Sorry, this is ridiculously long...
So, I super-spoiled myself. I went to SOI twice – Hamilton and London. Basically, I justified it to myself by remembering that our opportunity to see VM skate, live or otherwise, was dwindling. In retrospect, I went to two very good shows to attend. In Hamilton, everyone wants to put on a good show, because it’s being taped (and if they don’t have such a great skate, there’s always retakes and the magic of editing!) and in London, VM want to put on a good show because it’s the hometown crowd. (I think only the night of the last show can beat this, but I’m definitely not going to BC, LOL.) I definitely took more pictures in London, while in Toronto I mostly just watched. I’m just going to randomly talk here, sometimes just in general about the show, and sometimes specifically about a particular night.
Tessa is amazing. I know, we already knew that. But the world champions number was a real highlight for me. The choreography was tough for everyone, but let’s face it, being the only woman means having a lot of the attention and Tessa more than handles it. She shines. Twice she is lifted and she does these high kicks – seriously, she’s basically doing the splits she’s kicking so high. And during the sections in which she is in the air being supported by all the men – well, she’s really supporting herself. I’ve got one really bad picture, in which a couple of guys have her feet, a couple of guys have her shoulders, and her center is completely unsupported – and she still puts an arch in her back. Abs of… something harder than steel. And I can’t forget to mention Scott here, because although many of the times in which Tessa is in the air all of the guys are a part of it, Scott is the (pardon the term) heavy lifter. It makes sense, of course, because he’s most used to it, as well as being the person Tessa will trust most, and as a team be able to make it look the most efficient and attractive. But, for example, during the end when Tessa goes into the air to catch the umbrella, Scott is literally the one to lift her up initially, onto his shoulder, before the others get involved. Then, while the others look out into the audience, able to perform the moment as they spin, Scott is always looking up at Tessa. (And again, I’m looking at my pictures and wondering how the heck she is able to keep herself up there, and with a smile on her face no less.) Another thing that amused me during the champions number was, for once Scott was the tallest person there. (But in the other group numbers, there was never any missing Eric Radford!)
Hamilton was a little bit of an off night for a lot of skaters. For Patrick, it was kind of a mess! His first number, the hat number, had a fall and two misses with the hat. And then in the world champions number, he stumbled right near the beginning of the choreography. Other skaters had small oops… Shawn got his skate caught in his caterpillar costume (but handled it very well), there were popped jumps and stumbles from a few folks – to the point where Jeff, during his World Vision chat, joked about it and said for us to enjoy the second act, and from the sounds of things, the third act (meaning, all the re-takes). Patrick’s second number was much, much better. But when Kurt came out, oh, ouch. He had a little oops during his Singing in the Rain, but the biggest oops was that… it didn’t rain. This was something that could really only happen once, so he came out and did most of the number again! (At 46, a double run-through at the end of a show and knowing you still have a group number and a re-take for the world champions must be horrible.) But to make matters worse, he fell on a jump. And did another run, and absolutely splatted on his double axel following that. And he still came around and did the freakin’ thing. Amazing. And when it rained it must have been a relief! The audience was getting louder in its support the longer he had to skate. Needless to say, it was a standing ovation (he received on for his first number, too, which was gorgeous; and VM received one for Carmen. Other numbers got partial standing O’s. London, on the other hand, was much more conservative, and only gave Kurt’s Singing in the Rain a standing ovation, and of course the very end of the show like always.)
Following the final group number in Hamilton was all the retakes. First Kurt chatted to the audience while everyone scrambled into costume changes – it took a long time, and he pulled out old jokes, like, “It’s just a zipper!” and peeking behind the curtain and then exclaiming, “Nope, still naked!”. But he entertained and got of the ice so fast when Jeff came out to do a retake, it was also funny. They didn’t do full run-throughs, but just the parts when they needed to fix something. As Kurt said about his Singing in the Rain number, he hoped they would be able to “duct tape” it together enough to get a decent edit. Occasionally, we as an audience were actually wondering what the skater had messed up the first time, to need a retake (though with some thought it would come back). But the funniest (to us) and worst (for the skaters) was the world champions number. As I said, Patrick stumbled during the actual skate, but then they had to do a retake three times! The first time, Tessa screwed up the choreography. I can say this, the skaters were laughing too, with the audience. Then I think it was Kurt (but I might be mis-remembering) who screwed up. The funniest thing about the third time, was that the music has this over-voice, in which each skater is introduced (ie. “World Champion, Kurt Browning”) and a spotlight highlights them. It was just that way, during the real take, and the first two re-takes. But on the third time around, they announced Tessa first (who was normally last!), so that they skipped all the first part and just went straight into the choreography. Tessa looked so surprised, but she barely missed a beat, struck her pose and got her ass in gear. The audience was killing themselves laughing at this point. I’ll be really curious to see what happens in the broadcast. Finally, they had what they needed from the program, and everyone skated to the exit. They paused while Patrick got the microphone to end the night, and everyone else was sliding the snow off their skates and throwing it at him.
I’ll be the first to admit that in the past, I’ve praised Tessa for being the most committed skater in the group numbers. And don’t misunderstand me, she was still probably the best, just because she really does commit to every move, and with her dancer’s lines she always stands out. But Scott was really impressing me too this year – every time I looked at him he was putting it all right in. (But you know, I have to give credit to the choreography and all the skaters. The show was really impressive, in every way.) The one part that makes me laugh in both sets of pictures is during the group number “Come Together” when the skaters are in a circle, holding hands, and they’re doing a ‘wave’ around the circle with their arms. It’s effective, but it’s a breather moment, and Scott’s totally in the zone, looking focussed inward and just breathing and absorbing… while Tessa’s much more aware of Scott and Kurt (the skater’s she’s holding hands with) and of where the arm-wave is in the circle, and smiling and performing.
Let’s see… at Hamilton’s show, during the Lindt promotion, Scott called Tessa “Tess”, but at the London show, it was “kiddo”.
I found the London Carmen to be very… closing. Maybe it wasn’t to them, because they have to perform it a number of times still. But there it was, Carmen back on the London ice. When they were finished their bows, they looked at each other, for what felt like a long moment and probably wasn’t, before joining hands again and skating off the ice.
Um, I’ll probably add more, later, because looking through pictures always reminds me of things I’ve forgotten (and is part of why I love to take them)… but also feel free to ask me questions and I’ll see if I know or remember the answer, LOL.
Pictures will be up, eventually. I'm surprised at how many I took at London... some of which actually turned out okay.
ETA: because Tessa rocked so much (with Scott as her rock) that I couldn't resist putting up a picture now:
