It's been a few days since the first concert, but I still wanted to post my review, which I hadn't gotten around to writing yet. I ended up with a lot of thoughts and not as much of a chronological review, but hopefully it makes some sense even so.
The Libera concert at Christ Cathedral was my first time seeing Libera live, even though I've been listening to them for about 6 or 7 years, since I'd been a student and hadn't had the means to travel to see them. Needless to say, I was very excited for the concert. As I mentioned in a previous post, I traveled there with my dad and my two sisters. My 15-year-old sister is also a Libera fan, and my 10-year-old sister is too, at least to some extent. I wasn't sure how much my dad would enjoy the concert, since he's not usually into Libera's music, although he seems to enjoy it on occasion. We had special front seating tickets and ended up in the second row, so we had a good view.
My expectations were that it would be a wonderful and thoroughly enjoyable concert; at the same time, I know from experience how difficult it can be to get the harmonies tuned quite right. In the choir that I sing in, there's always something to work out, especially with the tuning: the sopranos are a little sharp or the altos are flat, the basses aren't hitting their note quite right and it's messing up the whole chord, etc. Knowing how difficult it is for reasonably good singers to sing perfectly in tune, I wasn't quite expecting Libera's harmonies to sound as flawless as they do on their recordings.
However, the first song, San Damiano, completely blew me away. I couldn't believe that the boys could actually sing that well live. The harmonies sounded amazing all the way through, including the incredible high notes. In addition, the energy of the live performance made it that much more incredible. My sister and I kept looking at each other in amazement during that first song, with our expressions basically saying, "What? They actually sound that amazing in real life?" During the entire concert, Libera's harmonies were amazing.
Others have already described most of the songs, so I don't want to describe each one in depth, but I greatly enjoyed all of them. It was especially interesting for me to hear solos by different boys than on the albums. Angele Dei with Rocco was a different experience than the recorded version with Alex Montoro; while I might prefer one or the other, they each have their own unique characteristics. I thought Rocco did an especially good job on Amazing Grace - that was my favorite solo of his. Merlin brought his own gentle touch to From a Distance, which gave the song a slightly different feel.
I also really did enjoy Camden's voice on Angel, which I thought suited the song very well. Although I don't care for the lyrics of Angel all that much, I didn't want that to spoil the experience of the song, and I did very much enjoy it. I also liked the boys' speech about how they liked that song since they could sometimes get into Univeral Studios for free if they sang it.
I was really pleased that they sang Salva Me and Libera, since they haven't recorded either of them lately and they're kind of classic Libera songs. In Salva Me, I love the effects with the lighting and with Taichi standing above the rest of the group. All of that sort of thing I was aware of from concert reviews in the past, and to some extent with the live DVDs, but it was much cooler to experience the lighting, positioning, and sometimes choreographed movements in person.
Apart from the amazing harmonies when the whole group was singing, some of the biggest highlights for me were Gabe and Alex Gula's solos. Gabe completely nailed his solos, and I absolutely love his voice. (A random surprise is that he wasn't quite as tall as I expected, somehow - I guess his fairly mature-sounding voice made me think he would be taller? My sister and I were both surprised.) I thought his voice fit Wonderful World very well; it's not a favorite Libera song of mine, usually, but it was very nice in the concert. I also loved his duet with Alessandro on Smile. I think Gabe's voice is perfect for Smile, and I told him afterwards it was my favorite song of the concert. Others have also mentioned how Romeo participated in Smile with a recorder, and it was very, very cute.
Alex Gula's singing voice has a bit of a breathy sound similar to Sam's, but during his solos, especially How Great Thou Art, as the music grew, he allowed his voice to become richer. He did a wonderful job conveying the songs, and I loved his solos. He also did a fantastic job with his duet on Libera.
My sister and I were also very impressed with Leo. He wasn't the only one singing the high notes for most songs, but it was clear from his short solo in Sacris Solemnis that he could absolutely nail them. I hope he ends up with a recorded solo someday.
The speeches were great. I had heard about some of the speeches before, of course, from other concert reviews. However, for my dad, who doesn't follow Libera, the content in every speech (such as about practicing blindfolded, etc.) was completely new to him. It's possible my dad might have enjoyed the speeches as much as the rest of the concert - he thought all of them were very funny.
As others mentioned, the local children's choir joined Libera for Joyful Joyful. They didn't seem to have mics, but I could hear them very well since I was pretty close. While I generally prefer the pure sound of Libera, my sister and I figured that if things like that could be helpful for Libera to come to America (by building relationships with churches/other choirs, drawing more people to their concerts, etc.), then we were completely fine with it. I'm sure it was a very cool experience for the kids and their families as well, and there's no doubt it brought more people to the concert.
I had told my family as we were driving down there that I wouldn't be at all surprised if they sang America the Beautiful, and I was delighted when it turned out to be the encore. It's not usually a favorite Libera song of mine, but there was something very cool about being an American and having Libera sing America the Beautiful, in America. The lighting effects added to the experience. As I said, I was delighted. My dad seemed very pleased about it too - it's at least one Libera song that I think he likes pretty well.
The signing afterwards was great, although the boys seemed very tired and didn't seem up to chat very much. (Not at all surprising, and very understandable.) But they were very polite, if not super interactive - they posed for photos and said "Thank you," when I let them know how much I enjoyed the concert. The older boys were a bit more awake, and Neo still seemed to have quite a bit of energy and gave us some big smiles. The best part of the signing was when we realized that Oliver was apparently signing programs by scribbling on them, which we all thought was great and very funny. The three of us who got our programs signed each have a purple scribble with a somewhat different shape/size.
It was also nice to briefly chat with a few of you during the intermission, in between everything else that was going on.
Overall, it was a wonderful experience and it makes me want to see Libera again as soon as possible. I'm not sure when that will be, but hopefully now that I've finished college, it will be a little easier.