It is time.
Juan Diego vs Nathan Gunn.
The categories are singing skill, acting, charisma, hawtness, friendliness and overall encounter experience.
Singing skill: Okay this isn't really fair since they sing different voice parts. But I think in spite of that, it's no contest. Juan Diego has the best singing voice of anyone, anywhere, male, female, tenor, bass, baritone and everything in between.
Acting: They're both pretty good, but I think Nathan is better.
Charisma, on stage: Now I thought about this carefully while watching Juan Diego perform on Saturday. He's good, but I think Nathan is better. I'm not talking about singing techniques, I'm talking about having that Certain Something that makes me feel a part of the action. That's not to say that Juan Diego doesn't have it, but Nathan has more. Juan Diego has that voice, but Nathan has the total package - a nice voice, a great body, he's totally cute and has this phenomenal stage presence.
Charisma, in person: Will address this under 'friendliness.'
Hawtness: Juan Diego who? No, really. He's cute and all, but I had my arm around each of them. There is no contest. Nathan wins in this as much as Juan Diego wins in the singing category. There was a point when Juan Diego was all sweaty on stage and I was like, "ew, he's kind of sweaty." When Nathan was all sweaty on stage I was like, "Aww Riiiiight, look at him! He's all sweaty!!!!" Juan Diego is a clean cuteness. Nathan can pull of clean, but he's mighty fine when he's in need of a shower. Well, from a scent-free distance at least. Nathan squeezered me into him. Juan Diego's arm was firmly around me but I was doing more squeezering than he was. Of course, I haven't seen Juan Diego with his clothes off, but having felt him through his jacket (*snort*) I don't need to. He's compact, that's for sure, but... anyway...
Friendliness: They're both friendly, but in different ways. The context was different so it's hard to tell. With Juan Diego, I was the youngest person there, the easiest on the eyes (no seriously you should have seen the motley crew I was mixed in there with) and I was the only one who treated him like a normal person. He was a normal person right back to me, really nice about the photo and all that. Nathan I met backstage and there was no one else there. I dropped a name of a mutual friend so there was something to talk about. There was that eye contact... precisely because there was no one else there. Well wait a minute he started that again at Zankel before I freaked out... Nathan is definitely more shy... except when he was squeezering me into him. He certainly wasn't shy about that.
Now hang on here, I've overlapped into Overall Experience. So to get back to friendliness, equal.
Overall experience: Now this is hard, because I'm still giggly from meeting Juan Diego, but the Nathan encounter was so much more personal and intense that he wins. Plus he replied to my email, always a good thing.
So the winner is... Nathan Gunn!
Now I'll have to award a prize... hmm... any ideas?
8 comments:
The best prize for either of them or both would be NOT bothering them ever again.
It's even silly to compare two tenors or two baritones, but to do what you are doing...is REALLY silly, to say the very least.
Sorry about being a little harsh, but somebody had to hit you with a reality stick!
Try to think more about music, and a little less about other things.
OH MY GOD!! I just realized that you must have been there with LOOPY LINDA and her crazy gang. It's a bunch of old ladies who are there EVERY night just to get autographs. One has a hairy chin...ewwww....and they dress like they're alpacas. You must have been, by comparison "hawwwwwwt!!!"
-Jimmy
I love the 1st Anon comment! Silly is the point! Silly with a capital SIL! I get plenty of reality in Real Life as Mother, Wife, Employee, Daughter, Sister... this blog is all about ME! ME ME ME ME!!!! I'll think about and write about whatever I want. I will compare apples with oranges, tenors with baritones, and OH YEAH, MY experience meeting two different people. I've said it in plenty of my posts - go read a different blog if you want musical critique. My blog is about me. :) Thanks for the comment.
Jimmy- Yes! I didn't catch her name but the Alpaca woman was there. She had what looked like a big fat address book or appointment book and she was having them sign several pages. Maybe she has them sign on the date? And people were getting multiple copies of the program signed, and of course posters... It was bizarre! What stood out the most was, they just rudely shoved stuff in the singers' faces.
And to the 1st anon poster, that IS reality! :)
I KNOW!
Was one wearing a long MAROON coat? That's Linda.
The ALBUMS THEY HAVE! UGH! It's like a whole book of signatures.
"Sign here....and here...here again, here, and um..here. Wait....SIGN THIS TOO! WAIT!"
They're VERY rude. Don't even ask.
Then they take the weirdest photos! They're basically MUGSHOTS of the singers. I've seen Pape scold them. DD was like, "Um...okay."
Oh, and too the other "anon"...jeez, lay off of Susan. Like she said, go read some other blog if you want in depth musical analysis. Susan puts it in layman's terms, and I prefer that. It makes it more personal.
When reading a restaurant review, do you want to know at what temperature the chef grills the steak? And how many peas there were? No. You want to know if it was tasty and pleasing to all the senses. If it was well presented. What the FEELING was.
Susan does just that with Music. So BACK OFF! OR YOU'LL HAVE TO DEAL WITH HER OTHER READERS!
-Jimmy
PS. Signing anon is for sissies.
All I know is I want to be at the next Nathan Gunn one with you! Can I hug him too? Wooo Hooo!
Absolutely! Although I have to warn you, he might be all tired out from squeezering me. In fact, I think he still may be recovering from our March squeezering and our April brief encounter. ;)
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