Tag Archives: high school musical

High School Musical: The Ice Tour (Part 2)

Music & Theatre, TV & Movies

As I mentioned in my first entry, I watched High School Musical: The Ice Tour in Araneta Coliseum (Quezon City, Philippines) in July 2008 with my niece Raicielle, nephew Brian and boyfriend Sidney. The second half of the show told the story of HSM2. When the final school bell rang, signifying the beginning of the summer break, everyone performed “What Time Is It?”, which is a very catchy tune. If I were still a student, this would probably be my theme song (“no more waking up at 6 am…”).

At the Lava Springs, Ryan, Sharpay and the Sharpettes performed “Fabulous,” happy that they were going to spend their summer at their parents’ country club. Troy and the rest of the Wildcats were also spending their summer at Lava Springs, albeit as employees (working as waiters, lifeguards, etc). Following the instructions of Sharpay, the club manager, Mr. Fulton, tried to make things difficult for them, hoping to get everyone except Troy to quit. They felt discouraged until Troy began to sing “Work This Out.”

Kelsi later played the song she composed for Troy and Gabriella, “You Are the Music in Me,” a song that I really like except that music is pronounced in the song as mu-SIC instead of MU-sic. While working at Lava Springs, a rift slowly began to form between Troy and his friends, mainly because of Sharpay and her manipulations. During the staff baseball game, Gabriella and Taylor invited Ryan along (who took Troy’s place since he didn’t show up), where he and Chad performed “I Don’t Dance” while playing baseball. I did think it’s really funny for someone to sing “I don’t dance” while actually dancing.

Troy and Sharpay practiced the very upbeat “You Are the Music in Me (Sharpay Version)” complete with special effects, like in the movie. When Sharpay found out that her twin Ryan was choreographing the Wildcats for the country club’s Midsummer Night’s Talent show, she told Mr. Fulton to ban employee participation. Troy’s relationship with Gabriella hit the breaking point then, and she performed “Gotta Go My Own Way.”

When Gabriella quit her job, Troy realized how badly he had been treating her and their friends, and performed “Bet On It.” I didn’t like this part very much in the movie because he did a couple of pretty weird moves, but the skating in the show was superb. Since this was a solo, the skater playing Troy had the chance to show off his skating skills.

After this, Troy finally told Sharpay off for not treating his friends well and only agreed to sing with her if his friends were allowed to perform in the talent show too. With the help of everyone (especially Ryan and Kelsi), he performed “Everyday” with Gabriella, along with the rest of the Wildcats. The show ended with “All for One,” another catchy tune, and I was again pleased to see that they used some of the choreography from the movie.

So what did I think of High School Musical: The Ice Tour? The skaters playing Gabriella and Sharpay had pretty obvious wigs. But that’s okay because the skater playing Troy, Chad, Martha, Kelsi and Ms. Darbus looked very similar to the movie actors.

It was worth every peso I spent for our tickets since we not only had the chance to relive 2 movies we all enjoyed, but we also got to watch great skating as well. My nephew reminded me that it has been years since I last took them ice skating, so I guess I’ll have to plan another skating session soon.

High School Musical: The Ice Tour (Part 1)

My niece Raicielle and nephew Brian both loved the two High School Musical movies (okay, I did too), so when I found out about the High School Musical: The Ice Tour at the Araneta Coliseum (Quezon City, Philippines) on July 2008. Unfortunately, I forgot to buy tickets earlier than I planned to, so we wound up getting just upper box B seats. It turned out okay because we came early and were able to find good seats right in the middle.

It was the first time I went to a show where 70% of the audience were kids. And screaming kids at that. I kept telling my boyfriend Sidney that I suddenly felt so old, and I’m still in my twenties! I think there was even a school which had a field trip there, and I kept thinking – why didn’t my teachers think of bringing us to shows like that instead of museums for my grade school field trips?

I wasn’t sure what to expect of the show. Perhaps just a couple of people skating and dancing to the popular songs from both High School Musical 1 and 2. I already knew from some promotional pictures that some skaters would be dressed up as the main characters of the movie – Troy Bolton, Gabriella Montes, Sharpay Evans, Ryan Evans, Chad Danforth and Taylor McKessie. What I didn’t know was that they would actually be retelling both movies using the character of Kelsi Nielsen (the composer and “playmaker”) as narrator to fill in the gaps for those who haven’t seen the movies yet.

The show started with the entire cast doing an upbeat version of “Start of Something New,” and each of the main characters was introduced. Surprisingly, they even had minor characters like Martha Cox (the healthy girl who likes hip-hop) and Zeke Baylor (the basketball player who wanted to bake the perfect crème brulee).

The first half told the story of HSM1 – starting with Troy and Gabriella’s “Start of Something New” karaoke performance. Troy and the team did “Get’cha Head in the Game” afterwards which must have been difficult. Shooting and dribbling a ball while skating on ice looked challenging, and Sidney pointed out that none of the skaters except Troy was able to nail a shot in their makeshift court. Sharpay and Ryan then performed my personal favorite, “What I’ve Been Looking For,” even taking some of the choreography from the movie. Kelsi played the slow version, which Troy and Gabriella performed as well, getting them a callback from Ms. Darbus.

“Stick to the Status Quo,” another personal favorite of mine, came next. The set-up was quite similar to that in the movie, with Sharpay and Ryan at the balcony, and everyone around their respective tables. In the next scene, Chad and the other Wildcats got Troy to say that singing and Gabriella were not important to him. Gabriella heard him, as did Taylor and the others from the scholastic decathlon team, through a mobile phone (not a webcam like in the movie). The upset Gabriella then skated a smooth solo to the song, “When There Was Me and You,” which my nephew didn’t like in the movie because he thought Gabriella was being overly dramatic.

The next song was “Bop to the Top” by Ryan and Sharpay during the callbacks. There were moments when they would suddenly freeze in position and the spotlight would focus on either the scholastic decathlon or the basketball championship, which were happening simultaneously. There was this really, really cool scene where they did a slow motion to make sure the ball gets in the hoop. You’d have to see it to appreciate it, but it was very nicely done, and was the highlight for me of the entire show.

This was followed by “Breaking Free” by Troy and Gabriella. It was amazing to hear all the kids singing along. Okay, so I was singing along to all the songs too, but that’s beside the point. The first half ended with the entire cast performing “We’re All in This Together,” and I was so happy that they got the choreography on the chorus from the movie.

There was a brief intermission between the first half of the show (HSM1) and the second half of the show (HSM2), so I had time to stretch my legs. You can read about the second part here.