Part of the NYMF 2006 line up this year were concerts at ARS NOVA, a great cabaret space at 54th and 10th (right next to The Colbert Report!). When I saw that Daniel Reichard was doing a "Midnight Kegger", I immediately said to myself what every mother would say -- "I must see this show and I must bring my kids!"

So my kids and I went to our very first Kegger, along with my hubbie. The Bad Mommy of the Year award is mine, I can feel it!

What an absolutely amazing concert. After driving from Syracuse, and seeing an 8pm show of GO GO BEACH down at 37 Arts Theatre, we all piled in a taxi and headed north to get our seats for the midnight show! I've seen Daniel Reichard playing Bob Gaudio in JERSEY BOYS three times and absolutely love him! I'm sorry I never got to see RADIANT BABY at The Public Theatre, which chronicled the life of Keith Haring, and which he starred in as Haring. Anyway, it was pretty impressive he was doing the kegger show on a Friday night, with two JERSEY BOYS shows to do the next day! Ah, the young.

This was my favorite show of the weekend. Daniel is an amazing talent, and I loved the songs he chose from his high school daze in the '80s (hence the Kegger theme).

Of course the audience was filled with fans who wanted to listen to the music, so there was drinking, but it was an extremely wonderful geeky "I want to hear the music" kind of crowd. The performers kept encouraging the audience to get rowdier and go buy beer (or "sauce" as Daniel called it). We did our best, but gosh darn it, we really just wanted to hear the music!

The band was amazing (and it wasn't too loud, yeah!) which isn't surprising given that the piano player (Eric Svejcar), the drummer (Brad Carbone) and bass guitar (Steve Gilewski) make up the amazing band for JACQUES BREL IS ALIVE AND WELL AND LIVING IN PARIS, which is playing at the Zipper Theatre. This band also featured Steve Gibbs on lead guitar and he too was spectacular! I found myself just watching Eric, going nuts on piano! Eric is also the Musical Director at JACQUES BREL. Gee it's fun to watch and listen to great musicians. Sort of like when I would divide my time between watching the band and watcing the stage during MOVIN' OUT. Once a band geek, always a band geek.

Daniel has an easy performance style (and a great voice) and his selection of guests (a lot of them were from the cast of JERSEY BOYS!) was great fun: Clark Thorell, Dominic Nolfi, Rhett George, Wendy Ho, Steve Gouveia, Maddy Wyatt, Donnie Kehr, and Kelly Kinsella. Christian Hoff was on the program, but unfortunately couldn't be there.

Daniel started off the show with the duet "The Girl Is Mine" -- just cheesy enough to set the tone for the evening! Some of my favorite moments including singing along with "Daydream Believer" and "Leaving on a Jet Plane", rockin' out to "Jesse's Girl" and "Sweet Home Alabama". Donnie Kehr did "Sweet Home Alabama" and had the audience eating out of his hand. At one point we had to yell out where we were from -- ie. "Sweet Home..." The loudest won the chance to go on stage and chug a small glass of beer. Wild and crazy stuff.

Wendy Ho, a sort of new millennium Bette Midler, was hilarious and a real crowd pleaser with her song, devoted to...the desire to be loved...('nuff said).

My daughter Myrna thought the highlight of the evening was when Daniel played guitar and sang "the potato song" (po-ta-to-po-ta-to etc) to the tune of the Mexican Hat Dance. It was truly mexcellent!

We were so sad when it was over (except my youngest, who slept through most of it), and dragged ourselves back to the hotel at 2am. Great show, dude.

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