Hamilton on Broadway

I’ve been dying to go to Hamilton, you know, along with the rest of the world. I’ve been low-key searching for a good time to go, but couldn’t find a good night between the dogs, my schedule, planned trips, and Garrett’s work schedule. BUT, I was in the city this past weekend taking over The SmartFlyer’s Instagram story, and Gar had the night off, so I figured it was worth a shot since we had a hotel and everything!

Long story short, I ended up buying tickets for the wrong night because I’m an idiot who was multi-tasking and had way too many windows open on my browser. I also bought the right tickets once I realized my mistake and ended up selling the other tickets to a blog reader via Facebook. So all was right again.

Before I go into more detail, here’s the bottom line about the show: it’s better than the hype.

I’ve seen a lot of Broadway shows over the years, and this one is unique. It’s in its own league really. Better than everything. (Including Rent, which is… really saying something for me!) The entire thing is just so different, right down to the audience’s reactions. It was the loudest, most enthusiastic audience ever. I’m pretty sure everyone would have sung along if they could or given a standing ovation for every single song. The applause was deafening, and there were a few whistles/screams at certain points. It was also a pain to get in… people were (rightfully) going CRAZY. This was the only point where I wished I hadn’t gone; I felt a panic attack coming on from the suffocating crowd, though I felt better by the time we got to our actual seats.

The one thing I wish I had done differently would be to listen to the entire soundtrack first. Well, I’m not sure about that actually. I wanted to see the show with a fresh perspective. On one hand, I found getting used to the rapped words for the first twenty minutes was a challenge, and I missed a lot of the story. I don’t know if it was this particular show or my hearing, but I thought the orchestra was overpowering the actual singers, so I had a hard time figuring out what they were saying. But I eventually adjusted. The soundtrack is amazing and a great way to learn the words. I want to re-watch the show now that I’ve gone through the soundtrack a solid 25 times since seeing it. I did enjoy watching the show unfold without knowing too much about it, but it would have been nice to understand the first few songs better!

Regardless of that, it was simply amazing and worth every pretty penny.

Going in, I was hoping it wasn’t just all hype. I ended up thinking that the hype doesn’t even do it justice. It’s that good. I cried multiple times. Laughed. And never got bored. I wish it had gone on all night.

It also was weird how much I remembered from history classes (the most random things, really) and how much I didn’t know or couldn’t remember. I picked up 1776 just to brush up on the events; I was very inspired walking out of the theater!

And if you can’t get tickets? The soundtrack is great and worth listening to and enjoying on its own. I’ve had it nearly on repeat since Saturday night! I can’t help it. I haven’t had time to go really deep into the Hamilton Youtube video black hole yet, but I’m just waiting for a quiet night to go crazy!

Are you obsessed?! Have you seen it yet?!