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| - Jamie W. and I had not been to Vegas in at least six years, and the last Cirque du Soleil show we caught was Beatles LOVE at the Mirage. We decided to go down on the spur of the moment last weekend and stayed at the Mandalay Bay. This hour-and-a-half show is in the third year of its run, and it is quite a sonic, often visually stimulating experience. But Jamie said it best that it isn't so much a "WOW!" as it is a "wow". Why? I think Cirque du Soleil is at its best when they stick to the eye-popping acrobatics that continue to be the centerpiece of their longest-running Vegas shows like O and Mystère.
Cross-pollinating the athletic prowess of many of the performers with the hit-laden songbook of a particular artist can get a bit trickier since I start looking for how the visuals enhance the familiar music. There is further complication in Michael Jackson's case because his videos were as much a part of his musical identity as the songs themselves. Sometimes the video dance moves are mimicked, other times irrelevant feats of derring-do like trapeze rotations, trampoline bouncing and unbelievably dexterous rope climbing are inserted to fill in the endless choruses.
Unlike the Beatles chronological history used in LOVE, this show actually has something of a storyline where four kids somehow find themselves in Jackson's world (Neverland presumably) and get immersed in his music. Beyond that slim premise, it's one Jackson song after another, mostly his familiar hits but some more obscure album tracks, at least obscure to me like "Stranger in Moscow". Some were predictably choreographed like "Beat It", which paled against the urgency of the original video, and some didn't enhance the original like the overdone video anime on "Scream".
However, several number truly dazzled like "Billie Jean" where instead of the sidewalk blocks lighting up, the dancers were in the dark lit only in rainbow colors following their sinewy forms right up the side walls. Perhaps inevitably, holograms of the real Jackson - both grown-up and as a Jackson 5 child - are used affectingly in "Man in the Mirror". You could hear the audible sighs when the images of Jackson dancing flickered in gold. The show is definitely worth seeing if you are a fan and don't mind some of the drunken rowdiness of the audience as well as the unapologetic tardiness of casino gamblers.
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