Friday night PodMeetsWorld took their live show to the Boch Theater in Boston, MA. I once again played front row roulette, and won (despite having to buy the tickets during a meeting I was presenting and speaking on – mad skillz) and then had to figure out how I was going to navigate to Boston solo. I ended up needing 1 more Marriott night to keep status, so I booked a room outside the city and ubered in which worked out quite well!
I arrived just before 6:30 when the lobby doors were set to open. At 7 the theater doors opened and it was at this point I realized something was not right with my new leg brace, but couldn’t exactly take it off to figure out what was going on. I made it to my front row seat despite every walk way in the old theater being pitched a bit too steep of an incline for me.
At about 7:40, Rider came out on stage dressed in Too Much Shirts and read a poem about the show that also had a bit about Boston in it as well. Then Rider, Danielle and Will made their way to the stage. They said that they wanted us to pretend like it was the 90s, did a couple of poses for us to take photos of and then asked for us to put our phones away for the rest of the show so that things would not be ruined for those who have not seen the show yet.
That being said – I will now recap from what I remember from the show so if you’re thinking about going to a show and don’t want potential content to be ruined (I’m not sure what exactly they do the same in each city) then you’re probably going to want to X out of this review now.
The first part of the show was just the 3 of them on stage. Will told a story about his childhood in MA and how he tried to jump off a rock and broke his leg and ended up in a cast up to his nipples at 4 years old for several weeks. Rider said that the stairwells in the theater reminded him of the theater that he had done Les Mis at and ended up having a memory resurface about the time he broke his arm and then also went into a story about how he was in the theater during an earthquake and the stairs moved from the building as he was on them trying to get outside and how his Dad had his firetruck come to make sure he was OK since it was before cellphones. Danielle told a story about how she broke her pinky and didn’t go see a doctor for a few weeks and then had to have surgery and how the doctor told her if in the next few hours her pinky drooped, to let him know. Turns out it did droop and the doctor was 3 beers deep when she texted him and she got responses like “oh no” and “shit” from him and ended up recently having surgery to correct the damage the first surgery had done (and NOT by the same doctor!).
Then they brought out special guests – Alaina and Ash from the Morbid Podcast. I believe these girls are from MA but I was not familiar with their podcast (I am going o have to check it out now) and they played a game called ‘Canon’ with Will, Danielle and Rider where they gave each of them a character that disappeared from the show and they had to come up with a back story for them. Will had Wendy, Rider had Eddie and Danielle had Nebula. I don’t remember all the details of what they said, but their stories were absolutely hilarious and they tried to intertwine them all as well and Alaina and Ash gave their thoughts as well.
The next part was that they needed a Corey, so each of them chose 1 person from the audience and gave them a line to audition with. A man named Silk Johnson won the part and they did a scene where Corey was going to marry Topanga. Eric was officiating the wedding, but something in his pocket started buzzing and he had no idea what it was, but when he answered there were girls on the line so he ran off – leading to DANNY MCNULTY coming out to finish officiating and pronouncing them Mr and Mrs Baboon. The place went NUTS and it seemed like Danielle had tears in her eyes to the reception he received.
Danny joined the 3 for the next segment, which was audience Q&A. There were a lot of fun questions, some deep ones as well and they even had Danny do a ‘Canon’ on what happened with Harley while he was away. (Reform school until something happened with TK, but he knows now bullying was wrong and got to give back as the janitor at Abigail Adams High on Girl Meets World) Danny also gave a shout out to all the veterans and we gave a special round of applause to Will’s Dad who was in the audience.
In between segments they played some videos – one was of the guys doing their BSB routine which was hilarious and I’m so glad I got to see if after they had been talking about it on the pod so often as well as a blooper real from a later season that Will had found.
The last segment was the costume contest and they had one of Topanga’s bridesmaids, Topanga and Corey getting married, a duck, a lobster, celery, plays with chipmunks, Lauren and then chants started coming “BAL-CON-Y BAL-CON-Y” and they couldn’t quite figure out what was happening and then it turned into “ROLLS ROLLS ROLLS” and 2 people dressed as Corey and Shawn from “They want you to take the rolls!” came on stage, took over, and did the entire scene. At this point the cast had totally lost control of the evening and had to declare them winners. They really underestimated the intenseness of a Boston crowd lol (Although Will did say he knew people from CT were there because he saw our horse and buggies parked outside!)
To end the night, there was a video message from Mr Feeny. Then we were told if we had a M&G to sit and hang tight for a bit. I could see everyone hanging out off to the side of the stage, including Will’s Dad. Jensen came out and told us the cast was having a bite to eat and then we’d go up the aisle of the theater and to the right to meet them before heading out. I had been hoping I’d be back to the hotel by 11, but didn’t anticipate how long we’d have to wait for the M&G. (I was glad that they let us sit and I did try to take off my brace and fix it, but wasn’t able to at the time – I did fix it when I got back to the hotel though!)
Finally, it was my turn to meet the cast. It was quick, but we had a nice chat about my NSYNC Care Bears shirt and New Haven pizza. (They like it, I don’t, but Danielle said we could still be friends lol) After I headed outside and Uber prices were soaring but Lyft was giving me a promo, so I used them to get back to the hotel and made it before turning into a pumpkin at 11:40pm.
Overall it was a lot for me to get out and do this in a big city and all alone. I decided to not bring my walker as I’ve been using it as a crutch (that terminology is weird in this situation…) and just used my cane. I did quite well – especially since when I was checking into the hotel and trying to get dinner there were THREE teenage boys sports teams in the lobby not knowing what to do with themselves and just creating an obstacle course for me. I have a lot of work still to do on myself, but this was a big step in the right direction.
It also sounds like they’ll be back at 90s Con in CT and hopefully doing a show here as well!