Just Like It Was Before from Bandstand is SO GOOD because so much art from that era romanticized the idea of a post war-life and Bandstand takes that and then contrasts it with the gut-wrenching reality that soldiers were coming home from a harrowing and traumatic experience with scars both visible and invisible and with the loss of so many others in the war. It shows how hard everyone's trying but they're just failing because the goal isn't attainable. You can't send boys to battle and expect them to come back the same. It's fair that people just wanted things to go back to normal, but that was never going to happen.

literally same exact energy

screaming, crying, pulling my hair out and begging for a Bandstand revival

THE EPILOGUE FOR BANDSTAND GOES OVER A SPAN OF AT LEAST FOUR YEARS? HELLO?

The beginning scene takes place a year after the events of the radio contest. We know Act One and the majority of Act Two (everything but the Epilogue) take place in 1945, so that means the Epilogue starts in '46 (see image below).

But we suddenly jump forward FOUR YEARS to not only when The Rainbow Room has opened again, but they've ALREADY PERFORMED THERE?

That's it. That's the post. The band is still together after, like, five+ years. This is fine. This didn't make me almost start crying out of happiness. (<- complete and utter sarcasm.)

The band is so happy together... Oh, they're such a found family...

Johnny Simpson edit

Nick: Gang, get in here. We’re going to New York City!

Julia and Wayne, confused: New York City?

Donny, excited: New York City?!

Nick: New York City!

Davy, shouting from the other room: SHUT THE FUCK UP!

i miss bandstand:(((

gotta say that THE most relatable part of Bandstand is when Julia is really sad so she wears her Depression Cardigan™️

Have I mentioned how much I love Jimmy Campbell recently

hear me out… alexandra shipp as julia trojan

I wish the Bandstand explored more about Wayne’s gun. The other members, especially Julia, finding out that Wayne ritualistically cleans his gun and his suicide ideation. I can’t be the only one who thought at least one member of the band would commit, right? They set it up in the first song: “I’ve been to three funerals this month.” “They wanted a way to make it stop.” “No ones care…they came back a while ago.” You know who also is alluded to coming back a while ago? Wayne. Long enough to reenstablish his relationship with his family, develop (bad) coping techniques and for things to be increasingly strained. You know who has frequently been hinted at being suicidal? Wayne!

You know who else doesn’t get a happy ending? WAYNE!

The others get the money, they get the girl, they get the fame – they get what they wanted to be fulfilled. Are you going to tell me any of that matters in comparison to having lost his wife, his children and his home? There’s no indication it gets better for him. He has it all and still has lost so much that might not ever be fixed and it is the one that matters most to him. If anything, I wouldn’t be surprised if looking around and seeing all his band members seemingly content now while he’s still so deep in the mud, made him more suicidal; even if he is much stronger and less likely to act on those thoughts.

But seriously, the members just never learn of it, even when one of them lives with him. I want a scene where Nick walks in seeing him holding a gun and just…thinking. Of course, he would have timed his ritual to be when he knows Nick would be teaching or something, but it could have ended early. I’m not saying take his gun away (although I would rather he not have that), but like… It just feels crazy that he just has a gun and could use it and they’d be like, “I didn’t know he even had a gun!”

We should not know more about his suicidal ideation and his fucking (possibly) loaded gun than the characters meant to be his best friends, brothers and sister!

Its late and I’m tried but not enough to sleep so instead I’ll make awful Bandstand art

Enjoy my ✨scribbles✨

Christine Dwyer (she/her) as Julia Trojan in Bandstand

Information

Name: Christine Dwyer

Credits:  Waitress (Jenna Hunterson), Finding Neverland (Sylvia), Wicked (Elphaba)

Color of the rainbow with which they identify: Pansexual

Sometimes I think about Jimmy and Donny's dog tags flying out from underneath their shirts when they preform Welcome Home (Finale) in the pro-shot and it hurts every single time I think about it. All of the guys have lost friends, but Jimmy and Donny are the only ones who actively say something about what happened to the people they'd lost during the show, so it means a lot to me that they specifically have this happen. The rest of them are wearing theirs too, but there's just something so unbelievably heart-wrenching about the way that Donny and Jimmy's noticeably fly around.

They were the only ones to make it out of their respective situations, too (the grenade accident and the ship explosion). Their dog tags were ALSO the only ones to make it out.

When the tags fly out, it makes me think of the line "sing because you need to sing". They've all gone through so, so much. And with the Finale, they're finally allowing themselves to let go of *ALL* of the rules because they just *NEED* to.

This leaves them vulnerable, and their tags are emblematic of that. We only see other tags from the guys in the band when they are equally vulnerable (Counterpoint/Pie Jesu, Proud Riff).

Welcome Home (Finale), for Donny and Jimmy, while it makes them feel vulnerable and the dog tags visually represent the people they've lost... They continue to push through and play just because they *NEED* to. They don't *HAVE* to do anything for that competition. They could have walked away. But they went up there and played their hearts out not just for themselves, but for EVERYONE they've lost.

They did it for Michael. They did it for Jimmy's crew. They did it to take care of Julia, like Michael wanted. They did it for the people Davy lost, the people Nick lost, the people that Wayne and Johnny lost. But Jimmy and Donny were the characters whose losses were directly, verbally, specifically established to have directly influenced their waking thoughts, and THEY are the ones whose dog tags fly out.

Because just like they were the only ones to get out alive, their tags are some of the only ones that came back from their respective tragedies (the grenade incident/the ship explosion). And they are letting themselves be vulnerable, they are letting their tags fly out because they *NEED* to play; they *NEED* to tell not only their stories, but the stories of their lost loved ones, whose memory they carry with them with their own tags, since they weren't able to get their fellow servicemen's after their deaths.

God, I know this fandom is super dead, which is unfortunate, but I hope this makes sense.

What is it w Davy Zlatic and doing the craziest shit w his bass?

Like

Throwing it high in the air? Crazy

Standing out it while playing it? Absolutely bonkers

Nick: Guys.

Donny and Julia: What?

Nick: What is this? When did you turn into an old married couple?