Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and the greatest concert films ever | Nation & World

Did you miss Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour or Beyoncé's Renaissance World Tour? Fear not Swifties and fans of Queen Bey as they both have concert films due out soon.

Concert films are nothing new. Since "Woodstock" in 1970 — and even some earlier films that The Beatles did as they slowed and stopped touring — films have captured important festivals and tours, and provided insight into bands as well as the fans during specific time periods.

And even acclaimed directors have gotten into the act. Martin Scorsese has directed some of the most notable concert and musician biopics of all-time when not busy with gritty dramas.

Crank up the volume as co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz talk about their favorite concert films of all time, discuss the marketing genius that is Taylor Swift, and share additional stories and thoughts as well.

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About the show

Streamed & Screened is a podcast about movies and TV hosted by Bruce Miller, a longtime entertainment reporter who is now the editor of the Sioux City Journal in Iowa and Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer for Lee Enterprises based in Madison, Wisconsin.

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Headliner and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Terry Lipshetz: Welcome, everyone, to another episode of Streamed and Screened an entertainment podcast about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and co host of the program with our band leader Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and a longtime entertainment reporter. So if you're John Lennon, does that.

Bruce Miller: Make me Ringo? No Paul McCartney. Oh, I'mccartney you get to be the big one. Why not go for the good one, right?

Terry Lipshetz: Exactly.

Taylor Swift's concert film is coming out next week

Terry Lipshetz: So music. Taylor this is the week.

Bruce Miller: This is the week. Did you know this? If you were a Swiftie, you would know these kinds of things, and that is that Taylor Swift's movie is coming out in the next week, and it's based on her era's tour. What I like to look at this as those of us who couldn't afford or get tickets to her tour will be able to see it without having to really bust a hump.

Terry Lipshetz: That's the best part to me about concert films is that it's a great way to get you to the show, if you can't get to the show, because sometimes some of these tour stops and, I mean, you're in Iowa, so for you, how often does I mean, you'll get shows. Sure, come to Iowa, but not something this big, right?

Bruce Miller: Yeah.

Terry Lipshetz: You got to travel. You got to go to Chicago or, Minneapolis.

Bruce Miller: I had friends tell me they spent $12,000 to see Taylor Swift.

Terry Lipshetz: Holy cow.

Bruce Miller: $12,000. Someday this will sound like I'm, absurd thinking that that's a lot of money, but in this day, it's a lot of money. It factors in the price of the tickets, the cost of getting there, the hotel room you have to have. I mean, it's like, I don't know that there's anybody on this earth that I would spend $12,000 to see.

Terry Lipshetz: I don't have that kind of spending cash.

Bruce Miller: But knowing that it is coming out on film, on DVD, I'm sure eventually all those kinds of things, it's an opportunity for all of us to enjoy whatever it was that was put out there and then maybe be even a little more critical about what they saw. Because I think they were all caught up in the enthusiasm of the moment. So I don't know. Maybe it isn't that good. Maybe 44 songs is too many. Who knows?

Terry Lipshetz: It sounds like, from what I've heard, it's a really good show. I've seen a lot of clips of it. If you like Taylor Swift, I think it's definitely a show you want to see. I keep hearing 44 songs, but it's not like she performs them in full. There are some snippets here and there, and she kind of goes through the eras. No word if there is ranch dressing involved. Did you hear about no, no. So she's dating or at least seeing Travis Kelsey from the Kansas. You can't escape.

Bruce Miller: Right.

Terry Lipshetz: So every little thing she does now gets dissected, and on social media. They were looking when she was at the Chiefs game in her luxury suite, somebody spotted a picture of her with a chicken finger on a plate with what appeared to be ketchup and then a white substance that was labeled as seemingly ranch. Seemingly ranch. So ranch dressing companies, are like, running with it. Taylor eats ranch dressing.

Bruce Miller: Who knew that she had such clout? Right.

Terry Lipshetz: Right. It's crazy.

Bruce Miller: Anything she does when she was here, she did play here way back in the early, early days when she was considered a country artist, if you dare say that. And, the thing I found most amazing about her is that she didn't do her t shirt in one style. She did the look of it in like five different colors. So these fans would want all five of them. And I thought that is a brilliant marketing decision by somebody that you weren't just getting the tour shirt, you were getting all of them. Because, if I'm going to get one, I got to have them all. What color do I pick? How do I pick? What am I going to do? So marketing genius. I think she's far more skilled at selling herself than she is at anything else. And that is not a diss. That means that she is just a genius at it. She should be teaching this at Harvard.

Terry Lipshetz: Well, you know, with me, I'm, a record collector because you've seen my music collection and stuff in the background. Taylor. It extends to releasing physical media. So with the, album, actually, all of her recent albums, she'll release it on vinyl on a standard black edition. Limited. Limited, but well, the black is always that's standard. You can get that anytime you want. But then there is a different colored version that you can buy at Target. And then you can buy four different versions with four different album covers on four different colors through her website. And she puts them up at these intervals, like for the next 48 hours, only you can buy this one. And then it goes away. And then people freak out because they're like, you're making me buy it multiple times and you're charging me shipping multiple times. Why can't you just put it all up? But people will do that. I've seen people on social media sharing out. She's only got it's not like she's got 35 albums. She's got a solid catalog of a dozen different albums or so. But each one has like five or six or ten variants. Like you could literally have a, ah, collection of 200 Taylor Swift records. And it's just like a dozen albums.

Bruce Miller: At this point, which is kind of unreal. That is crazy.

Terry Lipshetz: And people buy like Taylor's army. They will buy it. And it's like, as I said, I'm a record collector. I do have multiple copies of certain albums, but it's less about like, I need a black version and I need a green version and a red version. It's like I've got the original pressing, an early pressing of Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen. I have a Japanese copy. I have a UK copy. They're pressed in different places, so the sound might be a little bit different.

Bruce Miller: Are they unplayed? Do you keep them so that nobody touches them?

Terry Lipshetz: No, I play them. And that's a little bit of the difference with some of the Taylor Swift fans is they might play one copy, but then they've got 13 that sit on a shelf or they hang on a wall or something.

Bruce Miller: That could end up being the Beanie Babies of our era. It's going to be, should I say eras?

Terry Lipshetz: eras. yes, Beanie Babies of our so. But yeah, like shameless self promotion.

Beyoncé's film drops after the end of her tour

Terry Lipshetz: Bruce, if you do want to check me out on social media, my Instagram handle is at vinyl underscore Terry. And you can just see what music I'm listening to.

Bruce Miller: I will look. That's great. Check it out. The Beehive is also or the Beehive, I should say, is going to have its film in. Know, she's once she sees what Taylor does, she's got to do one better.

Terry Lipshetz: well, and her strategy is a little different. So with Taylor, she's a little bit on hiatus at the moment. She's taking a small break in her tour. Right. Well, she goes I think in another month she heads down to South America. She's going to do like, Argentina and all that. So her film is going to drop October 13, I believe. And then, with Queen Bey, her tour is over. So she's going to drop hers on, I believe it's December 1 and it's going to air in theaters on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays for about four weeks. So it's going to be like a limited run month of December. But her tour is done. So it's not like right. You either saw it and want to relive the moment or you missed it and here's your opportunity. Whereas with Taylor, this is just kind of just another opportunity to see her. And then you can fly off to South America or you can wait for her to circle back in North America next summer.

Bruce Miller: We've got to spend $12,000 and follow her around.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah.

Bruce Miller: And then go to all the, Chiefs games to make sure that we see that in case she happens to wave to the audience from the skybox. You know how it is. Well, I must tell you, I have followed these kinds of films for know going Back to Woodstock was probably the first good concert ish film because it did give you a sense of it and made me glad I never went there because I don't think I could have withstood Mud and all that kind of whatever crap was invited. I was in California one summer and I was invited. I think it was summer. It either was summer or January, but it was the, preview of, One Direction's film. One Direction had a film called this Is US. I think it is. This is us.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay?

Bruce Miller: And they were having this sneak in the Grove, which is a kind of upscale shopping center in Los Angeles, okay? And somehow the word got out that this was going on and all these little girls who were fans of One Direction gathered there. They were outside this theater like you couldn't believe. It was like the scene in Frankenstein where the villagers are going to storm the castle because they want in. And they had heard that One Direction was going to be there. That they were going to turn up for, this screening that they weren't invited to that they couldn't get into. And so I'm sitting in the theater, right? And we get the manager of the theater looking just really whipped and he says, whatever you do, do not leave your seat. If you leave your seat and you leave the theater, you will not get your seat back. Because if somehow they break in and they start sitting in the seats where there aren't people, we can't kick them out, huh? We have no way of doing it. So please do not leave your seat. And we heard people pounding at the door outside and this made news. You'll find if you want to go back and look it up, pounding at the door, insistent that Harry Styles was in there somewhere and we were keeping them from meeting him. It was unlike any situation I've ever been in that's, a preview of anything. Was the movie okay? I have no clue. I was worried that I was going to be beaten by a twelve year old at some point because I was in there sitting and watching this movie that meant so much to them.

Terry Lipshetz: But they weren't well, they, didn't show up, right?

Bruce Miller: They were out there, but the cops came and the cops kept them and got them out of the theater. So they were not in the theater at all. And then when we walked out, you could see that there was like you who was in there? Who was in there with you? Did you see Niall? Was he in there with were the kids were real questioning. I thought they could kill people. I think they really could kill people.

Terry Lipshetz: They probably could if you're determined. If you're determined.

Bruce Miller: And so then I said, oh, it was wonderful. You've got to see this film. It's just so yeah, yeah.

Scorsese directed a documentary about Bob Dylan's 1975 concert tour

Terry Lipshetz: Woodstock, though. That's probably the first concert film I had ever seen. It was actually one I'm trying to think when my dad let me see it because it's a know, there's some language in it, there's some drug use in it, there's definitely some nudity in it. And it may have even been the first movie I had seen with nudity. But it's really a fascinating look at what went on. I think my dad always had a real connection with it too, because he bought tickets with friends to Woodstock. Yeah, he didn't get to it. He got stuck on the New York State throughway and eventually had to turn around because they left a little too late on whatever day it was. And by that time it was crazy. People had stormed the grounds. It had become a free concert. And he was angry. So he did what any other person who bought a ticket tickets? No, he sent it back and got a refund. And he regrets it. he regretted it for the rest of his life because he wished he could have had that ticket stub of like, I actually bought a ticket and I couldn't get there. But yeah, it was all of his favorite bands were playing. It's an incredible thing. So I think he always wanted us to, my siblings to really feel that connection with him, with Woodstock. But it's a fascinating film too, because Woodstock, up until that movie, was just a financial disaster. And it took that movie to kind of help them break even, basically.

Bruce Miller: Well, and it showed you how acts that they weren't counting on turned out to be the stars really made their fortunes for them. Whereas other ones that they were counting on, it's like, well, not so sure here. This is not necessarily the star.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah. And you know who, not a director of the film, but one of the film editors of it. Do you know what famous, director Scorsese was? One of his earliest, works was as a film editor on Woodstock.

Bruce Miller: See what happens see what happens when you're available and you can get to that place.

Terry Lipshetz: Right.

Bruce Miller: Only but he wouldn't have gotten a t shirt because he probably weren't selling any.

Terry Lipshetz: yeah, but Marty, and we know Martin Scorsese by Marty because we're.

Bruce Miller: He'S one of our pals, right, right.

Terry Lipshetz: But he's got a long history in doing movies, documentaries, know musicians. He directed The Last Waltz, which was the final concert of the Band. He did, ah, no Direction Home, which was the documentary about the early life of Bob Dylan. They captured him leaving Minnesota and then going to New York and kind of rising through the folk scene. And then it kind of ended, when he plugged in. He did a documentary on, George Harrison. did you ever see the one he did called, Rolling Thunder Review a Bob Dylan Story. Do you remember that one?

Bruce Miller: No.

Terry Lipshetz: So he directed this and it was the most bizarre thing. So it's based on Dylan's concert tour during I think it was 1975, it was a transitional stage in Dylan's career. But he went out with this huge group of people. It was like 20 people on stage. It was almost like a circus dylan painted his face. He had like white makeup on every night and wore a big hat. And it captures a lot of those performances. But the film that Scorsese did was almost part fiction because it plays into the myth that is Dylan. And it talks like, I think Sharon Stone was in it and she talks about how she was a groupie during but she wasn't, she wasn't on the tour with Dylan at all. But they added in, for whatever reason, different moments of fiction to what was actually supposed to be a documentary of his tour of the mid seventy s. So it's kind of a crazy oh, my crazy thing. Yeah.

Bruce Miller: One that I am fascinated by is the Michael Jackson one. Supposed to be about his last concert tour. And they kind of created it into that tour. I mean, if you were there, you would see all of the numbers that they were planning to do, but you realize in the course of that somewhere, there was no way he was going to be able to produce this every night. He couldn't. He didn't have the energy, he didn't have the stamina. I mean, it was fascinating when they did each number, but you'd think somebody's got to go get some oxygen at some point because it's just way too much. And it's telling because it shows how talented he was, but also how old he was. And the idea that you can do that maybe past your prime is unreal. But if you haven't seen that one, please watch it because it's unbelievable.

Terry Lipshetz: This is it, right? Yeah. And that came out in 2009. I remember watching that one and it was really fascinating because it took you inside of the prep for the tour. But it was also really sad too, because you were seeing his decline basically too at the time. Obviously, in retrospect, when you see it, you're like, well, okay, that makes sense. But at the time you probably didn't even realize that he was nearing the end of his life.

Bruce Miller: Right? Well, I think it's one of those things where he thought, too, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to be able to do this. This isn't going to happen. Instead of doing it once and doing it for film it and then you never have to do it again, why know, right. Do you remember when HBO was real big about doing these live, specials? And there was a Diana Ross one live from Central Park, and it started to rain, and it was like the worst rain ever. And not as bad as the one they've had recently, but it was bad so that the people were like, well, she just kept on going. She was the bunny and wouldn't let it up and come on, everybody, sing with me. And it's like, wow, this is real. But I think they like that document of their time because it is a way to mark certain hallmarks of their career. And then also it's a way for fans to say, you know what, she or he really was that good.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah, I won't watch every concert documentary out there. But if it's a musician that I at least either like or respect, I like to check it out. Because it's always a good time capsule to kind of see what happens.

Led Zeppelin's concert films bookend two eras

Terry Lipshetz: An interesting one for me is, The Song Remains the Same, the documentary concert film, about the, Led Zeppelins tour from 1973, where they filmed it at Madison Square Garden. And here is that band at, really the height of their popularity, right? It's middle of their career. Things are crazy. And it captures the moment. And that came out in 76. And then years, years later, they did another concert film. And it's called Celebration Day. And that came out in 2012. Now, this is after John Bonham had died. And after John Bonham died, the band broke up. And they swore, we're never getting back together. And there were little things here and there, like Robert Plant and Jimmy Page did a side project together. But they never really went back out. I think they had that one off, like at Live Aid, where they came together and played. But they never again really did any sort of tour or anything. They swore we're never going to reunite. But then they ended up doing, a benefit concert at the Two Arena in London. And it was just a one off. And they said, we're going to do it. We're doing this benefit. It's for one of their early managers or promoters. So that's the only reason we're going to do it. And it's sold out in minutes. And the cool thing about it, though, is that they brought in Jason Bonham, who is John Bonham's son, to play on drums. And I always thought it was cool watching that concert. Know, you knew that this is know, you're not going to be able to see them again. They're never going to get back again. But they opened it up with the song Good, Times, Bad Times. And it was very much like a drum driven song. So we're going to open it up. We're going to let Jason Bonham kind of take center stage in honor of his dad kind of thing. And then they kind of tore through like 16 songs after that. So it was a really nice moment. And there's a band that kind of had two ends of the spectrum. Like one at the height of craziness in the we're like grandparents now. But this is us. We're going to get back to one more time. We're going to honor a friend of ours and do it one more time. And I thought that was pretty cool.

Bruce Miller: Well, and we look at the Beatles really did concert films too. They just did them more like music videos, right, with all of their kind of help and you name it, Let It Be, all that kind of stuff. Had a moment. They never really sat it down and did, something that we're seeing a lot of, but so we still have that kind of record of their time on earth. The Rolling Stones, however, had, give me shelter.

Terry Lipshetz: And do you?

Bruce Miller: That was like, wow, yeah, those times. I don't know that I would have been eager to go to those concerts at the time. But in retrospect, as an older person with more hopefully smarts about what I'm doing, I can appreciate it much more than I would have at the time. I would have been worried about getting out. Are we getting out time? Ah, is the parking going to be bad? Do I have to worry about all that? You know what I mean? Now it's a lot of fun to watch it, and especially when they're still performing. I'm sure every move they make now when they're in concert is photographed somewhere, somehow. We didn't have social media back in the day, so everybody wasn't holding a phone up and, recording it. They were just appreciating what it was at the time.

Terry Lipshetz: The Beatles, it's an interesting example because they had several movies that are still popular to this know, like A Hard Day's Night, and there were concert elements within the film, but it was more of a traditional film. But it captured Beetlemania, ah, at the height of Beetlemania. So if you weren't there in the experience, Beetlemania, even though it's kind of a light hearted film, you still got the essence of it. And then you got some of the goofiness with help and all that. But it's really a shame with them because they stopped touring in the mid 60s because they couldn't hear themselves. And if you ever get a chance, I have like a bootleg DVD of their Shay Stadium concert. And it's the craziest thing. It's like a 25 minutes concert. I mean, that's all their concerts were back there. They would do 20 songs in 25 minutes and then they were done.

Bruce Miller: Wow. I've been to the theater, the Ed Sullivan Theater, where they did their big performance on television, the first one. And the place is small. It's really small. And I remember seeing people in the balcony, like they were jumping up and down and were so excited that they thought it was going to come down. And you realize, wow, we were really kind of duped back in the day thinking that it was just this huge Madison Square Garden kind of experience. And it was just a small you know, the cameras made it look like it was much bigger than it actually was.

Terry Lipshetz: If you ever get a chance in New York City, you take the NBC Studios tour and they usually will take you to a couple different sets, including it's like they always do Saturday Night Live, and then they'll give you like, one or two. And I remember when I took the tour one time we went to the Saturday Night Live set, and you're just kind of blown away because you realize you actually can't see some of if you're in that studio audience. Because of the way they have to arrange the floor. They might be filming part of it off to the side where the audience can't actually see it. And you have to watch it on monitors. You just see where they come out for the monologue and you see where the band performs. But then some of the other configurations are all over the place. And then we also went out to, I think it was Conan O'Brien's when he was still it was before he the Tonight Show, and he had that late, night program. And I remember going there and we saw the Max Weinberg drum kit sitting out there and Conan's desk. But it's tiny. It's a tiny little.

Bruce Miller: Sneaky. Yes.

Bruce Miller: you mentioned Saturday night. I was lucky enough to have been there during the early years. I saw an episode that, I don't know if you remember any of these things, but there was a dance that Gilda Radner and Steve Martin did and they were, like, going all around the whole area and they came near me, and I was able to get on camera at some point with them. So if you ever have access to that, go back and look. But it was fascinating because you could not see all of the skits. There could be a skit right down below you, but, you can't lean in and look at that. And so you'd basically get to see a couple and that's about it. But, the flurry of activity that's going on between the skits is just amazing. And then the sound is really good for, the guest artist, whoever is singing that week or whatever. It's really good. a couple of times I've gotten to go to Saturday Night Live. It's like the most impossible ticket to get because, at best, you're going to get a rehearsal ticket at this point because they do a rehearsal before they do the final show, right? And, somehow they'll let people in there. But you really need to know somebody if you're going to go to the actual show itself. So put that on a bucket list. It's really worth it.

Bruce Miller: You had mentioned back a little bit earlier about the two this huge venue in London, and, every year, it seems they're rerunning this on PBS. And that's the Les Miz anniversary special. And it's just unbelievable. I love the show. Les Miz arabla. As a musical, it's wonderful. But this they combined a whole bunch of old stars, people who had been in it before, made this kind of masterful thing. And then you saw these people walking up the aisles of this show and it was like, oh my God, I can't believe this. And those are those once in a lifetime experiences that somehow need to be captured on film. But The Two is a place where they all play at some point. Look at all the things they did when Prince Charles and, when Queen Elizabeth had her anniversary. You name it, they did something there. And it's a place I'd love to go to just to see what it's like in person.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah, that would be a fun one. And then you think about entertainment destinations now, too, with The Sphere in Las Vegas with U Two and U Two, because U Two is such a visual band that they're able to utilize the interior. I mean, that's just amazing. It's just a giant Led screen, basically. But they had a concert film as well. I don't know. Do you remember Ratle and Hum?

Bruce Miller: Oh, yes, I think we got them. And get it free. If you had like, some Apple product, they gave it to you.

Terry Lipshetz: I don't know, you might have, but no, I think that might be something else. But Ratle and the Hum came out in, I think it was 1988. And it was a combination, album. It was like a live album that came out after The Joshua Tree. And it also had a companion film that went with it. The companion film. Some people love it, some people hate it. I don't know if there's very many people that are kind of like in the middle on this one. It's really bizarre. So on one hand, you get a lot of performances from the Joshua Tree tour, which is really at that know, they had a few earlier albums that did were critically acclaimed, but they didn't necessarily explode commercially. But The Joshua Tree exploded commercially and they had huge hits. So they documented parts of this tour and they shot a lot of it in black and white. But then near the end, they went into color. But then they had these intermittent weird side journeys where they went to Graceland and they talked about their love for Elvis and they met with BB. King and they did this. And it was just kind of a strange document of the time. I would have been happier with. Just give me 25 songs of a straight YouTube concert. If you got to take a few performances from a few different shows, so be it. But, I don't know. I could probably have done without the side commentary. Yeah, exactly. Because I love you two and I've seen them in concert and I have all their albums. But Bono has a certain way about them, I guess is a way of saying it. And it's just like they're a little bit too over the top sometimes, even for me. I think Rattle and Hum really, it sums up that time, at least, even though.

Bruce Miller: All those little pop stars. Anna Montana, right? bieber had one. I think it was 3D. Katy Perry, you name them, they all get these movies at some point. And it's somebody saying, you know, here's how we can make the budget on that tour. That didn't go so well. We'll put out a movie, and then we'll make up the difference that we lost in, know, having that big set piece that you had. There was a great mockumentary about Madonna's tour. Remember how Madonna had the cone bra and all that? And Julie Brown. Not the Julie Brown that you remember from MTB, but a different Julie Brown who was a comedian, did her spoof of was. So I think she called herself Medusa or something.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay. Yeah.

Bruce Miller: But if you ever get to see that, it is such a hoot. It makes fun of these in the best way. The best way. And Madonna had to have loved it. And she's another one who should look at those things and say, I'm glad I have this document. I really am. Because I don't know that her tours now are as iconic as they should be. Gaga she has done things. She's done films or specials, but I don't know that she's done one of these kind of big movie things that would have told all or showed all or whatever. And maybe she's ripe for one.

Terry Lipshetz: Maybe. You know which one I really like, too. And this was an opportunity because I couldn't get to New York, and I'm a huge Springsteen fan. And then this is like my other Broadway. Yeah. In my other shameless self promotion, I have another Instagram account called at Bruce Springsteen Collection, where I document all of the Springsteen albums in my collection. And I'm not just talking about the regular stuff. I've got some things that were not officially released that I show off on this thing.

Bruce Miller: But does Bruce know?

Terry Lipshetz: He knows this stuff is out there.

Bruce Miller: Okay.

Terry Lipshetz: but, yeah, no, I'm a huge hardcore. I've seen him in concert 1314 times at this point.

Bruce Miller: Why didn't you go to the Broadway show? Come on.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah, I mean, I really wanted to, but the cost for tickets, I got to travel from the Midwest to the city. Yeah, it's an expensive show. So, when Netflix made the deal to air, know, one of the performances of Spring Scene on Broadway, it was a really good opportunity. And I would have loved to have gone to the Walter Kerr Theater to see it live. But I think in this type of setting, the way they filmed it, you felt like you were right there.

Terry Lipshetz: It was a very well done documentary, know, whatever you want to call it. it captured the know, it was kind of like, with Hamilton, because if you couldn't see the original cast, you at least got to see it on Apple TV. And I think that was a good second opportunity. And I think that's what this is.

Bruce Miller: I told you my story about Hamilton, right? That I was determined to see Hamilton no matter what.

Terry Lipshetz: No, I don't think I heard this one.

Bruce Miller: Oh, do you mind if I go ahead. Story. The thing about me is I have to see the original cast. I have to see the original actor in a Broadway show or I don't feel like if it's a big thing sure. And I knew that Hamilton was going to be a big thing even before Hamilton was a spark on anybody's radar. And then it got out there and I thought, I've got to go, but when am I going and how do I get tickets? And it was like this whole thing where I couldn't get the tickets. The tickets were just outrageous. And I decided I was going to go on StubHub. And so StubHub I went on, and it was like, 1000 something for the tickets, and am I going to spend $1,000? And then I start rationalizing all these things. Well, life is short. You're not going to be around that much longer. You want to see it, you should go. The original cast was breaking up after that. I was rationalizing.

Terry Lipshetz: Right. You played it out, like, 15 steps and you're like, I'm on board.

Bruce Miller: And it got down to the point where it was $777.

Terry Lipshetz: Oh, you got to do it.

Bruce Miller: And I did it. I jumped. And then I was at a hotel and we had to add, you know, how this thing is where you print out the tickets, but you're not really sure about all this, and you think, oh, they're going to take money to the cleaners and I'm going to lose $700, and it's going to be just the worst, right?

Terry Lipshetz: Yes.

Bruce Miller: And so I went to the business office at the hotel and they said, yeah, these are pretty good. You should be all right. You shouldn't have a problem. But if I were you, I'd get to the theater early, because if somebody sold this ticket twice, which could happen, you won't be the one who gets in. It'll go the one who got in before you. I made a beeline to that theater as fast as I could. And when I heard that M of the ticket, it was like, yes. So I get to my seat, and the seat was really good. And I'm talking to the people next to me. And there was a family from Los Angeles who came because the daughter had been listening to the album all along and wanted to see this. Right. This was her goal. And they gave up going to any other shows. They weren't going to any kind of theme parks. They weren't doing anything but Hamilton. And they spent $10,000. And they were sitting next to me. And we talked to people, like, in the row before us. They spent nothing. Somebody handed them tickets at the theater. So there were all these kind of stories that were going around among the people, and you felt lucky. You felt like, I have won the lottery. I am here. And then you hear and you think, this is, like, the most unbelievable experience I've ever been in my life. It was everything. And then a little bit more. And I'll tell you an, intermission. I ran to the merchandise table and bought $200 worth of crap just because I wanted to prove that I had been to Hamilton, right? So it was my thing. And I realized, you know what? It was money well spent. It was really money well spent. Now, when I saw the Apple version of or I mean, the Disney version, disney plus version of, Hamilton, it was perfect. It lived up to all of the things that I remember, because after that cast, the original cast left. I did go see it again, and it did not live up to the hype. But having seen the original cast and then seeing the original cast do the filmed version of Was, if you want to know how good it was, watch that. It was very good. And I think they did a great job of capturing that whole moment. But, yeah, that's cool. My Hamilton story. So for the next year after that, I got more Hamilton crap from people because they said, well, you're the one that really likes Hamilton, don't you? Here's a hamilton. Whatever. But I had talked to Lin Manuel Miranda before he was even writing it. He was on a TV series as, like, a third stringer. And I said, well, what are you working on? Because he had done some other stuff for the theater. And that if you know anything about me, I'm just a hardcore theater person. I live for that. And he said, well, I'm working on a little thing I call the Hamilton mixtape. It's a show about Alexander Hamilton, but it's done with rapid hip hop and that kind of stuff. He says, we'll see where it goes. And I'll look where it went.

Terry Lipshetz: We'll see where it goes. It may pan out. Who knows?

Bruce Miller: It's a fascinating story. And then to even take it further, while he was doing Hamilton, he was writing the songs for Moana. He would do zoom calls with the directors of Moana, who one of them happens to be from Sioux City. And he would tell me about how yeah, he'd come after before they start the show or during an intermission or whatever, and they would like, work well, this song needs to be this, and this song needs to be that. Okay, I'll work on it, and I'll get you another one. And then he'd go out and do the show.

Terry Lipshetz: That's crazy.

Bruce Miller: Yeah, it's weird, but there's your $0.02 worth on those kind of direct to the screen versions.

Bruce Miller: But you know what? I think these are ways for all of us to enjoy entertainment that we maybe don't have the access to.

Terry Lipshetz: Absolutely.

Bruce Miller: It's an affordable way and you still get all the bells and whistles. And even if you had a bad seat at the show itself, if you did go, here's a way to see things that maybe you didn't see.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah, and it's a cool way too, because it captures the moment of the time. So if you're like me, who I'm in my later forty s and I was born after Woodstock. I can see what m people of my parents age looked like and acted like ah, as youngsters and realized that some of the things that they yelled at me for, they were doing them also back in.

Bruce Miller: As someone who was around, I will tell you they were just as bad, if not worse than we see kids today.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah, exactly. And then I look back at something like 1991, the film The Year Punk Broke, which looks at bands like Sonic Youth and Nirvana when they exploded in the early ninety s. And I watched those and I'm like, oh, did I really dress that way in high school? Yeah. Oh man.

Bruce Miller: No, it's fascinating. I was talking to a college student today, and she was doing a project for one of her design classes. And she says, I am going back to the I'm trying to kind of conjure all those things that were big in the some of these things that you're coming up with weren't in the little careful, because I don't remember this stuff. And I remember the 70s like nobody.

Terry Lipshetz: You do. Yeah, you absolutely remember them. So again, we've got October 13, Taylor Swift's, the Era's tour film, coming out. Beyonce has her film coming out in December. And check out some of these films that we talked about opportunities like Woodstock, Ratle and lot of like Scorsese has done a lot of if you're into like like you know, he's got a lot of things besides, the gangster films. He loves music and it plays into all of his films and he's done quite a few, so a lot of good things. And he's got a new movie coming up and then we have another episode coming out next week. You have an interview with that, right?

Bruce Miller: With Goosebumps? Yeah. Get ready. We're getting closer to Halloween and they've rebooted Goosebumps. They had a series where they would do a different book for each episode. Now they've created a kind of a mashup where they put the characters together and they're telling stories from four or five different books in the course of a season. And you'll get a chance to hear the producers talk about why they did what they did with this. And it's a little more adult than you may remember the Goosebumps book being. So look for that. That's next week when we come back on Streamed and Screened.

Terry Lipshetz: Sounds good. So we'll talk about Goosebumps and we'll talk about maybe some other family friendly ish kind of Halloween things that we can dive into if you must.

Bruce Miller: If you're not we're talking about saw.

Terry Lipshetz: I will tap out. If we're talking horror movies, I am tapping out before we get started. We won't do saw. None of that stuff. I like to get a solid night's sleep, Bruce. I don't need horror things flashing through my head. That stuff's scary. I don't like scary things.

Bruce Miller: Yeah, we'll play the Springsteen white noise machine, and you'll be able to go to sleep.

Terry Lipshetz: Sounds good. All right. We'll be back again next week with another episode of Streamed and Screened.