Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert

I'm a professional musician, and JCS is my favorite musical. I've seen it twice live with Ted Neeley. I thought the overall production was good. I liked the ensemble and excitement of the live televised show. For me, Dixon was the stand out and really made the show worth watching. I liked Bareilles and thought Alice Cooper was a cool choice for Herod. I think John Legend has a beautiful voice, and there's a sweetness to him.... but I don't think he was the right choice for this role. I would've liked a stronger presence for the role of Jesus. He seemed almost uncomfortable, while the rest of the major roles were filled by people who really owned them. I appreciated seeing this on tv, even with all the commercials...

Such a great performance but all the commercials really screwed with the continuity of the show. A live broadway show is needs so much less interruptions.

Dear execs at NBC

I love your idea of presenting live Broadway shows. But it really ruins the moment when a sad song like "I don't know how to love him" is followed by a PCS commercial and a KFC commercial and commercial after commercial after commercial. If you are going to do keep doing things like this, and I hope you do, they need to be done with limited commercial interruptions. The overrun of commercials just kills this for me.

Well, that's not truly fair. The hyped up crowd is taking away from the show as well. They really need to take it down a level or four. Maybe a Prozac placed on each seat when they walk in? Otherwise, the cast is very good, as expected, and I enjoy the staging. But I am furious at NBC for all the commercials. You can't treat a live performance of a Broadway Musical like your other shows.

2020 edit - NBC has had two years to listen to the complaints, and while they have the power to reduce the number of commercials, which ruins the flow, they instead decided to re-air and if anything they increased the number of commercial breaks. Please, NBC, no more airing of live Broadway musicals. You obviously don't have a clue how to do them.

I thought this was an interesting take on JCS in a concert setting (and I remember it from the original version when I was a kid), but people should definitely listen to the original 1970 London concept album and watch the 1973 movie as well (Yvonne Elliman was great as Mary).

Having read the reviews below I'm glad I'm watching this on Sky Arts in the UK.

There are no adverts - I can't imagine how badly this would be with commercials every five minutes. It would destroy the flow and all emotion.

There are comments below also about the sound mix and I can only think this was fixed also as the version I'm watching is decent.

All on all it's a great production, well cast and presented. I think that the ensemble are particularly good.

It can't be compared to the 1970s movie (which is excellent in its own right) as it is a filming of the stage but I find it impressive.