War of the Worlds - 28th Sept 2007

I went and saw Jeff Wayne's musical version of War of the Worlds onstage at the Vector arena last Friday. Here is a little review.

First of all, this was my first experience of the Vector Arena, and I didn't really like it. The sound was OK but, as my friend with me said, not as good as - say - the St James.
Part of the problem was that we were as high up as you could get (see the picture - click for bigger version). This probably isn't quite so much a problem for live bands and the like, but WOTW is a multi-media experience that pretty much requires you have a good view of the screen.

What peeved me is that my buddy booked the tickets for us really early - in fact pre-booked (they went on sale officially on the Monday but there was a pre-sale on the Friday that went for 24 hours only). Seeing as we'd booked so early (July, in fact), you would have thought we'd have got pretty good seats but, as I said, we were were as high up as you could get, in row SS-something (I've decided 'SS' stands for 'sky seat' - again, refer to vertiginous photo). Looking down, only two thirds of the expensive seats on the floor were occupied in this 'sold out' show.

The show itself was good; the music great as always. The CGI was a bit less Hollywood and more computer game style and could have been done a bit better. The giant Martian descending from the roof onto the stage was well done, but from where we were up high it lost a little of it's impact and became more of a 'Spinal Tap' moment (if you've seen the movie you'll know I refer to the Stonehenge gag).

So, all in all, a good show slightly let down by the CGI, and greatly a let down as regards seating; although I suspect people further around toward the screen had it worse off than me.

I would have liked to have seen the Richard Burton 'hologram' up closer, too, to see how 3D it looked.

Photo taken with Nokia N95 phone.