“O”… Eau, What a Night!

Posted on July 12, 2013 by borysSNORC

Described as, ‘an aquatic tapestry of artistry, surrealism, and theatrical romance, “O” pays tribute to the beauty of the theatre with a class of world-class acrobats, synchronized swimmers, divers and characters.’ … and I gotta say, that’s a pretty succinct description of the show we saw tonight.

I now know why “O” is considered one of the greatest ‘must see’ shows of all time. I have never in my life experienced a theatrical, musical, artistic or athletic performance quite like it.

The show opens with the customary Cirque du Soleil mime/clowns and audience participation to warm everyone up, and slowly reveals the incredible stage until you get a feel for the scale and grandeur of the space.

There is a 1.5million gallon pool in the gorgeous Bellagio Theatre, which keeps appearing and disappearing in various configurations; the depth of which ranges from a few inches to 17 feet deep (for high diving from 60 feet above the stage); there are 85 cast members, some of whom are olympic champions; 150 technicians, including 14 scuba divers helping the artists underwater.

The sheer athleticism of these performers is demonstrated constantly throughout the show and blended with that unique ‘je ne sais quoi’ that the Cirque du Soleil brings to all its productions. The music, costumes, stage direction and overall artistic vision of this show, is far and away the most sophisticated of all the Cirque productions I have been fortunate enough to experience – Allegria, Saltimbanco, Dralion, Ovo, Mystere and now “O”.

The show opened with some impressive synchronized swimming and diving, but part way in there are three Russian swings set up, one with a bell tolling atop it, that has a beautiful lady on the front of it… as they swing higher and higher the audience is wondering when the first acrobat will make a move. The beautiful woman is propelled high into the air, seems to hover in a moment of sublime expectation and executes the most beautiful dive… and from there the tempo picks up and up with divers going every which way and so much action it’s hard to know where to look.

There’s smoke and mirrors (literally), fire and reflections, the most unusual trapeze artists I’ve ever seen and and incredible group of artists working in rings.

My advice, should you be coming to Vegas is book tickets and book them now. Don’t book online. Get up at stupid o’clock and call the MGM reservations line. We were sixth row, center and I was entranced by every moment of it.

Honestly, I think “O” has left a bigger impact on me than a Rammstein concert, the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, a Pavarotti performance, an AC/DC gig and The Blue Man Group all rolled in together!

Las Vegas Neon Boneyard Museum

Posted on July 12, 2013 by borysSNORC

All praise the weather gods! Got outside this morning and got a pleasant surprise – the temperature had dropped overnight from about 107° to somewhere in the mid 80°s (from over 40°C to a more comfortable 30°C). So actually tolerable outside compared to the last two days.

We made the most of it by going to the Las Vegas Neon Boneyard Museum. Over the years, the hotels along the strip have constantly upgraded their flashy neon signs in order to keep up with the neighbours and try and keep the attention of the punters.

Most of the signs were actually leased in order to make upgrading more regularly more viable – and when you’re talking about signage up to three storeys high, affordable during the start up stage of a new casino or hotel venture.

The Boneyard is full of Vegas’ history. It’s a completely nonprofit organization that relies heavily on donations of funds and signage from the hotels to keep a record if Las Vegas’ luminescent history. Our guide was full of stories of the Brat Pack, mobster history in Vegas and even the eclectic billionaire, Howard Hughes who bought entire hotels (plural!) just to control their annoying signage!

Not up mention a totally cool place to wander around and take some photos. 🙂

Blue Man Group FTW!

Posted on July 11, 2013 by borysSNORC

Holy snapping duck shit! So that’s what it would look like if a Trinidad steel band crossed with a Samoan tribal drum team had huge timpani drums, a fast paced eclectic style, were weighed down by electronics, lights, pipes, cameras, and harnesses, then covered in fluorescent paints and luminescent paraphernalia and given a metric fuckton of speed!

The Blue Man Group (right downstairs in the Monte Carlo) are an auditory and visual overload from the moment they hit the stage. It’s big, it’s in your face, it’s unapologetically critical of modern society, culture and high tech living, and yet utilizes every one of these modern phenomena (and more) to engage with the audience.

There’s always so much going on, so much to look at and take in. Thankfully there are many mimed interludes that involve lots of audience participation that slows things down and allows your senses a respite from the onslaught of stimuli… else I think a full two hours of it would see everyone leaving the theatre with eyes like saucers and twitching like meth freaks!

Highly recommended. And as a bonus, one of the staff there said they are about to launch a major Aussie tour!! 🙂

Las Vegas… Mystère

Posted on July 10, 2013 by borysSNORC

Wow, what a night! We went down to one of the restaurants in the hotel, the Monte Carlo, for a light dinner before heading down to see Mystere at the Treasure Island Casino. Aunty Mary ordered a panini and I ordered a burger thinking that’s simple enough and shouldn’t take too long. Twenty-five minutes later and our meals hadn’t appeared and we were starting to watch the clock.. it was now 8:15pm, the ticket office to collect our tickets opens at 8:30pm and the show starts at 9:30pm… and the Treasure Island is about half a dozen blocks away. Now that doesn’t sound far, but the blocks here have about two casinos on them each, and each casino appears to be about the size of Carindale Shopping Centre, so by the time our dinner arrived, any thought of walking down to the Treasure Island was out the window and we were racing for the taxi rank.

The cabbie raced us through some Secret Squirrel back streets and some how magically dumped us out front of the Treasure Island, though fuck knows how we got there or why he went that way when he could have turned left and gone straight there. Was in such a hurry I stiffed the guy on his tip as I couldn’t be bothered with the math and we raced into the Casino asking the first desk we found where to collect our tickets. We got told one direction, which was wrong, raced to the Concierge this time and got told a different direction along with what sounded like a warning ‘I don’t know what time the ticket office closes.’… What? A late arriving burger and stupid vegetarian panini might fuck up a plan and hinder us from getting the tickets I had bought LAST FEBRUARY! Eeek!

We bolted into the direction of the ticket office, it was now about 8:55pm and there was only one little guy working the ticket collection desk. I waved at him a confirmation number and my ID and hey presto! I had the coveted Mystere tickets in my hot (did I mention that even after sunset it was about 38C outside and still no humidity?) little hand. Woo-hop… the burger and panini were so not missing out on the show.

Mystere is everything I expect from a Cirque du Soleil show. Ever since I saw Allegria in 1997 at the Royal Albert Hall, I have been fascinated by the unique blend of athleticism, gymnastics, strength, physical prowess, dance, grace, beauty, costumes and music that go into each of these shows. Mystere I think is probably an older show and has many of the Cirque du Soleil’s trademark elements – trapeze artists, trampoliniest, pole climbers, arcrobats, dancers and of course their uniquely adult clowns.

I absolutely love everything about the performance, though I have to admit at the opening element of the show a young man was suspended high above the stage in a large steel framed cube doing some amazing feats of strength and grace, and all I could think about was the poor performer who fell to her death at Ka a couple of week ago (link?). It occured to me that many others in the audience, and perhaps several on the stage too, were thinking of that tragic occurrence while watching this young man display his incredible talents, high above the stage without a net or a safety wire.

After the show we foolishly decided to walk back to the hotel down The Strip… OMG, nearly midnight and so fucking hot I could feel my eyes drying out, my throat and nasal passages felt parched and I was so dehydrated by the time we got back to the hotel. I have just consumed about 2L of water and still feel thirsty. Such a wonderful night, but now I am so exhausted and ready for bed!

*look Toni, it’s the Winged Victory of Samothrace! Right where you’d expect it. 😀

The Grand Canyon North Rim Lodge

Posted on July 10, 2013 by borysSNORC

Having come all the way from Australia and wanting to experience the Grand Canyon without the hoards that are prevalent at the South Rim, we decided to stay out at the Grand Canyon Lodge on the lesser travelled, and less populated, North Rim. The Lodge itself was built in 1928 and is quite an impressive stone and timber building. The cabins are picturesquely set among the Ponderosa pine forest all along the edge of the rim, some 400 in all I think, accommodation well over 1000 visitors. They have a formal dining room/restaurant, a Saloon Bar, a canteen/deli, a gift shop/bookstore and the National Park Visitors Centre all on site. There are also some very well located terraces from which you can enjoy the grandeur of the Canyon and enjoy the sunsets with cocktail or a sunrise with an early morning cuppa. On paper, the place looks great.

However, when we arrived, we found that you can’t park your vehicle anywhere near you cabins, so you have to park in an allocated space – of which there are THREE – for no more then 15 minutes as you lug your baggage up and down the hill to your cabin. We were also warned off that we might find ourselves with a $150 ticket if we overstayed our 15 mins, or accidentally parked in the very faded painted ‘yellow zone’. Nice, welcome to the Grand Canyon North Rim Lodge.

The next thing I asked was whether they could help out a chronic pain sufferer and help me find a microwave that I could put my heat pack in for a couple of minute… I mean seriously, we had driven 5 hrs in Alaska, taken two flights and 5 more hours to get there and about 30 hours in transit so when I was asking, I was literally shaking and tears weren’t far away… they said they didn’t think so, but they’d look into it and call me down in the cabin to let me know where I could take it. Well, no surprise. They didn’t fucking call and I just chowed down on some extra drugs and hoped for the best.

Next we find out that our rooms have a coffee maker but no jug, and this means, no way of boiling water that doesn’t taste like coffee. Unfortunately this seems to be a bit of a running theme in most of the accommodations we have stayed in, but bloody hell, this crap is really starting to piss me off – if you’re a tea drinker, you’re just shit out of luck, and most of the time they are not interested in finding a jug for you.

But the best was yet to come. We settle into our cabin, have a wander out to admire the first sunset on the terrace and marvel at our beautiful surrounds. After that we come back for a quick salad dinner and decide that crashing early would be highly desirable given our long transit. It was at this point that we discovered the walls of our cabin made out of logs about 40cm in diameter, were fucking paper thin! The neighbours came in after their dinner and made a helluva racket and we could hear every single word of their conversations, hell, we probably could have easily joined their conversations if we had wanted to! Grrr… decide on an extra Valium approach for the evening.

The paper thin walls become a constant irritation. I hear the neighbours chucking stuff around and talking excitedly at about 7am but am so drug fucked I can’t say or do anything. Then laying there kinda munted I later hear someone playing pop music next door and think… what on earth dow they think they are doing? A little bit later, I hear the snap of sheets and realize the pop music is coming, not from our neighbours, but from the fucking housekeeping staff who is making up the room for the next occupants!! Oh FFS. I get dressed and march around to the other end of the duplex cabin building… “Do you work here?”… “Yes.” … “You just woke us up with your fucking shit taste in music and complete inability to sing.” Storm off indignantly. After a 30 hour transit, we really needed to catch up but so didn’t happen. :S

The final straw thing wall episode occurred when our new neighbours checked in that afternoon… they had been on the road for over six hours to arrive there and they were in a very familiar frame of mind. One wanted to go check everything out, the other wanted to rest, the first claims if they rest then, that’s it, they’ll be down for the count and an argument ensues.

Arghhh… so much for the peace and quiet away from all the tourist traps and crowds that are prevalent on the South Rim.

Other than all that, the dining room was excellent, the views are unsurpassable and the squirrels were cute. Not sure they were worth the hideous transit and lack of sleep though.