Margaret Cho is “Beautiful!”
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
So, last Friday we went to Massey Hall to watch Margaret Cho as she visited Toronto on the Canadian leg of her tour, “Beautiful.” The hall was packed with fans, with the gay crowd outnumbering the straights by a decent majority.
Opening her show was Liam Sullivan whose character, Kelly, is experiencing YouTube and MySpace fame right now with her song, “Shoes”, which we got to experience first hand on stage. At first, Liam came onstage as a butch lesbian and sang us few songs before introducing a video showcasing some of his other characters in various Boys-in-the-Hall-style situations. This was okay to begin with, but the video seemed to go one for an inordinate amount of time and at one point I was beginning to feel like I was in a glorified movie theatre with no hope of ever seeing a live Margaret Cho.
Eventually, however, she did come onstage and began her act. Now, I like Margaret Cho, her humour can take me by surprise every now and then and I find that refreshing. This being said, I’ve seen her last two tours on DVD (this was the first time I’d seen her live) and while I really enjoyed those shows I started to notice how they all followed a similar thread; fag hag humour, gays gays gays, lesbians, then some skits about her mom (although she didn’t focus on her mom very much this time round).
Still, she is very, very funny and her deadpan delivery can be priceless!
All in all it was a good show, but now that I’ve had the experience I don’t think I’d go see her live again. Next time she does another tour I’ll rent the disk and watch it in the comfort of my own home, with friends and wine.
Opening her show was Liam Sullivan whose character, Kelly, is experiencing YouTube and MySpace fame right now with her song, “Shoes”, which we got to experience first hand on stage. At first, Liam came onstage as a butch lesbian and sang us few songs before introducing a video showcasing some of his other characters in various Boys-in-the-Hall-style situations. This was okay to begin with, but the video seemed to go one for an inordinate amount of time and at one point I was beginning to feel like I was in a glorified movie theatre with no hope of ever seeing a live Margaret Cho.
Eventually, however, she did come onstage and began her act. Now, I like Margaret Cho, her humour can take me by surprise every now and then and I find that refreshing. This being said, I’ve seen her last two tours on DVD (this was the first time I’d seen her live) and while I really enjoyed those shows I started to notice how they all followed a similar thread; fag hag humour, gays gays gays, lesbians, then some skits about her mom (although she didn’t focus on her mom very much this time round).
Still, she is very, very funny and her deadpan delivery can be priceless!
All in all it was a good show, but now that I’ve had the experience I don’t think I’d go see her live again. Next time she does another tour I’ll rent the disk and watch it in the comfort of my own home, with friends and wine.
Labels: beautiful, margaret cho, massey hall
