Nelson Sang Nilsson

For one night only—Friday at Town Hall—Sean Nelson made a sizable dent in prolific yet forgotten 60s/70s singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson's extensive discography. Oh, but he didn't engage in such a lofty task alone. Instead, he ended up having somewhere around nine hundred other musicians assembled as a rock orchestra, which included theater-pop troupe "Awesome," three violinists, a brass section (including tuba), a trio of back-up chick singers, and a pajama-clad group of kids known as the Cougar Choir, all of whom were led by Nelson and producer-composer-pianist extraordinaire Mark Nichols (who also had a hand in the songs' arrangements). Now that's a lot of talent on one stage. Nelson covered a great deal of Nilsson's repertoire, from the poppy-sad songs about his bad relationship with his father to the poppy-sad songs about his bad relationships with women.

Sean encored with "Awesome" on a showy, elaborate über-medley of fifteen or so Nilsson tracks seemingly thrown into a blender, before the full orchestra returned to pay tribute to John Lennon on the final song. When Sean announced that he was going to play something in remembrance of Lennon, we got fearful that we would soon be exposed to total schlock ("Yesterday" or "Imagine"), so we were surprised and relieved to hear "A Day in the Life," which totally took advantage of all the instruments present to build into a lovely cacophonous crescendo. 'Tis a shame there won't be a repeat performance.

Photo care of Flickr / user shelmac.