Wookiee Takes the Bowl

Hello hey and howdy tappereenos. Wookiee popping in with a little review of the recent Simpsons Take The Bowl concert that was held for three nights (September 12-14) at the Hollywood Bowl. I’m sure you’ve read lots and lots about it already but if you’re interested in my two cents… go right on ahead and click for more.  I took lots of pics nudge nudge wink wink.

You know, there are so many experiences every person gets to enjoy during their life. I’ve been fortunate to see and do some pretty cool things. Keeping all those in mind and not wanting to completely geek out and call this a seminal event, I frakin loved this concert. If you’ve never been to the Hollywood Bowl, it’s an interesting venue. You either have to park far away and bus in to the site or park in one of their convoluted parking areas. Stacked parking is definitely not the funnest thing. The Bowl itself is nestled in the Hollywood Hills so once you park or arrive, the next step is to hike up the hill to your seats. They offer four separate escalator ramps for the journey if that gives you any idea.

Apart from parking and the climb though, it made me so happy to see all the decorations for this shindig. Donuts hanging from lines, a giant inflatable Blinky and cutouts of characters everywhere. I apologize for the quality of my photos but it was dusk. Figured folks would want to see stuff so low quality is hopefully better than nothing.

The Peter Griffin cutout thrown in made me laugh.  For each one of these pics, there’s several blurry ones I didn’t choose.  The place was seriously decked out and you could even take pics with the Simpsons family if you wanted to fight the crowd.

SO MANY PEOPLE. The sheer volume of the crowds was amazing. Add to that different Simpsons shirts and apparel and this fuzzball was a happy camper. After taking tons of photos, we hiked up the hill to the nosebleed section (R2). On a silly note, I think us nosebleeders got to see more decorations as payoff for the hike.  If you took the escalator, you missed out.

One of the super sweet things about the Hollywood Bowl is they let you picnic in the park.  Basically means you can bring what you like provided it’s not alcoholic. The Hollywood Bowl is a big place. It seat 17,376 people and Saturday night was almost completely sold out. Lots and lots of Simpsons fans.

Here’s my view from my lofty perch.

The show was just great. It had original animations as well as all the amazing guest stars and voice talent. A superb affair. The intro animation summed up the experience of getting to our seats.

The show was broke into two acts split by an intermission.  Act 1 included Matt Groening, co-host Hank Azaria. co-host Yeardley Smith, Beverly D’Angelo, Kipp Lennon, Hans Zimmer, Weird Al Yankovic and some great Simpsons clips. Hearing Lurleen live was cool, Apu singing the Kwik-E-Mart song was rad and Weird Al’s dance moves/accordion swag was super dope.  All that was great but my favorite moment was seeing/hearing Kipp Lennon and co-host Nancy Cartwright sing Happy Birthday Lisa to Yeardley.

Apparently, Michael Jackson’s voice impersonator (Lennon) had never performed the song live so anyone who went got a special treat.  Honorable mention has to go to Hans Zimmer’s awesome Bart hoodie.  Besides all that goodness, I have to give a super shout out to Hank Azaria performing Let It Go from the movie Frozen as Chief Wiggum.  I may never hear that song the same way again.

It needs to be said that the intermission was a nice length to allow folks to get their libations or vent previous ones.  I also found it funny to see a lot of people tap-tap-tapping.  Would you believe my Mom was telling people about the game and plugging this site?

After a priceless first act, you’d think it couldn’t get better but we’d be wrong if we thought that.  Act 2 included more Azaria, Smith and Cartwright.  Who wouldn’t want to hear Duffman while t-shirts are fired into the crowd by Duff Girls (who I think previously danced with Apu as hot dogs)?  Sure I was nowhere near the range of them but it was still fun.  The Gay Men’s Chorus of LA were there and sang Spiderpig, The Stonecutter Song AND See My Vest.  As if that wasn’t enough, they backed up Conan O’Brien when he sang the Monorail song. Conan was hilarious.

My head spinning, it was time for Yeardley Smith and Nancy Cartwright to sing the Nanny song from Sharry Bobbins followed by more Hank, a tribute to Simpsons score composer Alf Clausen, Jon Lovitz singing the Planet of the Apes song and Simpsons director David Silverman performing with his band Vaud and the Villains with a fraking tuba that WAS ON FIRE.

Wow… wowza… holy Simpsons overload.  And they weren’t done.  Fireworks finally got launched by Homer…. err, I mean Maggie.  While the fireworks went off, clips of the show were run.  I discovered to my sheer delight that the only thing better than watching fireworks or The Simpsons is watching them together.  With all that done, the night was ended amazingly with Nancy Cartwright and the entire cast doing the Bartman.

This concert was such a blast.  It needs to be said that within all the performances and clips, this was an orchestral event where everything had to be synchronized with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.  It was easy to forget there were all those talented men and women playing the whole time.  Special props to the ladies wearing Marge wigs!

One of those best things about this event was really the venue. The Hollywood Bowl is designed for every seat to get to hear the event equally. Even in the upper atmosphere seating, you got good sound quality. The main screen and four side screens ensured all the guests could see the action on stage. Whether a poor schmoe like me or one of the rich season ticketholders, the experience was set up for all to enjoy the Simpsons amazingness.

Fans of the Simpsons really are the best. I talked to a lot of really friendly people and smiles were present all over from beginning to end. Even the folks who’d obviously consumed quite a few adult beverages were well behaved. Maybe it was the venue or appreciation for high culture or maybe Simpson lovers are the Best. Fans. Ever.

Among all the uber friendly folks, I got the special chance to meet fans of this site. Sure it may have only been 20 folks (0.001% of those present lol) but it was nice to meet like-minded people. I promised two that I’d mention them here so shout out to Taznette and DJ Morgasm. Not only were they Simpson geeks like me, but had awesome tees on and were very pretty.

One of the big surprises for me for the event was the lack of merchandise. Apparently they had shirts on Friday which almost immediately sold out. Thanks to my beautiful mother, I was able to get one of the poster sold on Saturday. Other than those, the concession stand had Duff energy drinks and Lard Lad Donuts but those sold out fairly quickly. The nice guy reminiscent of squeaky voiced teen made me laugh when he described disgruntled folks who didn’t realize they weren’t buying beer. Too funny. I would have liked to have seen more merch but oh well.  I came away from the event less poor than expected but certainly richer for the experience.

The whole night was great. As Comic Book Guy might say… Life Well Spent. If you’d like to see videos of the event, there are a ton posted on YouTube. Alissa also threw some up on Saturday. That post also has a few reports from other tappers about the event. One of my fervent hopes is that there will be more concerts or maybe Gracie will release a DVD of the concert. It would definitely be something I’d like to add to my collection.

Well my friends, I think that’s enough words about the event from this wook. Y’all stay classy as usual and here’s a great image to remind you how much fun this event was. Hopefully seeing all the pics makes up for anyone not able to go.

TTFN… Wookiee out!

P.S. I know a couple tappers from here were there too. If you saw a debonair and handsome fellow with a dog and two punk rock teenagers… you had a verified sighting of the Wookiee.