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| - OK Yelp, let's talk. I'm a huge fan of CeeLo. I mean, a huuuuuuuuge fan. Not since the Goodie Mob days, but awhile. I'd never seen him live before, and when I heard he was not only coming to Vegas but doing a full on Vegas production, I was so psyched. First it was going to start in October, but then it got delayed. That worked out, though, because opening weekend coincided with my birthday, giving me yet another excuse to make the trip.
So my fiance and I show up at 1145pm for a show that's supposed to start at midnight and they haven't opened the doors yet. Those waiting for the show were in some amorphous clump in the lobby. When they finally opened the doors shortly after midnight, the clumps of people all tried to push through the doors at the same time, so there was some temporary chaos. Eventually we all made it in, though.
After getting in, we had to wait another 20-30 minutes for the show to actually start. In the meantime, we were subjected to numerous audio advertisements by an obnoxious company that makes subpar sake that SHALL NOT BE NAMED. People, I paid $65 a ticket to sit in the cheap seats. Do not subject me to obnoxious and unnecessary advertisements on top of that. Further, CeeLo himself pitched for the previously mentioned obnoxious sake company in the middle of the show "Hey, I want to drink a spirit that's gluten free," he said. During the show. That I paid $65 to sit in the back for.
So by now you're reading this review and you're all "oh boo hoo, you had to wait, and then you had to deal with advertisements! Tell us how the damn show was!" Disappointing. So very disappointing. The first song was "Bright Lights, Bigger City," which I absolutely love. CeeLo starts singing and is seriously phoning it in. Mumbling through the song. I'm not entirely sure that he was on key. THIS IS YOUR OPENING SONG, MAN! And the next song is "Need You Tonight," as in the INXS song. As in, a song that is not anywhere near in that man's range. And yes, it was bad.
You know what else was bad? CeeLo was singing to a BACKING TRACK. Yes, I apparently paid to watch CeeLo do half-ass karaoke with a video screen behind him. What, you couldn't trade in the extremely bored looking dancing girls for a real band? Backing track = NO ENERGY and it really showed.
After about three songs, there was some sort of interlude that consisted of some guy badly lip syncing to a medley of the hits of Culture Club as CeeLo went off stage for the first of several costume changes. When he returned, CeeLo informed us that this was, in fact, Boy George. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. This then caused CeeLo to go into a whole thing about how bad pop music is today compared to Culture Club. CeeLo, I love you, man. I really do. But as a judge on the voice, a creator of pop music, and an obnoxious shiller of SAKE THAT SHALL NOT BE NAMED, I think you lost your right to talk about the horrors of modern pop music.
CeeLo's vocals suddenly got better at this point, though. I'm not sure exactly what they did, but he was no longer mumbling through the set, and most of the songs for the rest of the set were actually not half bad. In fact, I even really, really liked when he did "Storm Coming," one of my favorite Gnarls Barkley songs and a song I was not at all expecting to hear. He also got all or most of Goodie Mob to show up for a few songs, and I think that's the one point where more than 10% of the audience actually seemed to be into it.
The costume change intervals, however, remained horrible. The next one contained a dwarf dressed up as a clown lip syncing to "Smiley Faces." Really, a dwarf here for our amusement? What is this, the 1920s? Then another segment featured a video of a woman swallowing a large tube of balloon. This would have been more impressive if they actually got the lady to show up to perform this trick. I guess she's more expensive than Boy George. Anyway, I guess they're trying to go for a vague variety show/carnival sort of feel when they're not going for the "OMG CEELO IS A LADIES MAN, LADIES. SERIOUSLY, LADIES" vibe.
The last two songs were, as you'd expect, "Crazy" and "F*ck You." On the former, CeeLo missed his cue to come in for the first verse and just kind of stood there not singing until halfway through. Then he did it again in the second verse! How many times have you sung this song, man? Then in "F*ck You" (featuring an animatronic Chuck E. Cheese ripoff looking fake band. Really, couldn't have scrapped that for some live musicians? Just a DJ even?) he decided he would not sing the f-bombs in the chorus. I don't think this was because of a new found hate of the word, as he did use it during his rendition of "Super Freak," which was not as bad as you'd think, but because he wanted the audience to sing along. Unfortunately for him, most of the audience had lost interest long ago.
Overall, the painful thing about this show is that it had so much potential. It could be SO MUCH MORE.
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