Seeing the Super Talented Pentatonix

On Wednesday night, I found myself in Fox Oakland Theatre, waiting for Pentataonix come on stage. Penta-who? Oh, you know. The season three winners of NBC's The Sing-Off. The winner of Best Arrangement, Instrumental Or A Capella at the 57th Annual GRAMMY Awards AND who presented the Lifetime Achievement Award alongside Barry Gibb. The group with the fourth best selling album in the U.S. in 2014 for the Platinum-certified That's Christmas to Me (and ahead of them: Frozen, Taylor Swift, and Sam Smith, a.k.a., THAT IS HUGE).

I first heard of Pentatonix (a.k.a. PTX) when they did an a cappella version of "Telephone" from Lady Gaga. Being a Little Monster myself, I knew I had to watch the video. And? LOVED it. I was so happy that they did it live on Wednesday.

I was in complete awe, as they performed for about 90 minutes straight. There was not a single back-up track to be heard or instrument in sight (except for a cello in the middle of the concert -- more on that later), or special fancy effects to be seen. All we saw Pentatonix (with a screen in the background, a bleacher-like set-up on stage) and all we heard was every one of their voices, individually and together. That's it. And for the show to be enjoyable for that long, without any of that? Completely amazing.

One of the most impressive performances of the night was when they did the evolution of music. It was a 4-5 minute performance of approximately 36 song snippets/verses, starting from the ELEVENTH (!!) century through the present. (And the Backstreet fan inside of me was so happy to hear them have "I Want It That Way" in there.) Im. Pres. Sive.

Another amazing moment was when Kevin Olusola played the cello AND beatboxed at the same time. Just another example of how Pentatonix is just filled with nothing but crazy talented people.

Some of my other favorite moments (I think there were too many), would have to be:

• Beyonce Medley: Queen Bey, ya'll. AND it includes Destiny's Child.
• La La Latch: Because Sam Smith, duh. Mashup of "La La" and "Latch."
• Let's Get It On: HILARIOUS and very enjoyable because they brought a fan on stage (need to see it!). Impressive showcasing of Scott Hoying's vocals.
• That's Christmas To Me: Introduced as Christmas in February, with the fireplace in the background and everything. Then, they turned all of that off and did it off-mic. Just beautiful. (And also pictured above.)

Leaving the concert to head out for a late dinner, all I could think of was how impressive Pentatonix is, made of incredibly hardworking, creative, and talented members. That Grammy win, PTX? So well deserved. Bravo!

Seeing New GRAMMY Winner Sam Smith

First and foremost, I feel like it would only be appropriate to congratulate Sam Smith on his FOUR shiny new GRAMMY awards that he took home this past Sunday. I'm so happy for him and it is so well deserved.

On January 31, Sam Smith came back to the Bay Area for the second leg of his "In a Lonely Hour" tour. I saw him live when he came to Oakland the first time around, and was so happy to see that he was coming back already. As soon as I saw the date announced the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, I KNEW I had to see him again. His voice is absolutely beautiful, and is even better live. Tickets to his show was such a hot commodity (partly thanks to the scalpers out there). Basically, if you didn't get it during the pre-sale, you were pretty much out of luck unless you want to shell out at least 3x the face value price on StubHub. Luckily, I was able to get mine during that pre-sale.

Since it was general admission (which I really, really hate, to be honest, for numerous reasons), one thing was for sure - I needed to get there early in order to actually see his face (I was sitting at the very last row possible last time!). My sister and I got there around 3pm, and there was quite a crowd already, but thankfully, the time didn't go by too slow. And as you can tell, I found myself in a pretty darn good spot on the floor.

For this second leg of the tour, Sam got a tad bit fancier with his stage set. With a voice like his though, you don't really need all the fancy shmancy stuff. All you really want to do is focus on him and his voice. Any big production probably would've taken some of that away, so I'm glad he kept it simple.

Sam sang pretty much all of the songs off of his album, and then some. He stripped down a few of the songs, which I think showed off his vocals perfectly.

Trying to meet him after the show is nearly a guarantee if you're quick enough and know where to go. If he knows he doesn't have time to come out, he lets us fans know via Twitter (as he did when he came to Oakland). And trust me, that was a goal of mine. Luckily, there was a couple of people rushing through the crowd to get out, and I was able to drag us out of there fairly quickly by using them as a guide. When we got to where Sam would come out, the crowd was very small (no more than 10-15 people, I'd say, which of course grew later).

After waiting for what seemed like the longest hour, Sam came out to greet us. It went by kind of quickly and I couldn't get a picture with him, but I'm glad I at least got his autograph. When he first came out, my immediate thought was, "Wow, he is tall." "AND handsome." *Sigh*

I don't know when he's coming back again, but you can bet that I will be there waiting for him, even if it's the dreaded general admission.

Anything for you, Sam.