Please note that I received my MBA degree from Phoenix University's Night School Program "...Now with Netscape Navigator!"
Another strong contender for
post of the year.
Cirque du Soleil is weird. I'm sure if I was judging it by a TV ad or seeing a clip somewhere I would never go, because it does look cheesy, doesn't it. It certainly doesn't look like my kind of
entertainment.
But I kind of got hooked into them before I had a chance to form any misconceptions. When they first came to America they used to set up a tent in the parking lot at the Santa Monica pier. I lived in Venice and we would ride our bikes past the tent and one day we just stopped, locked up the bikes and bought tickets. And I have to say, those fuckers are pretty amazing.
In the years since I've seen every show that's come through Los Angeles or Long Beach (and a few in Las Vegas) and never been disappointed. Even though every show is a variation on the same general group of acrobatic stunts and over the top theatrics, they're all different enough to keep me coming back. All I can tell you is you've never seen anything quite like it, so it's worth a shot. Even if it looks like cheese from the outside, they will
get to you somehow.
The music is all performed live. I figured at some point they would go to recorded music since they have a thousand shows running at any given moment, but they haven't. I don't think they could anyway, because if the performers miss a queue or fall or otherwise fuck up something, the musicians have to adapt to that and stretch out the section. Danny Elfman did the music for
Iris (which was a strike against the show to me), but it still sounded like Cirque music to me.
Iris may be the best Cirque show I've ever seen, and we avoided it for a long time because the theme (old Hollywood) looked corny. "What can they do around that? Bah." But I got a deal on some front row seats, so we went and it was, dare I say, incredible.
The least enjoyable Cirque show we've seen was the one I looked forward to the most;
Love, the Beatles-themed show in Las Vegas. I wouldn't recommend that one to anyone, at least not as their fist taste of Cirque. But then again, I know a guy who has seen it three times and intends to see it again. So what do I know.
