The night we listened to lounge music in the Musikverein.

This concert has definitely exceeded any expectations of what we had imagined of this performance may entail. It was a mix of astonishment, pure joy, and penn-ultimate confusion. We all left the concert asking "What did we just witness...?" I will try to describe it to you as best I can but there's nothing like the real thing (baby). 

First, the conductor comes out, who we decide looks like Woody Allen, but I think he looked like Larry from the three stooges. And then the Japanese pianist enters in a sparkling (yes, sparkling) black tuxedo and was sporting bright red socks. We're already off to a good start. 

They start playing ooshy gooshy movie style music. We're dripping cheese already. Then the pianist takes a solo- he's pretty talented! Just simply a Japanese Joyner playing lounge piano music. Then a held, light, trill in the keys summons the singer onto stage. He's wearing a wide grin, cream colored sport coat, white tux shirt, a bow tie, and poofy black pants. His voice is really something else! It's smooth as silk and uses no vibrato at all. He has one pure tone and manipulates vowels and consonants. Very pretty. And he could sing very high! And pretty low for how high he could sing. The entire concert consisted of this guy singing famous show tunes from various American musicals. However. They werent just regular covers. they were very lounge- esque with groovy background rhythms. Pieces included were- smoke gets in your eyes, gal in calamazoo, chim-chim-cherrie, I've got you under my skin (this one had some very odd heavy breathing rhythic parts added to it.) , and Lady Luck, among others. It was rather entertaining listening to this guy try and explain some of these musicals- he's German of course. For example, when he was talking to the audience in between songs, all we would hear is "heiwnajsgxksnw dnsjhdu shah Guys and Dolls shdicns she saksibe." Made for an interesting evening. 

Some versions of these tunes had the man singing the regular tune with the orchestra playing seemingly in another meter. One tune like this that stood out was "favorite things" from the sound of music. It was more like a war chant that he was singing in three while the orchestra was in five. Crazy! And the encores.... If there wasn't enough cheese already, he gave an encore performance of send in the clowns, and then the conductor came out to play some jazz clarinet as another encore performance. I'll let Melanie and Kai explain that one in more detail as they were gushing with resentment as soon as they saw the conductor with a clarinet.

Altogether, it was truly a wonderfully ridiculous performance and I can't think of a better finale performance to end our wonderful, unique trip.