Will You Join In Our Crusade: The Les Miserables Concert Comparisons!

Welcome, welcome, welcome!! The time has come...

Will You Join In Our Crusade: A Les Miserables Concert Comparison

a blog series by Amy and Petie

June 4-9, 2012

We are both Les Miserables fangirls. We each became acquainted and fell in love with the novel first. Then we experienced the glory of the musical concert: both versions! There is the 10th Anniversary Dream Cast Concert, and then the 25th Anniversary Concert. Both are fabulous. And both versions made us even bigger fans of Les Miserables.

After reading the book, Amy declared herself a die-hard devotee. But then she watched the 10th anniversary concert, and declared it again, louder, and then she watched the 25th anniversary concert and screamed it. For Petie, it began with the dramatized audiobook and then the book (twice!), and then she met Amy via the blogosphere, who stated passionately that no one could call herself a fan of Les Miz without seeing the concert. Therefore, after finally watching both versions of the concert, Petie likewise declared herself a die-hard devotee.

We've been emailing back and forth for several weeks now, debating our favorite actors for each version of the concert, who's better in which role, who totally nailed a certain role, which songs gave us goosebumps, and which scenes made us cry. Finally, we both decided we couldn't keep our fangirling to ourselves; we must share it with the blogging world and convince all our followers of the absolute epicness of the Les Miserables concert (if they aren't convinced already - because if they are, we congratulate them on their impeccable taste in musicals).

But of course, it wouldn't do to just simply tell you to watch the concert. As dedicated fans, we feel it is our duty to give you our full and complete opinions on which version of the concert and which actors are hands-down the best.

Thus, after nearly two months of collaboration, emails, writing, and re-writing (we spread it out and took our time so it wouldn't completely consume our lives...), we are very pleased to announce the commencement of Will You Join In Our Crusade: A Les Miserables Concert Comparison.

We chose to do this series during the first full week of June for a specific reason.  June 5-7 marks the 180th anniversary of the Paris Rebellion of 1832, a major event featured in the story of Les Miserables. Also, 2012 marks the 150th anniversary of the novel's publication!

So join us this week, will you? We wrote each of our posts together and with great care. Expect them to be detailed, gushy, emotional, fangirly, and miserably long (ha! pun intended). Here's the schedule:

• June 5 - My Name is Jean Valjean: The Les Miserables Ensemble
• June 6 - Like You've Never Heard Us Ooh and Ahh: Why Michael Ball Is Epic and Nick Jonas Is Not
• June 7 - The Music of a People: The Songs of Les Miserables - Part 1
• June 8 - The Music of a People: The Songs of Les Miserables - Part 2
• June 9 - Do You Hear the Distant Drums: Our Conclusion to this Amazing Week

All posts will be published on both our blogs. We encourage you to visit both so you won't miss out on any of the juicy comment wars!

*important disclaimer: As much as we love Les Miserables and greatly want all of you to love it as much as we do, we cannot proceed without a word of caution. We can't endorse entirely all the content of this concert. As wonderful as it is, Les Miserables is a mature story that covers a lot of gritty, adult themes. We would definitely recommend that children under the age of 13 watch with a parent. There are just a couple songs in the first act that contain either mature material, downright unnecessary content, or some uses of crude language (because of which, we will be omitting those songs from our posts on the songs of Les Miz). We just wanted to give you a friendly warning. Please do not misinterpret our fan-ship. :)

As this blog series is celebrating two Very Important Anniversaries, we would like to encourage all of you to post about Les Miserables throughout the week. Let's celebrate this stupendous, history-making novel!

We're here because we are both genuinely touched by the story of Les Miz. We're here because we wish to commemorate the 180th anniversary of the Paris Rebellion, and the 150th anniversary of one of the best novels of all time. We're here because the characters are like family to us. We're here because Les Miz is a story like none other, and the musical enriches and enhances Victor Hugo's tale in a magical way. We're here because we're fans of the talented actors who made these concerts the breathtaking experiences that they are. We're here because we're two girls who can't go a day without belting out the tunes from the show. We're here because Michael Ball dissolves us into little puddles... Ahem. (There will be plenty more on that subject. Trust us.)

People, we're here because we love Les Miserables, and that's all there is to it.
So...

in much anticipation,
Amy and Petie