Living in NYC

New York has ridiculous nightlife. I’m sure you can imagine it, even if you have never been here, because you see it in movies and on TV. Most of it is true – although I have decided that the drug-infused parties of the seventies and eighties no longer exist. There are still drugs, but the people on them are either stoners (who aren’t exactly in short supply down south, either), or random people wandering around looking for parties like that, only to realize they are alone, on self-imbibed GHB, and have lost 12 hours of their lives to undisclosed sections of Queens. (The last sentence is based on true events, of which I had no part).

What’s here for the rest of us is actually pretty cool. You can break it down into pretty basic categories. One is food, and that is certainly a recreational activity for me. Another is music. Anyone who knows me will tell you that music is the most important art form in my life. In this city, you can breathe it if you want to. I won’t waist your time with venues and random band names. Last week, CMJ (a New York music and film festival that garners international attention every year) dominated my industry. Cornerstone helped out with a couple of pretty cool events, and I got to see some extremely cool people doing things with instruments that I will never understand. But with my mom in town, we ended up hearing a different kind of music, and it wasn’t on the lower east side.

Three broadway shows in one weekend might seem like a lot, but mom and Amber pulled it off. I joined them for two, Million Dollar Quartet and Mama Mia. We went to MDQ immediately after one of the events for CMJ, so it was a stark contrast. After emerging from the show in the Nederlander Theater, I couldn’t help but feel like the production on broadway was cooler than any show at CMJ. I’m probably not supposed to say that, and maybe it’s not even true, but I definitely felt it.

There is something about the productions on broadway that make them remarkable. So much time, effort and talent from countless people go in to making those shows run smoothly day after day. In the case of Mama Mia, they have been doing it for years. I was excited to see that the actors in MDQ performed everything themselves, without the help of hidden musicians. They were fantastic.

So if you’re here visiting, or even if you move here for the music industry like I did, give both scenes a try. Let me know how it goes!

Tags: broadway, cmj, mama mia, million dollar quartet