Warning: Long winded and in depth review of Broadway's Bandstand to follow. Spoilers included.

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So based on my last update, I am sure that most of you know I saw Bandstand last night. Beforehand I'd listened to like four of the songs and that was it, so other than the basic idea of the plot I had no idea what was going to happen. Still, I was really excited to see it and was hoping to really like it. I did.

Bandstand was phenomenal. It literally changed me; I am not even exaggerating. It is amazing and I'm so sad that it closed so soon because this is a show that everyone should see. The cast was superb and the storyline and themes were fantastic!!!!!

I'll start with the dancing. AMAZING!!! I really love swing dancing, I think it looks like so much fun, and I was thrilled that it was used so much throughout the musical!!! Like, I saw them in the Tony's last year, but actually watching the whole show was great!

The songs were great too and the actors sang with so much heart and I can't even describe how well they did with it. It's truly beyond words.

Laura was amazing!!! I am now sure that I want to see her performing live someday, because she did such a good job as Julia. 'Love Will Come and Find Me Again' was great and she sounded wonderful. Then at the end with 'Welcome Home' she brought me to tears. She was crying and I was crying and the people behind me were crying... It was great.

The band was awesome, all of their personalities and lines were so entertaining and the actors were great at showing what their characters were struggling with. It's hard to describe, but they really captured the whole 'trying to cover up/forget what happened' thing.

Joey Pero(Nick) and Nate Hopkins(Jimmy) were great too! They both really added to the group and did a good job portraying the struggles of their characters. And Nick(Alex) was hilarious.

Davy was played by Brandon J. Ellis and he did a really good job!!! To me, there were a few scenes that he really stood out to me. At one part he's talking to Julia about how no matter how much he drank, he'd never be able to forget what he saw. Another was when they were told they'd have to pay their own way to New York. I feel like he really captured how some veterans felt and he did a great job with it. And his jokes were awesome.

Johnny was portrayed by Joe Carroll and he was so innocent and funny!!! Every time he talked about the accident I felt so bad for him. But even though he was suffering through some terrible things, he still seemed to be trying to be happy and optimistic. And the part when he told Julia that he was lucky because he could forget... it broke my heart. And I'm pretty sure that there were people in the accident with him who died that he just forgot about.

Geoff Packard(Wayne) was so good. Like, probably my favorite in the band other than Donny. Wayne likes order and follows a schedule and I loved that because it was like Wayne was trying to make up for all the chaos that he faced by controlling the things he could. I will say that when he was cleaning his gun, I really thought he was going to kill himself. Geoff did an outstanding job and he did little things that just made it better. Like when they were dancing and moving chairs, he kept adjusting the chairs and fidgeting with them. And during the last 'Welcome Home' when Julia talked about how 'his kids don't recognize their dad'(or something like that) he was crying while playing and it was amazing.

And, it's confirmed. They were not fake playing. All of them actually learned how to play their instrument. I cannot express how much I appreciate their effort. They learned to play and they did it so well!!!!

Now on to Donny. COREY IS AMAZING AND WAS THE BEST AND I CANNOT PICTURE ANYONE ELSE IN THIS ROLE EVER. HE IS SO UNDER APPRECIATED AND DESERVES SO MUCH BETTER BECAUSE HE IS SO TALENTED.

Oh my gosh. He was so good. His singing was phenomenal as always. 'Donny Novitski' was great and he was so funny, his expressions when he was trash talking Frank Sinatra were great, the whole theater was laughing. During his songs he gave so much emotion, especially when he did 'Welcome Home' and 'Right This Way'.

'Right This Way' basically got a standing ovation. It started with what looked like a flashback for all the guys because they all got really tense and were flinching and Donny was on the floor and he was shaking. Then he started singing and he kept getting more and more worked up and at the end they all stood together and it was so fantastic and I can't describe it in a way that does it justice. Luckily, you guys are Fansies, so I'll compare it to 'The Moment' in Newsies, because I know you'll understand that.

Another time Corey broke everyone's heart was when he was explaining how Michael died and he was yelling and crying and talking about how he stayed all night with the body holding the pieces together and I was almost sobbing and feeling nauseous at the same time. But Corey's acting was top notch. Seriously, GET THIS GUY A STINKING TONY OR SOMETHING.

(I know this is getting long; bear with me.)

The symbolism in this was done so well. Throughout the musical they had guys dressed up as soldiers and they would come out when the band was struggling and they would be like memories of the vets. During the part I thought Wayne was going to kill himself, they had the guys dancing in the background and they seemed very out of control, like how Wayne's thoughts would have been. There were other times when these 'soldiers' would grab onto Donny and pull him back like the memories were hanging onto him.

There was another part where he was having a really bad day and he was playing the piano and four dead soldiers were pushing the piano across the stage. There were several other parts when similar things happened and I love how it represented the war following them wherever they went.

One more thing(I promise this is it.)

The first song was 'Just Like It Was Before' and that's so well done on their part. Basically everyone was celebrating that the war was over and how everything was going to go back to how life was before the war. That really leads into the whole concept of the show because that's how people really felt, but for the soldiers life would NEVER be the same. All of them are suffering, not sleeping, drinking, trying to distract themselves, and some committed suicide.

That was mentioned too when Donny's talking to some random guy and the guy tells him, "I've been to three funerals this month. Nobody's talking about it because those guys came back fine a while ago. They wanted a way to make it stop. Find something quick."

The people didn't talk about what was going on with the vets when they came back. They just wanted to forget about it and move on. This story shows what some of these men went through and they wanted to win the contest so they could let the other vets know that they weren't alone and that the other guys understood. Julia acknowledged this in 'Welcome Home' when she says, "Knowing full well, darling, that your war's not ended."

Overall I was in awe. I was hoping to like it but I wasn't prepared to be absolutely obsessed. I got chills watching it and I was so moved. It also helped me understand my family. I have a grandfather who served in Vietnam, and he rarely talks about it.

I have another (late) grandfather who served in WW2. He didn't join until Germany had surrendered, but the war in the Pacific was still going on. He never talked to us about it and my mom said he never talked to her or her siblings either. I don't know anything about his time or if he experienced any combat, but I know that he was on a retrieval ship. So basically his ship would follow the path of the fighting and they'd clean up the bodies.

I'm so glad that through this musical the story is finally being told.

I'm sorry that I couldn't describe this very well, I have so many thoughts and the show was too good to put down into words.

But it's official; I'm obsessed with Bandstand and the Wattpad Bandstand Fandom needs to grow.