old. Yikes.
The first opening act of the night (getting started around 7pm-ish) was Lion of Ido. While they weren't bad, their set felt...somewhat thrown together. We also couldn't figure out if the band was made up of two people or five people, as three of the members disappeared for a while. Still, they were halfway decent, and certainly listenable. My guess is that they just need a bit more experience and polish. Fun fact: one of the members, Ido Zmishlany, co-wrote the song Start a Fire with Ryan, which was added to 11:59 at the very last minute (quite appropriate, no?). The best part of their set though was Ryan's thirty second cameo on stage in the middle of one of their songs.
The second act was Thriving Ivory, who I was actually fairly impressed with. I think that it helped that I had listened to a few of their songs when Ryan announced that they would be opening for him. Their set had a much better flow that Lion of Ido's, which I appreciated. Andrea wasn't the biggest fan of the lead singer's vocal tone, but it did grow on me. I may check them out more in the future - having one of their songs stuck in my head for a while after their set is usually a pretty decent indication that they are either half-way decent, or really annoying (aka, Ke$ha, Katy Perry).
Finally around 9pm, Ryan came on stage. Being short, I wasn't able to fully see him during his opening rendition of We Might Fall (possibly my favorite song of his) sitting at the keyboard, but once he stood up and started pacing around I had few problems. He really does have a great energy and stage presence - his seventeen-plus years of performance experience really show through here. His set started out with a great energy, which was only slightly dulled when there were technical issues with his guitar about five songs in. He handled it very well though, grabbing an acoustic and winging it until the tech crew (who I was not super impressed with for various reasons) could figure out what was wrong. The energy eventually picked right back up again, and the standard set was over far too soon. Luckily, we were treated to an encore, which was possibly the best part of the whole night. Ryan even started climbing around on what I -think- was a random platform the jutted out over the crowd.
The most touching thing throughout the whole night was just how genuinely humble and thankful Ryan appeared for his fans, and his experience. This was clearly an emotional event for the singer, with him constantly thanking his fans, and praising the atmosphere of love in the room. In that, he was not talking out of his ass - possibly because much of his music has such a positive "carpe diem" feel, everyone in the venue just seemed so happy and supportive.
So what was the best moment of the night? I can pick two. The first was singing along to most of the songs, but especially watching Ryan's grin when everyone in the room was able to keep singing Breathe when he dropped out of a few lines of the chorus. The other moment would be when Ryan called his former Stage band mates up to the stage, and made them play along for the final song of the encore, Back of Your Car. It was such a high energy note for the show to end on, and had me grinning despite the ache in my legs from basically standing in one place for hours.
The only negative of the show? Because the show started late and the break between each set was so long, Andrea and I had to book it to Penn Station to catch our trains as soon as the show ended (oh how I love sprinting through Penn Station). As such, we missed Ryan signing cds and taking pictures, but there is always another time....my L.A. friends should be warned, I -will- bug you to go with me next time he is in the area.
Congratulations Ryan!
