Review: The Hadestown Band Stretched Their Wings at Birdland's UNDERWORLD ORCHESTRA

They spend every night in hell, but the music on Monday night at Birdland was heavenly. On November 13th at 7 pm, members of the Hadestown orchestra took their one night off to dazzle Birdland with a selection of songs performed by current and former cast members. The featured vocalists were Amber Gray, Jewelle Blackman, Eva Noblezada, and Reeve Carney. Gray, Blackman, Noblezada and Carney are each stunning vocalists. Hearing them backed by the top-notch Hadestown band – including Ilusha Tsinadze on guitar, Cody Owen Stine on piano and accordion, Dana Lyn on violin, Marika Hughes on cello, Brian Drye on trombone, Nathan Koci on accordion and piano, Fima Ephron on guitar, and Ben Perowsky on drums, as well as serving as the host – was a real treat. They did a mix of rock (Amber Gray performed David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and Joni Mitchell’s “Don't Interrupt the Sorrow”) and classic Broadway (Eva Noblezada did a jazzy and fun rendition of “Cheek to Cheek”). All four highlighted their unique vocal talents – Reeve Carney did a few shouty, high energy rock songs, like The Beatles’ “Happiness is a Warm Gun,” proving that he could just as well be a frontman for a band as a leading role on Broadway. Jewelle Blackman put her soul into Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black.”

The band members and cast have such great chemistry together, it was delightful to see. At one point, while the band was taking a beat to set up sheet music for the next song, Reeve Carney riffed that they would now perform the music of John Cage. He waited for a beat of silence before declaring, “They’re actually doing it right now!”

The night also marked a special occasion: this was the week at which Hadestown passed Promises, Promises for number of performances, bringing it to number 83 on the list of longest-running Broadway shows. Amber Gray celebrated this by singing a gorgeous version of “Promises, Promises.” Hadestown has such a full score with such big vocal numbers, it’s no wonder it’s introduced a new generation of talented Broadway stars. It was so fun to see the band get the chance to stretch their abilities a bit on some thrilling jazzy numbers, with vocalists every bit as talented as they are. This is, I believe, the second installation of this show (they did another one this May, also at Birdland), but I certainly hope that it’s not the last.

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The photo used in this article is from the Broadway World database and not from the performance being reviewed.