Scott Alan in Concert

Scott Alan. Where to start?

I went to his concert in Hollywood on September 19, and it was perhaps the best $15 I've spent in a long time. The venue, M Bar, was smaller than I'd expected (according to their website, they have an approximate seating capacity of 95), and I ended up sitting in a booth right at the very front.

It was a very casual and entertaining evening. Scott sang the majority of the songs, with each of his six guests (Eden Espinosa, Hadley Fraser, Jenna Leigh Green, Megan Hilty, Maurice Murphy, and Tracie Thoms) singing one song each.

While I'd been fairly well acquainted with the music from Scott's two cds, I knew very little about Scott himself. That soon changed, as between songs Scott talked about his experiences that inspired the songs, as well as any other random stories that came to mind. (Ever wonder how Scott and Megan Hilty met? It was at Shoshana Bean's Rosh Hashanah party. They were on the same team for charades, and came in last place. Apparently Megan's really bad at it.)

I really loved the simplistic arrangement of all the songs, using just a piano, and I found myself paying much more attention to the lyrics than I had before. Unfortunately, due to our viewing angle, I could only see Scott's back as he sang, but the emotions were still clear in his voice.

Much of the humor throughout the night came from Scott's interactions with the guest performers, who all seemed ready to give him a hard time. While talking about the original version of "Let Love Begin," Tracie described it as a Zoloft commercial: "He's like, 'This song is about coming out of depression!' I was like, 'I know. I could tell. Obviously.'"

Other hilarious highlights included Eden confronting Scott about not being asked back to his London concerts, Jenna challenging Scott's reasoning for her not being on his cds yet (he said it was because she was in LA - she told him there are planes), and then Megan oh-so-helpfully pointing out that she and Eden had been in LA, but flew to NY to record their songs.

Of course, each of the guests gave great vocal performances as well. As soon as I'd heard Scott was doing a concert in LA I knew I'd go, regardless of who else was there, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited about the guests once they were announced! I was especially excited about Jenna, since I missed seeing her as Nessa by a matter of days when she left the LA production, so I was glad to finally see her in something.

I could probably go on and on mentioning different things I liked from throughout the night, but instead I'll leave you with three videos I recorded from the concert: Megan singing "The Dance," Eden singing "Please Don't Let Me Go," and Jenna singing "Soar." Enjoy!