‘A Christmas Symphony’ with Sarah Brightman & A ‘Wicked’ Weekend

You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty.

The world's biggest selling soprano and legendary Grammy Award nominated artists, Sarah Brightman, is back to spread holiday cheer.

This upcoming season.

Sarah will once again dazzle us with her a Christmas Symphony Tour, with its North American leg beginning November twenty ninth. It's coming up. Accompanied by orchestra, choir and special guests. This enchanting holiday show will feature Sarah performing many of her holiday classics and greatest hits. Tickets are available at Sarah Brightman dot com and now she joins me on the show. Imagine that, Miss Brightman. A pleasure to meet you. How are you this evening?

I'm very well. It's love me to speak to you. How I hope you're well.

I am well, and I've been looking forward to this conversation for quite some time.

But I am curious.

How does a kid who originally started with dance and piano lessons end up becoming the best selling soprano in history. Was seeing ever your first love growing up? Or did you just fall into it? Do you know?

I always love to sing.

My mother said, I was kind of singing before I could even speak.

But I just such a young age. I was never never able to sort of train the voice, because.

You shouldn't really train voices until you're like sixteen. So I did a little bit, so I supposed to fill in. I became a dancer early in life because you could do that, and I learned acting and all the things within the arts because I love the arts and I love what I do. So I think it was just just following my voice and training and working really really hard and having a passion for what I do. And I never expected the sort of fame and all the

Through the journey.

Talking about this journey. The holidays can mean many things to people. Holidays can be very personal. But when the holidays become part of your annual tradition and vocation, does it change the feeling? Does it take away some of its magic because you're working most of the holidays.

No, Because the Christmas show, my Christmas show is very very personal to me, and it actually started at the beginning of COVID, and I wanted to wanted to sort of bring everybody up and all my musician friends that weren't making any money or anything. I thought, I've got to get a smile on everybody's faces. So I thought, you know, it's that time of year. Let's put I'm going to put on a Christmas show and put it online and people can donate to charitors for it, and

Don't you do the Christmas Show?

So I thought, that's great, and what's beautiful about it is that and I I have really taken into consideration how differently different people feel at Christmas time. Sometimes it's a sad occasion but beautiful and poignant.

Sometimes it's party time.

Sometimes people want religious music, sometimes people just want party music.

Balance everything.

So I brought together music for the show, which they've been very responsible about it, which kind of makes everybody happy. And there's beautiful lighting which brings in the atmosphere of Christmas. And also I myself, I love the holiday season to listen to a beautiful orchestra.

And a big choir. So I've got that and this.

As well, and I think it encompasses everything you want for a musical evening at that time of year, and I love it.

I have a great passion for it.

How flexible is your setlist? As they say you may be in the mood to sing more religious music as you made mention of, or you may want to sing more secular popular favorites. How much flexibility do you have?

There is some flexibility, but obviously because we are, you know, choosing local orchestras that come in, they can only learn so much so much music for it. And it's the same with the choirs as well, so there's a little flexibility. But what I will say, I wanted to, you know, because when I go to people's concerts, I always want

So you know, you could get the Phantom of.

The Opera, but it's got you know, different different instruments in there. Maybe sleigh els and all sorts of stuff that make it more Christmasy, and many many others.

As I think about your performances of a Christmas symphony, I remember there was this particular performance of Paezu and it made me wonder.

As you tour around.

The world, including your North American tour which begins November twenty ninth, how do the different venues figure into how your performance may evolve or what you may feel in a given location.

Do you know?

This is the beautiful thing about live performance is you never really know how it's going to be, and from the start you go, Okay, this is going to be a different journey.

Just go with it, take what the.

Audience are giving you or not depending on the evening, and just you know all the music, you know the songs, you know how it's going to go.

Just play with it. And it always makes a more exciting performance, actually for me, because I don't know what's going to happen.

Not all Christmas or holiday songs may lend themselves to the Sarah Brightman treatment, But are there holiday songs that you just like personally but may never get around to performing.

I probably think there may be a lot of them. I can't that in my head.

I have probably lists of sums that that didn't didn't pass for this particular thing.

It doesn't mean that they weren't.

Really good, they just didn't suit this particular type of show. Probably pieces which are need much much huger orchestras and choirs and things like that that don't work unless you have that kind of situation.

I know when I think of Christmas or the holiday seas and I always think of the Christmas dinner. I think of the family gathered round the table, the moment in which we're all together that we probably won't be with the rest of the year. Is there a singular moment that may occupy your mind during the holiday or maybe during your performances.

Well, it's funny to say that, actually, because because these songs are emotional for me to see, they just start because it's Christmas is that time of year. And through some of the songs, yes, I do go through moments of thoughts and moments of times that I've had.

With my family. They can be very happy times, they can be sad times.

Sometimes I can through the songs, I can smell the Christmas dinner, or I can imagine my mother sort of making things, and you know, going back to childhood and when we made Christmas decorations or went and bought them, or we'd go and see Father Christmas or see stuff in the All of those thoughts always come to me when I'm performing.

Some of these songs thinking about those thoughts.

I know, in just my limited experience of singing, I may get caught up in the emotion of a moment. And when you sing holiday songs sometimes you may remember people who have passed on or people that you just miss. More generally, do you find yourself ever struggling with the emotion of the moment while you're singing.

I do sometimes, and I have to because obviously have to get my voice out, and so I have to. I sometimes I struggle with that a little bit. There's a beautiful piece I do singing, which is called a Paa sou, and it's from a piece called Requiem, and I sing it for the people that have because we've all lost people in our lives.

On holidays always bring that back.

Up to us very strongly because we'll remember that person being with us. So I do sing that particular religious piece, especially for people that have maybe.

Gone through this.

Sarah Brightman is back to spread holidayach year this upcoming season, and she'll dazzle audiences once again with her A Christmas Symphony tour, which has this North American portion kicking off coming up in just a few days on the twenty ninth. Tickets are available right now at Sarah Brightman dot com Forward slash Tours. Miss Brightman has always been a joy to have the opportunity to speak with you, and I

Thank you so much and it was lovely key to you and happy holidays.

You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty.

And this is going to be a big weekend in the box office. Wicked is expected to do very well to the tune of maybe of one hundred million dollars domestically, and not far behind that and catching up fast will be Gladiator too. Gladiator two has had a lot of good reviews and a lot of good publicity in the past two days. And I don't know if you've noticed this, but even though Denzel Washington is not the stars. In

What do I mean by that?

You have you have Mattlock, not Mattlock, Maverick, The Top Gun Maverick, which is a legacy sequel of obviously Top Gun Maverick. Mattlock the same thing, Tomato Tomato Pato, And let's call the whole thing off and you obviously have won Beetlejuice and it's sequel, I don't know how many years after the fact. And now you have Gladiator, which was in year two thousand and the sequel in twenty twenty four. You have Blade Runner talking about Ridley Scott.

We know that well.

I wouldn't say Blade Runner did great, but it was still well received, at least critically acclaimed.

It wasn't a massive crowd pleaser, but it has really gotten an enormous amount of respect as a quality sequel.

It's very well done and.

It'll probably turn into a cult classic because one of those movies that will look back on and say, oh yeah, it just maybe came out the wrong time. He didn't have a great marketing strategy, but it will be better received as years go on. You look at Beetlejuice, Obviously that movie did exceptionally.

Well this year.

More and more you'll see movie studios trying to create these legacy sequels, digging in the crates and maybe finding something that they think is the right time to not reboot, but actually continue the storyline. And that I think is attractive to me, if only because I'm tired of prequels. I'm tired of going back to the beginning because you know it only leads to one conclusion. It's nice to tell me about the birth of Anakin Skywalker and how he became Darth Vader, but we know how that story

Really want to defend those Anakin Skywalker movies?

No, I don't. Those are prequels.

Okay, that's my point, Okay, I'd rather see an actual sequel what happens down the Road, Like I would not ever want to see a prequel to Blade Runner, even though they're talking about doing it.

I don't care.

Well, I mean, there's a whole Blade Runner universe, just like the Matrix with all sorts of comic and other spin offs, and you know it's hit and miss.

It is hit and miss.

And you mentioned Matrix that was a miss, and that was something they did for streaming, and it seemed to me half assed, like they really weren't committed to it. But to their credit, they did get Keanu Reeves, they did get carry Ad Moss. They didn't get Lauras Fishburne, which I think was part of the problem. Oh you got to have him yet, you would think, but they didn't, and that's part of the reason I think that didn't

And it's o k.

If some twenty five or thirty years might be in between and there's something else going back to Beverly Hills, cop or even coming to America, you may find that that will be the last opportunity to get the gang all back together. As these actors age, you may not have any more opportunities now. I don't know what's going to be next for like a Maverick character. I don't know what else you can say after why you think,

I think in the third Maverick movie, he has denied his VA benefits and we follow him on his journey through homelessness.

Yeah, he's got to have some PTSD or something.

There's no way that he should be still flying jets at seventy years old. No, no, no, no, But you know it's we have to suspend our disbelief because it's Hollywood, but I do expect hum So we're coming into this segment talking about Wicked and how this other movie, A Gladiator Too, is going to do very well this weekend. It's going to be good box office for movie theaters,

Oh yeah, there's no basically about it. They didn't really leave you a lot of wiggle room at the end of the first one.

Now I think they've they've done some creative ret conning with this story about who is actually the son of whom.

I don't want to give it away.

I've been reading up online, but they're trying to make it where there may be a way that they can extend this into a third or fourth one.

Oh really?

Okay, Well, I don't know all the details yet, and I might go see it after work tonight if I finish in time. But we do know that Nick Cave the musician, the red right hand guy. Yes, he wrote a sequel to that that I think took place in the underworld, And that's not the one we're gonna get.

Wow, this one is gonna make money. All I know that this one is going to make money. And Ridley Scott. The more I see him in interviews, the more strange I realize that he is.

I like him.

I like him a lot because he has totally reached the dgais and the stuff you hear him say about people that he's worked with and whose opinion he doesn't give a damn about. I think he's really entertaining and he's a smart guy as well.

He is, but look as a creative and a creator, I love what he does, not everything that he does, but I love that he is still as invested in making quality movies.

He's not just malely in.

He's trying to make really good movies, even at this leg portion of his career.

Well, he's more of a visual stylist, and there's always this argument that he needs better writers, and if you look at I don't know, the majority of the Alien movies, you might have a tough time arguing against that. But I still think he's just he is one of the giants. I will watch anything that he does because he's earned that.

And he's one of the few directors I would say, and I would say this inclusive of people his contemporaries, like Steven Spielberg. Where you look at Ridley Scott's career, he has meaningful, impactful movies in each decade of his career. I don't remember the last time, for example, not to pick on Steven Spielberg that he had something meaningful. Maybe it was War of the World, which was two thousand and five, which is almost twenty years ago.

I don't know.

Bridge of Spies almost bored me to sleep. I saw it, and that's why I didn't include it.

It's like, I like the premise, but the execution, eh, and you're being generous, no seriously, And it seemed like at that point there was a fall off of Spielberg and Tom Hanks. Love them both, but it just seemed like they haven't been able to reclaim their original glory. I know, who am I to even question either of them, But let people age. It's fine, No, it's okay. But I'm saying Denzel is aging. He's not aging in the

What if I were to say to you that Denzel is the black Tom Hanks.

No, no, no, because if you've ever met Denzel, I think he takes himself far more seriously than Tom Hanks does. Takes himself Denzel can be very prickly, very prickly.

That's always a joy in interviews.

Oh yeah, it's one of those things where I would have to watch a lot of landmines to interview Denzel Washington.

I've seen it. I don't think he's a bad guy.

I'm just saying you can say the wrong thing and that interview goes left real quick.

Fun, always fun.

It's Later with Moke Kelly KFIA six forty WeLive everywhere the iHeartRadio app. So we know that we're going to get a run a report on Gladiator most likely.

Well that's the plan.

But by the way, remember it's a two and a half hour movie and that's already making me mad.

Hey, you choose, you choose your poison.

Okay, it's not gonna be uh what that Wizard of Oz movie?

What's it called wicked? Yeah, forget it.

You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six forty.

Is that time of year, The fourteenth annual KFI Pastathon is here. Chef Bruno's charity, Katerina's Club, provides more than twenty five thousand meals every single week to kids in need right here in southern California. It's all because of your generosity, we are able to make it happen.

There are three ways you can help.

You can donate now at KFIM six forty dot com forward slash Postathon. You can shop at any Smart and Final store and donate any amount at checkout any amount. You could head into any Windy's restaurant in Southern California, donate five dollars or more and get a coupon book for Wendy's Goodies.

And don't forget the.

Live broadcasts twelve three December third, from five am all the way to ten pm at the Anaheim White House Giving Tuesday. Come out and see us, Come out, say hello, come out, donate pasta and sauce and cash donations. One hundred percent of your donation goes to Katerina's Club. We have some special events this week Tomorrow and Saturday. Tomorrow, Tim Conway Junior will be broadcasting live from four to seven at the brand new Wendy's in Mission via Ho

In fact, you will get a coupon book.

Saturday, Neil Sevadra FOURK Report will be broadcasting live at Smart and Final in Lake Forest, which is two three six three one El Toro Road. I myself will try to get out there weather permitting. Mark says it's going to be raining, possibly tomorrow, all through the weekend. So if it and I'm not there, blame Mark Ronner.

Don't blame the messenger. No no, no, no no. You're in control of the weather.

I hate to break this to you, Mo, and I can understand how you'd see the resemblance, but in fact I am not. God damn, I know. It's disappointing.

My whole world is fed up. It's just upside down. I don't know what.

I'm gonna have to just go home and just sort out the meaning of life.

We're gonna find a way to regroup.

Okay, Well that's Saturday from two to five pm. Rain or shine for FOURK reporter, Shine for me. If I'm going to get out there at two three six three one El Toro Road, come by, say hello, make a donation. KFI positive thought. It's the event that you don't want to miss. If you've never been to it, you've got to be part of it, which is going to be on December third. I'll be out there, Mark Roner will

And if you don't remember any of this, you can all always.

Go to pastathon dot com orka if I am six forty dot com forward slash pastathon. And this is the holiday season where thieves, criminals are always trying to separate you from your money. Here are some things that you need need to be mindful of that. We'll give you some other tips and tricks. On the other side, the.

Season of giving is around the corner, and that means sophisticated scammers are gearing up to pounce on unsuspecting online shoppers.

I do my research, I.

Give, something doesn't feel right, then I follow my gut feeling.

There's going to be a lot of money flowing around.

According to KTLA consumer confidential host David Lazarus, people will spend roughly two hundred and forty billion dollars shopping online, which is up eight percent from the year before. Anytime you're using your credit card or personal information, you want to go in with your eyes open.

Look up at the little URL at the top where it says http. What you want to see is http S, meaning you've got a secure connection. That means it's not going to be anybody looking over your shoulders or as you're making the transaction.

LAPED officers are also concerned about emerging e commerce crimes and street robberies. This is when a buyer and seller plan to meet up to exchange goods.

Stop right there. Don't try to meet up and exchange goods. If you're trying to buy something off the internet, like on offer up or Facebook Marketplace, just say no, do not. It's like Craigslist. Okay, you know how many people have been killed trying to buy stuff or sell stuff on Craigslist.

A lot. I don't know how many people, but it's a lot.

This is when a buyer and seller plan to meet up to exchange goods from popular sites like Facebook Marketplace, and then it turns into a sting operation.

Ah see said, don't try to buy something off of Facebook or Facebook Marketplace.

It's like going to a crackhouse.

Popular sites like Facebook Marketplace, and then it turns into a sting operation.

Some of these robbery victims were told to meet in an unfamiliar neighborhood location.

And they will robbed of their property in money.

Laped is investigating one case where a suspect uses fake listings for iPhones to lure victims into meeting and proceeds to threaten them with a knife.

You have to assume that if you have to meet in person, it's probably going to be dodgy, and you should air on the side of caution. If I'm going to sell something, it's going to be through a reputable marketplace like Amazon. It's going to be a third party, and you're just gonna have to wait for it.

To come in the mail.

I'm not going to meet you in some back alley so you can rob me. I don't care if it's Mark Runner. I'm not going to give him the opportunity to steal money from me or possibly take my life.

Well, you got to meet people someplace well lit and public. I've actually bought a few things from Craigslist and eBay and just don't be an idiot.

Well, there are a lot of idiots out there, so we have to assume the worst and air on this side of idiocy.

Laped is investigating one case where a suspect uses fake listings for iPhones to lure victims into meeting and proceeds to threaten them with a knife. This kind of scenario has happened at least seven times within the last four months in the Los Angeles area, and police believe it's happening more often than is actually reported. That's why authorities are asking that people buying and selling online only meet at safe exchange zones.

Which include the law like a strip club.

That's why authorities are asking that people buying and selling online only meet at safe exchange zone.

Like a gas station late at night.

That's why authorities are asking that people buying and selling online only meet at safe exchange zone.

Like a.

Not a well lit alley.

That's why authorities are asking people buying and selling online only meet at safe exchange zones, which include the lobby of your local police station.

I guess technically that's somewhat's safe. I mean, yeah, yeah, if you want to meet at the police stations, probably not convenient. If you're trying to keep yourself from getting killed, it might do in a pinch. Or how about this, don't use Craigslist, don't use Facebook Marketplace, don't.

Use offer up. How about that?

If you're actually worried about your safety, don't use these websites where it requires you to put yourself in danger. How about that? If you could just do that, you'll live to see twenty twenty five. Maybe, assuming you don't take the metro.

A man of your stature probably doesn't need to buy anything used from anybody.

No.

I've purchased used stuff before, but it was from people I knew at strip clubs.

I just rented at strip clubs. I didn't buy. Hello.

The whole point of that is for them knowing when to go home. Yes, I earned that negative. Stephen thinks so, and he is the final arbiter.

I think you've got a thumb on the Stephan scale there, but.

Uh, that thumb somewhere. Oh, look at the time, that's one more.

I'll wait, come on, George nor when we come back, He said, what am I doing with these guys?

If I am six forty Live Everywhere in the iHeartRadio app.

You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from kf I Am six forty.

If I'm o' kelly Live Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app Coast to Coast AM with George Norri.

He joined to see me right now, Good evening, my.

Friend, mister Kelly. We've got your favorite UFO topic onto that flowers, so you love on your way home. And then later on in the show, we're going to talk about some folklore all around the country on Coast to Coast.

Now, I have to say this.

I had an off air conversation with a mutual friend, Marshall Collier, and she said she was going to send you some pictures that she had taken of a UAP.

Have you received them yet?

Oh?

I get fifteen hundred emails a day. It might be in the batch.

How well, she was talking like she had your number, so you know, be able to look out for that.

Okay, bye George.

See yeah, Hey Mark, you said the movie was two hours and forty five minutes.

Do you have tickets yet or you're still considering?

It depends on how fast I can finish up all my official KFI work tasks.

Look, I know you're a night oul and everything, but I don't know how you do it. I just can't watch two hour movies anywhere around midnight.

I'm not going to make it through. I'm not.

That's not the problem. I think it's two and a half hours, but it's still long. When we're the other there are showings tomorrow before work, but who wants to wake up at the crack and noon.

Come on, Look, you have a two and a half hour movie. Let's say it's slated to start at twelve o'clock midnight. You're not gonna get to the beginning of that two and a half hour movie until twelve thirty. No, so you're looking at three in the morning easily. Yeah, then you get in your car and drive home.

I just can't do it. Yeah, I might as well not go home. In fact, I think the people at home might prefer that.

But you your sleep schedule lends itself to it, mind does not.

It's just in a death spiral. I don't even know what I'm doing anymore. I have no regular sleep hours. I was up till the daybreak writing a screenplay last night, and that that's been happening more and more.

It's hard for me because a lot of my interviews that I'll do for BBC for their morning shows are at twelve thirty one in the morning, and that's the that's the upper limit of anything that I can do, like eight hours ahead, eight hours right now, okay, and I'm doing actually one Friday night turning Saturday morning at one am our time.

It's all I can do to stay up.

But but a long story short, that's why I am a contributor with them to this day because a lot of people won't because you're the one who will be up on the water and they know that they can call on me and we can hook up by a skype and I can give them the commentary about what's happening in the US. And if you don't know, usually the BBC, they're about maybe a day or two behind

Well wait till they find out about that Matt Gates.

Yeah, maybe since it's happening today.

By the time I talk to them on Friday nights, which is their Saturday morning, they'll maybe want to talk about it, but it's usually there's a little bit of a lull. They're not, like, you know, they're not as up on it as we are because we're following it all day, every day.

I really enjoy their perspectives on American politics and pop culture, and I watch a lot of their shows.

They're on YouTube. People post them on YouTube. I like it because it gives an outside in view. We're in it.

What we consider to be normal or even odd is very different from what they perceive as an outsider looking in.

Well, I'm just like their journalists. They know how to ask a follow up question. Well, actually, they appreciate.

Journalism in a different way, in a much more substantive way than here. They don't they're not inundated with what we have. As far as cable news, there's not a lot of that. There's some there's like Sky News, which is basically an extension of Fox, But you don't have all these cable news networks with just opinion and editorial leading the way. There's Talk TV that thinks Guy News and one other and I've done them all.

Yeah, are our journalists could learn a thing or two from the way there's ask questions and do follow ups.

Well, a lot of our quote unquote journalists they're performative, and they're not trying to.

Get to the bottom of the story.

They're trying to cater to a specific audience, and it's the cart before the horse. It used to be where you would develop the story, tell the story, and then people would come to their conclusion. Now they start with the conclusion and everything spins back to the singular idea, it's either Trump's fault or it's either the Democrat's fault.

Well, or some of our journalists, especially on television, consider their job to be a delivery device for misinformation that they don't feel required to challenge, and that to me is insane.

Well, it's not insane to me because I kind of know why it's done and where it's done. For example, if you're on MSNBC or Fox News, because they're not different as far as they're both cable news outlets, they're no different than Comedy Central as far as what they're required to do.

What do you mean?

What I mean is they're not held to any FCC standard or delivery aspect of broadcast news. Now, if you want to get in and say that Fox News is much more egregious as far as what they're doing, we could have that discussion. I'm not pushing that aside. I'm just saying as far as the mechanics of what cable news is. It's the same, and it's the same as

You know, what's weird is that the Daily Show can be counted on to give you more factual information than a lot of traditional newscasts if you're paying attention to it.

It can.

But unfortunately people don't know the difference between broadcast news and cable news and what the FCC is actually designed to do. What who is beholden to the FCC. They don't understand that cable is a private signal. We can do whatever it wants. That's why you can cuss, you can have nudity, you can have lies, you can have misinformation, you have disinformation largely without consequence unless you stray over into defamation, which is a whole different category.

Yeah, I'm pro consequence. I think at some point we're going to have to corral all that together in one thing with the same regulations because times have just changed too much. It's not like it used to be when we were kids, where there was just free broadcast channels and PBS.

But the problem is you get into the weeds of quote unquote, that's when it does become free speech because you're talking about cable, which is a private signal, and people have opted in. I'm saying, hey, I'm paying seven ninety nine a month for Fox News or MSNBC. I want to be entertained in the way that the Comedy Central may entertain us, because they're all the same, they're basically comedy networks trying to entertain audiences.

I'm not sure I completely agree with that, and I've got a much broader interpretation than you do and most people of what constitutes the public's airwaves. I think cable's part of that, but that's a matter for debate. No, and we'll have that debate sometime, just not tonight. No, it's later with Mo Kelly KFIM six ' forty. We'll see you tomorrow. We're live everywhere in the iHeartRadio app.

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