Last night I went to the theater to see American Idiot before it closes. We had great seats on the aisle of the center section in row G. There was more PA than I have ever seen on a B'way musical (I haven't seen Spiderman) and it mostly sounded pretty good. There were times I was bothered that too much of the dynamics of the drums was done by mixing. On the loud parts the drums sounded great, he was playing hard and they had a lot of presence. The problem was in quieter numbers, where he was playing too loud, and wasn't really even in the PA. It made it sound like he was in a different band.
The scenery and video were great. There were about 25 or 30 video monitors built into the set, with probably a half dozen different feeds, and 3 big projectors that did scenic projection from the balcony rail. They were edge blended in the corners between the 3 walls of the set, with one projector on each wall. the use of both the monitors and the projectors was very nice.
I'm not a huge Green Day fan, and would have been just as happy if Billy Joe Armstrong had not returned to the show for the last couple of weeks before closing. You could tell most of the audience was distracted every time he was on stage. I would much rather the female lead Rebecca Jones had been in last night's show instead of her sub. Rebecca was in Passing Strange, and is a treat to watch, she is a very dynamic performer, in what was a very dynamic show.
In any case it was well worth the trip to see.
Mac
