Yo-Yo Ma!

That's right people. I saw Yo-Yo Ma, the world famous cello virtuoso and winner of over a dozen Grammys, performing with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. These tickets have been impossible to get for weeks now, unless you're willing to drop upwards of 200 bones. Luckily for me, a friend of mine purchased a couple tix back in June. Also luckily for me, but very unfortunately for her, Matt's date got mortally ill at the last minute and couldn't go, so the free ticket fell into my lap.

Matt was kind enough to let me borrow a suit, (he has like six or eight, it's crazy), and we headed off to the Mahalia Jackson Theater. The first act, or whatever they call it in classical music, was the LPO with a big choir and a little boy soprano soloist. They sang some psalms set to some totally sweet music and it was radical.

After the intermission Yo Mama himself came onto the stage. The sold out crowd went nuts, or as nuts as that kind of crowd will ever get, I guess. After running around stage smiling like a madman and jovially shaking hands with the first violin and the maestro several times he sat down to play. I thought maybe he'd just kind of sit there and play, I mean after all he's been performing since he was five, but he still put everything he had into it. Even though he's a true master of his art the music was still hitting him and you could tell he was feeling it. It was pretty inspiring, a lot like seeing Victor Wooten. I was a little bit disappointed that he only played one piece with the Orchestra and one short solo piece, but it was still a great experience. After he trotted off stage for the last time I was expecting for people to shout for an encore, I mean he had gotten two standing ovations and I sure as hell wanted him to play some more, but people just started to leave.

The music was great, but the crowd was ridiculous. They just sat and listened, which I can appreciate, I mean the drunken imbeciles at the Republic (a music bar downtown) can sometimes get annoying, but at the end of pieces there was merely polite applause. No cheering, no whooping, no bravos, no magnificos, no "I love you Yo-Yo!" or anything, just obligatory clapping. After Yo-Yo's solo piece I wanted to jump around and go woohoo!, but everyone just stood up and clapped, maybe a little louder than usual, and when he jogged (he jogged everywhere) offstage everybody immediately started to leave.

After the show I learned that if you're wearing a suit, go to a classy bar, and don't mind paying way more than you would at The Boot (the bar right on the edge of campus) you won't get carded. Useful knowledge.

Yo People: I'm gonna try to update M-W-F from now on, to keep things kinda regular. I've just been going haphazardly till now, and it annoys me when bloggers I follow do that. M-W-F means Monday Wednesday Friday, in case any of my readers are simpletons.