LOVE and other chaoticisms

In Vegas over the weekend, we saw The Beatles LOVE Cirque du Soleil show at the Mirage. I have seen several of the Cirque du Soleil creations - either live or on DVD, but my experience with LOVE was a vastly different experience for me.

Maybe it had to do with the music. I mean - besides being the Beatles, whom I love - I think it had to do with the fact that, unlike other Cirque shows, the music had a direct connection to the audience through words. In most other Cirque shows, the music is beautiful, ethereal and the perfect background for feats of physical prowess - but the words are all nonsense. Made up syllables become part of the soundscape, blending in with the instruments and synthesizers.

LOVE, on the other hand, was like experiencing words come to life. Rather than fade into the background, the music *was* the story: language giving life to tableaux of hope, fear, joy, despair, and yes - even love. A chaoticism of sound, light, color, feeling, beauty, angst, awe, humor and artistry. Not to mention Mr. Kite.


Minor digression . . . I have spent hours - perhaps even days or weeks - of my life doing nothing more than listening to certain albums over and over and over. Especially in high school, when on any given day it would be easy to find me locked up in my room, sprawled across my floor or bed, music blasting, lyrics in front of me, trying to glean whatever wisdom was to be found in those magical combinations of notes, rhythms and words. One of the albums worn down to the ground - and I still know every word of it to this day - is Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. This album blew my mind when I first heard it all the way through. And it still does. Whatever combination of genius, genes and pharmaceuticals the lads from Liverpool were on during the creation of Sgt. Pepper sure did do it for me - even thought I myself had never experienced half of what they were talking about half of the time.

SO - to actually see, hear, and feel something so near and dear to me come to life
...well...it left me practically shell-shocked. And amazed, inspired. And I cannot even begin to do it justice through my own paltry words.

Just - if you ever get to Vegas, go see this show. All you need is LOVE...and I believe it.