Day 42-12/31/09

Show: Rock of Ages
Date: 9/25/09
Cast: Kerry Butler (Sherrie), Constantine Maroulis (Drew), Mitchell Jarvis (Lonny), Adam Dannheisser (Dennis), Michele Mais (Justice), Don Stephenson (Hertz), Tom (Franz), James Carpinello (Stacee Jaxx), Lauren Molina (Regina), Ericka Hunter, Angel Reed, Katherine Tokarz, Andre Ward, Jeremy Woodard
Type: Audio

DISCLAIMER: YOU MAY NOT LIKE WHAT I SAY, YOU MAY NOT AGREE WITH ME. JUST DON'T CALL ME OUT ON TWITTER. I AM MERELY REVIEWING AN AUDIO JUST FOR FUN. THANK YOU

So a lot of the show was same as usual, so I'm just going to talk about the new stuff for me.
I really liked Kerry as Sherrie. Her voice seemed a lot more natural than Amy and a little more so than Savannah. What bothered me about Amy was not her singing, but her regular speaking. It sounded like she was forcing young, naive, and ditzy. With Kerry it sounded like she was speaking more normally and all that Amy forced came with it.
I didn't like Don Stephenson as Hertz as much as I liked Paul Schoeffler.
Tom ...well, to be honest I'm a little nervous to say anything at all. But at the same time I just wouldn't be right to not say what I'm thinking. Okay, deep breath, I can do this.
I didn't like it. Now of course, I absolutely adored Wesley both as Franz and as a person, but that doesn't automatically slant my opinion. The first line that Franz has was a shock to my ears, as it usually is when somebody new is on for someone I'm familiar with. It's not necessarily a bad thing; when I heard Danny as Hugo instead of Matt there was a shock, when I hear someone as Melchior or Hanschen other than Matt there's a little of a shock. But neither time is it really bad. This time the shock wasn't the best thing. It didn't sound right. At all. I find Wesley's voice just generally more right for the role, it's one of those conditions that it was the perfect casting when they got someone with a voice like his for a character like that. But maybe there is an imperfection in it all; that now it's hard to hear anyone else. That almost sounds like I'm sugar coating it, but once you find that perfection doesn't everything pale in comparison? Maybe in this case it just pales much more than in others. With Tom, it sounded a little bit unnatural and certainly not German. To me it just sounds like a whiny child, or a drag queen, or both. Also rather than craving the scenes he was in, I just wasn't excited. Hit Me With Your Best Shot wasn't too bad. He holds notes oh so much longer than Wesley did. But I can't say I 100% liked it. He did seem to have a good voice but for instance he said "let's get down to iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit" when I had absolutely loved the way that Wesley said "let's get down to it, aaah." That's just personal preference maybe. Franz has a really small bit in "Here I Go Again" but I always listened for it because I really loved Wesley in it, I listened for it this time as I always do and I think I heard it, but if I did that was certainly different but, you know...personal preferences are what it's all about. I also listened for him in Don't Stop Believin', and I gotta say it again; it wasn't Wesley. And I guess really just comes down to the fact that I loved Wesley, but not in a way that would make me biased against others but I loved the acting choices that he made and everything.

So really hope that Google alerts don't get results from blogs...if they do I might need to dig myself a hole.

Edit: Rather than saying his full name, I'm just changing every instance of it to "Tom"