So what did I end up doing for my birthday (as I’ve been asked repeatedly…)

This story starts a couple years back actually when a friend of mine caught on that I had taken an interest in the Beatles’ catalog of music.  So he just goes on and on about how he had just come back from Vegas and had gone to see ‘LOVE’ and it was amazing.  And at the time, I said ‘Cool,’ but a Vegas show wasn’t remotely on my to-do list so I let it slide.

Anyway, fast forward a couple years and the timing was right and I was still interested so I started researching the possibility of going.  First thing I noticed of course, was that money wise this wasn’t going to be a ‘regular night out’ if you catch my drift.  So I had to think about how bad I really wanted to see this.  Then I decided to look up other people’s reviews to see what they thought of.  And damn near universally, every review was some version of ‘Five Stars!  If you like the Beatles’ music, you have to see this show!”

Now this is where the non-conformist in me kicks in.  ‘Everybody’ thought the show was great?  That…seems a bit much.  Everyone doesn’t love (or hate) something.  Anyway, here’s my one line review:

“Five Stars!!!!  If you’re a Beatles fan, you HAVE to see this show!!!!!”

No, really, in this case, everyone was right.  The CD of the show (great remixes on its own terms) and little homemade clips just don’t do it justice.  While the movie biz is pushing a lot of fake 3-D down our throats right now, “LOVE” is a genuinely entertaining, live, three-dimensional show.  I’ll spare the play by play since the people I know who will think about seeing the show will want to ‘experience’ it the way I did, so I’ll just throw out a few remarks:

• I’ve expressed my appreciation for ‘Something’ several times over – I knew the audio remix for this show was great but I was worried that since it was Cirque de Soleil their interpretation would be ‘busy’ for lack of a better word.  Nope.  A boy longing for his dream woman, that was pretty much it.  Well played.
• I mean this in the nicest way possible, but the lead black dancer in the show was a dead ringer for young Eddie Murphy doing ‘James Brown’s Celebrity Hot Tub.’  And I can’t clown him, because he broke out some Greek steps in the middle of the show; my competitive streak briefly kicked in before I remembered those days for me are long gone.
• Not going to spoil it, but the way they interpreted another favorite of mine – ‘A Day in the Life’…WOW.  It was brilliant on one hand, and on the other hand you’re saying, ‘Yoko and Paul signed off on this?’ (which they had to have).  I’ll never hear that song the same way again.

The Beatles obviously never did and never will do any ‘reunion’ concerts, but I’ll be damned if ‘LOVE’ doesn’t do a great job of making up for that.  I never got around to seeing MJ perform live, it’s too bad he doesn’t have one of these.

Wait, what’s that?  They’re putting together a Michael Jackson/Cirque de Soleil show?  For next year?!?

Oh my…