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Piano Guys: Live in Singapore!


THE PIANO GUYS LIVE IN SINGAPORE

THE PIANO GUYS

THE STAR THEATRE

APRIL 13 2015

It is without doubt that social media has changed the landscape of entertainment and popular culture forever. Talent alone isn’t enough nowadays, and the need to be visible to the public has seen most musical acts transform into displays of obscenity.


What then, do we make of the fact that one of the hottest groups today happen to be four middle-aged dads who play classical instruments and have a really unimaginative name? It is a miracle, to say the least.


Starting off as promotional videos for a piano store in Utah, The Piano Guys have swept to superstardom with a blend of goofiness and a unique personal take on music. Instead of incorporating popular culture into classical music, they’ve done the opposite and adapted works by Beethoven and Bach into hit songs by singers like Taylor Swift and Cold Play. Perhaps their appeal lies in the fact that they resemble one of us instead of a packaged product.


While Jon Schmidt (Piano) and Steven Nelson (Cello) take center-stage as their frontmen, behind the scenes Paul Anderson is the genius behind it all as well as their videographer and Al Van Der Beek takes charge of producing their music.


Their two-hour long concert at The Star Theatre showed them to be true entertainers, with Nelson dazzling on his various celli and Schmidt showing his skills on the keyboard. It is not enough to merely play their instruments though, and their light-hearted banter included backhanded jibes at each other.


Their music is often played to projected videos on the backdrop, which have departed from the days of Steven clones and lightsaber cello bows and look more suited for motivational purposes.


Who would’ve thought to mix melodies from Beethoven’s 5th Symphony with Secrets by OneRepublic, or completely rewrite One Direction’s Story of my Life to become soundtrack for a shortfilm about the beauty of families?


They are no slouches on their instruments either, with Nelson showing his proficiency in Bach’s Unaccompanied Cello Suite complete with loops and percussion effects by tapping on the strings and body of his instrument, and Schmidt showing some nimble fingerwork in a steroid-infused version of Pachelbel’s Canon in D as well as some hilarious dancework.


Van Der Beek’s touching speech about the joys of fatherhood squeezed a few tears from the audience as he sang their original song “Father’s Eyes”, while Anderson made it a foursome as they ended the night with Ants Marching/Ode To Joy which saw them take turns playing on the inside of the piano and on two cellos.


Marketing ingenuity and social media might have made their meteoric rise to fame possible, but it is their ear for music that suits their style as well as their unassuming personality that will sustain their popularity. Afterall, the astronauts may have put human beings on the moon, but The Piano Guys put a piano on the Great Wall of China.



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