(This one is a few years old, but a favorite)
First, let me state, for the record, that I am not a cynic. I love and appreciate the arts in many forms….but some simply should not mix. Tonight I watched a broadcast from the Conference Center. I was told it would be a Mormon Tabernacle Choir 24th of July Celebration, with The Osmonds as special guests. (The show biz family was completing their 50th Anniversary World Tour). I expected the usual hymns, inspiring stories of pioneers, and a couple of Donny and Marie solos. But I was WAY off. How do I explain this? Uh...okay, you remember the episode of Friends when Rachel wanted to impress everybody by cooking a special dish for Thanksgiving? And her recipe for a strawberry truffle was somehow stuck to one for Shepherd's Pie, resulting in a layered dish with pudding, berries , whip cream, beef and peas? Well, this concert was the musical equivalent of that creation.
The opening number by MO-TAB and the Temple Square Orchestra was good. The program began with a prayer and the announcer acknowledged the presence of President Eyring and other members of the Quorum of the Twelve. Then the choir sang "Faith in Every Footstep", written in 1997 for the Sesqui-Centennial of the pioneers’ arrival in the Salt Lake Valley. The audience was still basking in the afterglow of that stirring anthem when...BAM! Without warning, the lights went down, the sound came up and there were the Osmonds singing "Down by the Lazy River". The lyrics alone made me chuckle. It was a stark contrast to the salute to fortitude just moments prior. You’d smirk too if you saw six grown men (most of them with gray hair and social security benefits) performing cheesy choreography as they flashed those trademark smiles at a confused crowd. After the song, Donny shouted "Hello everybody! How you doin’ tonight?" He got a small rumble of murmurs in response. "Listen, we got permission to put on a party tonight, so you're gonna have to do better than that!" The cheers increased, but it felt forced and uncomfortable. Undaunted, they continued their medley of greatest hits and just when I started to accept that this was an Osmond concert, it changed gears again.
The choir sang a “slave spiritual”…which, frankly, white folk look silly when we try to sing. But they made up for it with an incredible performance of "Shenandoah". I love that song! But before I could let out a sigh of contentment, the Osmonds were back, blasting "One Bad Apple". Honestly, I never thought I'd see an electric guitar and a disco ball in the Conference Center. I wondered what President Eyring thought about the pelvic thrusts at the end of the song. Next, Marie performed "How Great Thou Art" in a very lounge singer fashion. (Don't worry, she had three costume changes during the course of the evening). The climax of cheesiness was when Donnie and Marie lead the choir in their theme song, "I'm A Little Bit Country, I'm A Little Bit Rock'n'Roll".
Donny introduced a video montage of their family memories by first telling a story about the song he was about to sing. His third son Brandon was on a mission in Scotland and one day, Donny’s blackberry rang in the middle of a recording session. It was a text that said, "Dad, are you out there? I need you." So they texted back and for a bit and then his son said "I'm okay now…I just needed to know you were there." Donny went on to say that the experience inspired a song about the Savior and part of me could see where he was going with the analogy, but the rest of me was thinking, “WHAT? Are you KIDDING?!? First of all, missionaries are not supposed to text/call home at random. But even if my son had some kind of crisis and broke that rule, I certainly wouldn’t announce his name and mission on a worldwide broadcast as an introduction to my next solo. Sheesh. Maybe the white handbook doesn’t apply to Osmond offspring?”
I hoped that the show was over at that point. But nope. Marie was back to awkwardly announce that after seeing her aging siblings, she had decided that she was definitely getting botox. Because nothing says “Thank you, pioneer ancestors!” like declaring your intent to paralyze your face on purpose. The whole family took another bow, tearfully waving to an audience that was not waving back, and marched off stage. “Surely it must be over now!” I thought. Alas, I was wrong again. The lights came up and the choir belted out "Come, Come Ye Saints". But by then, the show had become more about the Osmonds than the pioneers and it just felt out of place.
So, while the Osmonds are definitely to be applauded for their endurance in a tough industry (How many families can stand working together for 50 years?) and nobody can argue the awesomeness of MO-TAB, it would have been best if there had been two separate concerts. At the very least, it would have prevented me from straining the muscles that roll my eyes.
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